1. TeX files provide a programmatic text-based environment for styling text through the use of macros (commands) which can also be scoped (environments); this makes it trivial for version control and distributed editing, compared to word processor binaries.
   1. Base TeX is mainly for document designers with fine-grained controls for content presentation, e.g. how closely should text be spaced.
   2. $$\LaTeX$$ caters towards content writers by introducing additional macros that abstract these away and provide semantic meaning, e.g. this is a section.
   3. Packages further extend base-LaTeX to provide third party functionality. These are managed by a LaTeX package manager.
2. Content of a TeX document, in rough order:
   1. \documentclass specifies the overall document format
   2. \usepackage package imports (that register more macros)
   3. \begin{document} marks the start of the main text scope/environment
   4. \section{My Section Header} is a macro that specifies the section, etc.
      • Other macros include \large (for larger text), \maketitle (to generate the title text at the current position), \textbf (for bolded text), and \textlambda (Greek lambda symbol)
      • Essentially just a function \MACRONAME[OPTIONS]{ARGUMENTS} (a Python analogy looks like macroname = lambda *args, **opts: ...). An environment can be thought of a scoped function with different syntax.
   5. $ ... $ is a math environment shortcut with a different set of valid macros
   6. Plain text is typically as-is.
3. TeX compilers/engines (e.g. pdflatex) process these files to generate the document in the desired output format (e.g. PDF, HTML).
   • Multiple passes are typically done over the files to allow internal references like bibliography to be properly generated first, before linking.
   • Some backends try to concatenate the necessary commands together for you, e.g. latexmk

# Pull package from CTAN
user:~$ cd ~/texmf/source
user:~$ wget https://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/chessboard.zip
user:~$ unzip chessboard.zip && rm chessboard.zip
 
# Compile package
user:~$ cd chessboard
user:~$ latex chessboard.ins
user:~$ sudo texhash

# Find the TeXLive installation path
user:~$ ll `which tlmgr`
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 52 Feb  5  2022 /usr/bin/tlmgr -> ../share/texlive/texmf-dist/scripts/texlive/tlmgr.pl*
 
# TeXLive installation path: /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/
user:~$ which pdflatex
/usr/bin/pdflatex

If using older versions of TeXLive, older repositories can be referenced here: https://tug.org/historic/. Consider using one of the mirror instead, especially those using https schemes.

user:~$ tlmgr init-usertree
user:~$ tlmgr option repository https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/tex-historic-archive/systems/texlive/2021/tlnet-final
 
user:~$ tlmgr list --usermode > all_texlive_packages.txt

main.tex

\documentclass[
    prl,
    superscriptaddress,
    twocolumn,
]{revtex4-2}
 
\input{includes/preamble/base.tex}
\input{includes/preamble/shortcuts.tex}
\input{includes/preamble/drafting.tex}
 
\begin{document}
 
\title{...}
 
\author{Justin Yu Xiang \surname{Peh}}
\affiliation{...}
 
\date{\today}
 
\begin{abstract}
    ...
\end{abstract}
 
\maketitle
 
\section{Introduction}
\input{includes/section1a_introduction.tex}
\input{includes/section1b_literature.tex}
 
\section{Setup}
\input{includes/section2_setup.tex}
 
\section{Deployment}
\input{includes/section3_deployment.tex}
 
\section{Results}
\input{includes/section4_results.tex}
 
\section{Discussion}
\input{includes/section5_discussion.tex}
 
\section{Acknowledgements}
\begin{acknowledgments}
    ...
\end{acknowledgments}
 
 
% Create the reference section using BibTeX:
% \bibliography{includes/bibliography}
 
% Full filepaths here since VSCode LaTeX reads directly from specified files
\bibliography{includes/bibliography/ourwork.bib,includes/bibliography/security.bib}
 
