Essential LATEX Templates for Report Writing
P Sunthar
25 May 2009
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 First section of this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 Equations and Math symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Commonly used Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 Literature Survey 3
3 Materials and Methods 4
3.1 Including Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4 Results and Discussion 5
4.1 Including Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Bibliography 6
i
List of Tables
4.1 Physical properties of the materials used. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
ii
List of Figures
3.1 Process flow sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
iii
Chapter 1
Introduction
This document contains commonly used essential templates to write a LATEX doc-
ument. This document is to be used along with the files and folders provided.
Writing a LATEX document is very simple. Often students need only very simple
constructs. This document shows certain essential features that almost all technical
report writing requires. Please consult the PDF file for the output of the document,
and then look at the corresponding LATEX file to reproduce it. The document illus-
trates the following constructs
• Unnumbered and Numbered Lists
• Equations
• Defining short macros for frequently used symbols
• Bibliography
• Figures
• Tables
The normal procedure for compiling a LATEX document that contains biblio-
graphic entries is to follow the following steps
1. latex mainrep
2. bibtex mainrep
3. latex mainrep
4. latex mainrep
In the above example mainrep is the main LATEX file.
1
1.1 First section of this chapter
This is the first chapter, which resides in a directory (folder) intro. Each chapter
can contain section, subsection and so on.
1.1.1 Equations and Math symbols
Equations should be set in a separate mode. For details on getting various types of
aligned equations, consult the AMS-LATEX documentation amsldoc.pdf. Simple
equations are set as Z
dx cos x = sin x (1.1)
Equation (1.1) is the integral of the cosine function. Mathematical symbols must
always be put inside $$, when they appear outside a math environment (such as
equation, align, gather, etc). The symbol ”ex” must be written as x and not as
x.
Another commonly used construct for equations is the align environment to
align several equations along a vertical line. It is usually the = sign across which
the alignment is done. The point of alignment for each equation is specified using
the ampersand symbol
a=b (1.2)
a+e+ f +g=m+n+z (1.3)
3 2
x + 2 = x + 3x + 2x + 5 (1.4)
1.1.2 Commonly used Symbols
For mathematical symbols it is very convenient to define frequently used symbols
as a short macro. For example if you are to be using the symbol ηs frequently it is
convenient to define it in as:
\newcommand{\etas}{\ensuremath{\eta_{\mathrm{s}}}}
in the preamble and to simply refer it to in the text as ηs or in a mathematical
equation as ηs = η (1 + φ).
2
Chapter 2
Literature Survey
The bibliographic entries are to be kept in a file named <something>.bib. In
this sample report we call it as mylit.bib. This file must be included without the
.bib extension in the main file as: \bibliography{mylit}.
Citations are referred in the text using \citet command which produces cita-
tions as though they are part of the text. In order to say somebody did this work as
a part of a line use: \citet{Auth09} have done extensive work on . . . . This will
produce
Author et al. (2009) have done extensive work on . . .
Alternately citations can appear in parenthesis. The command \citep{Auth09}
is used to automatically put the citations in parenthesis. As an example consider
the extensive work done in the area of book writing (Author and Writer, 2008;
Author et al., 2009).
3
Chapter 3
Materials and Methods
3.1 Including Figures
Figures are conveniently included using postscript format. If you are generating a
figure in a software, please check if the software supports writing to a postscript
or a PDF format. This format is loss less vector format and with reproduce in any
magnification without any pixelation. Make sure to write it to an “Encapsulated
Post-script”or .eps format.
Figures should be given a label and which can be used to refer to them in the
running text using \ref{} command. Figure 3.1 describes the process flow sheet
of the experimental set up used in this report.
Figure 3.1: Process flow sheet of the experimental setup. The caption of the figure
goes here. A shorter caption can be written in square brackets to identify it in the
list of figures.
4
Chapter 4
Results and Discussion
4.1 Including Tables
Tables are to be used in a special environment so that they have a Number, caption
and appear in the list of tables. Table 4.1 is a sample table. In the case of tables, it
is a convention to write the caption above the table. Note that in the case of figures
the caption appears below the figure.
Table 4.1: Physical properties of the materials used.
Property Value
Particle Density, ρp 2500 kg/m3
Viscosity, ηs 1 ×10−3 Pa-s
5
Bibliography
Author, F., Writer, S. and Scientist, T. (2009) Any title for the article, authors to be
separated by and. New Journal of Biliography 21, 10–28.
Author, N. and Writer, I. (2008) Experiences with Book Writing. Random Mouse,
Mumbai, third edition.
