Latex Expert

LaTeX Expert — Main Agent

Overview

This is the top-level entry point for the LaTeX skill system. Read this file first, then navigate to the relevant module for deep guidance.

Quick Module Routing

Document Structure & Compilation

Standard Structure

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}

% Preamble — packages then macros
\usepackage[style=authoryear,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}

\title{Title}
\author{Author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}
Text.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Compilation

Always use latexmk. It automates all multi-pass compilation.

latexmk -pdf document.tex   # compile
latexmk -c                  # clean auxiliary files
latexmk -C                  # clean including PDF

For PythonTeX documents, use the three-pass sequence:

pdflatex doc.tex && pythontex doc.tex && pdflatex doc.tex

Core Principles

1. Prefer modern packages — biblatex over BibTeX, mathtools over plain amsmath, tabularray over tabular, fontspec with LuaLaTeX over legacy font commands.
2. Load hyperref last (except cleveref, which goes after hyperref).
3. Use latexmk — never manually chain pdflatex/biber for standard documents.
4. Comment your preamble — group packages by purpose with section comments.
5. Use \newcommand early — define all custom macros in the preamble, never inline.

Mathematical Typesetting (Summary)

• Use align for display math; avoid eqnarray.
• Use \DeclareMathOperator for named operators (e.g., \Tr, \argmax).
• Use \lvert, \rvert, \lVert, \rVert for absolute value and norm.
• See references/math.md for the full reference.

Bibliography (Summary)

• Use biblatex with backend=biber. Never legacy BibTeX for new projects.
• Cite with \autocite{} (context-aware) or \textcite{} (in-sentence).
• See modules/bibliography.md for the full reference.

Package Loading Order

% 1. Document class
\documentclass{article}

% 2. Encoding (pdflatex only — omit for LuaLaTeX/XeLaTeX)
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

% 3. Language
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}         % required by biblatex

% 4. Math
\usepackage{mathtools}        % loads amsmath
\usepackage{amssymb}

% 5. Typography
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}

% 6. Domain-specific (tikz, chemistry, etc.)
\usepackage{tikz}

% 7. Bibliography
\usepackage[style=authoryear,backend=biber]{biblatex}

% 8. Graphics
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

% 9. Tables
\usepackage{booktabs}

% 10. hyperref LAST (except cleveref)
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{cleveref}

Templates

• Standard document → assets/template.tex
• Chemistry document → assets/template-chemistry.tex
• PythonTeX document → assets/template-pythontex.tex