\end{document}

.gitignore

main.aux
main.bbl
main.blg
main.log
main.synctex.gz
mainNotes.bib
main.pdf
main.fdb_latexmk
main.fls
main.fff
main.out
*.jar
__pycache__
tmp

Makefile

BUILDDIR=build
TEXNAME=main
.PHONY: config clean reset build
 
all: rebuild open
rebuild: remove-pdf build
build:
	latexmk -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error -outdir=${BUILDDIR} -pdf ${TEXNAME}
# Build continuously
buildc:
	latexmk -synctex=1 -pvc -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error -outdir=${BUILDDIR} -pdf ${TEXNAME}
remove-pdf:
	rm -rf ${BUILDDIR}
 
# PDF commands
okular open:
	okular ${BUILDDIR}/${TEXNAME}.pdf
evince:
	evince ${BUILDDIR}/${TEXNAME}.pdf

base.mplstyle

# revtex4-2 document class
#   \textwidth = 7.05826 in     # figure.figsize : 6.352434, 6
#   \columnwidth = 3.40457 in   # figure.figsize : 3.06, 2.4
# via: \usepackage{layouts}\printinunitsof{in}\prntlen{\columnwidth}

# Single column by default
figure.figsize : 3.06, 2.4
font.size: 9.0
font.family: serif
font.serif: Palatino
axes.titlesize: medium
figure.titlesize: medium
text.usetex: True
text.latex.preamble: \usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{siunitx}[=v2]
pgf.texsystem: pdflatex

# Plotting options
lines.linewidth: 1
figure.autolayout: True

base.tex

\usepackage{graphicx}  % for nice figure importing functionality
\usepackage{enumitem}  % collapse line spacing of enumerations
\usepackage{hyperref}  % embed URLs with nice intralinks
\graphicspath{{static/figures}}
 
\usepackage{mathtools}
\DeclarePairedDelimiter\bra{\langle}{\rvert}
\DeclarePairedDelimiter\ket{\lvert}{\rangle}
\DeclarePairedDelimiterX\braket[2]{\langle}{\rangle}{#1\,\delimsize\vert\,\mathopen{}#2}
% Usage: \bra{...} for regular, \bra*{...} for scaling

drafting.tex

% For drafting purposes
\usepackage{setspace}  % customize spacing within the parbox
\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}  % colorbox
\definecolor{highlight}{RGB}{255, 240, 194}  % yellow
\definecolor{proposal}{RGB}{218, 255, 194}  % green
\definecolor{hint}{RGB}{194, 228, 255}  % blue
\definecolor{todo}{RGB}{255, 209, 209}  % red
 
% Standalone centered box for general section comments
\newcommand{\note}[2][highlight]{
  \begin{center}
    \colorbox{#1}{
      \fbox{\footnotesize
            \parbox{0.9\columnwidth}{
              \setstretch{1.2} #2
      }}}
  \end{center}
}
 
% Bolded text in square brackets for emphasizing paragraph point
\usepackage{soul}  % line-based highlighting with linewrap
\newcommand{\point}[2][highlight]{
  {\sethlcolor{#1}\hl{[#2]}}
}
\sethlcolor{highlight}
 
% Hide comments
% \renewcommand\note[2][]{}
% Squish enumerate environment line spacing
\setlist{nosep}
 
% % Fast lists
% \usepackage[ampersand]{easylist}
 
\setlist[itemize,1]{leftmargin=12pt}
\setlist[enumerate,1]{leftmargin=12pt}
 
% \usepackage[nomarkers,figuresonly]{endfloat}

shortcuts.tex

\newcommand{\fig}[3]{
  \begin{figure}
    \begin{center}
      \centering
      \includegraphics{#2}
      \caption{\label{#1}#3}
    \end{center}
  \end{figure}
}
\newcommand{\figwide}[3]{
  \begin{figure*}
    \begin{center}
      \centering
      \includegraphics{#2}
      \caption{\label{#1}#3}
    \end{center}
  \end{figure*}
}