Template repository for a LaTeX project

Template contents

• TeX source file: main.tex
• bibtex bibliography file: references.bib
• example PDF figure darwin-rock.pdf
• latexmkrc file for optional customization of build directives (see latexmk docs)

Dependencies

• TeX Live: www.tug.org/texlive/

PDF compilation

Note

It is not necessary to commit compiled PDF files from your local build. The .gitignore is set to ignore PDF files in the root directory. If you want to commit PDF files (i.e. for figures), put them in a subdirectory.

Testing

A GitHub Action, triggered by push, automatically builds the PDF. The PDF can be accessed as an artifact of each action run. Click the badge icon at the top of this README to access these runs. If TeX compilation errors occur, the badge will reflect this, and the author of the breaking changes will receive an email.

Local PDF compilation with latexmk

Build

Build main.pdf with

latexmk -pdf

Clean

Auxiliary build files will be ignored by git, but you can clean them locally with

latexmk -pdf -c

Helpful writing conventions

Semantic line breaks

While writing TeX source files, add a line break after each sentence (or clause). This makes editing and collaborating on the text much easier, and it makes git diffs much more readable. For more on this, see https://sembr.org.

Initialed source comments

A low-key way to add comments or questions on the text is to put comments in the TeX source with your initials. This doesn't clutter up the compiled PDF. For example:

% WSD: I don't understand the sentence below
A confusing sentence