Latex-guide
A guide to using LaTeX in Chemistry
We have decided to compile this page as a 'ready reference' for those wishing to dip their toe into the murky waters of typesetting. It is not intended to be a comprehensive guide, it will not show you how to set up your own document class, it will not make you an expert in LaTeX and it certainly won't grant you the power of flight(!). What we hope it will do is give you an outline to starting to mark-up your documents in such a way that they may be run through a LaTeX processor to generate beautiful looking documents and to hopefully take away some of the stress associated with using run-of-the-mill word processing applications when trying to get your tables of contents or figures included.
Why bother?
Why not? If you haven't ever done any markup before (HTML, TeX, coding etc), LaTeX is a simple step into a mark-up environment that will yield quick results and will give you quick feedback on your mark-up skills. It is also an open platform - i.e. it is FREE software - which means that there are literally thousands of resources on the internet, and you should become used to putting the phrase "How do I show [THING] in latex" into your favourite internet search engine. (Try this, this, or, more relevant to chemistry, this). It will also get you into the discipline of coding - making sure you close your parentheses, use the appropriate characters etc. It's not onerous, it just requires a bit of thought.
Basically, LaTeX is a way to get your documents looking "publication quality" without having to worry about margins, alignment of text with images, tables of contents, page numbers... it will save you days of time. Plus - you want a different layout? Columns, landscape, wider margins? No problem - just load the relevant document class (around 5 seconds work), process the document again (10-15 seconds depending on length of document), and bingo. Seriously, it will change your life. Or at least part of it.
Finally, LaTeX is mature software. That doesn't mean it is old (well, it sort of is; the current version 2e was released in 1994), but it means that it is very stable, reliable, and essentially bug free. So, in the event of it throwing an error, the chances are that the mistake has come from your input rather than a problem with the software. Far from being frustrating, it means that you can fix the problem - and that can be enormously calming!