Using Overleaf
All reports should be prepared using Overleaf. You are welcome to use any templates you want. Here is an example. Please learn more about Overleaf here.
Why Overleaf (and not Word or Google doc)?
Some of you may have wondered why this course requires you to prepare project reports in Overleaf and not Microsoft Word, Open Office Writer, or Google doc. Below are some bullets that capture my thoughts on why learning Overleaf/Latex is useful, particularly while you are in college. Please remember that fundamentally, Latex/Overleaf is typesetting system while Word or Writer are word processors.
- From a CS conference and journal publisher’s point of view giving authors a LaTeX template ensures that all the papers have a uniform formatting, and that you won’t spend much time fixing formatting issues. This saves publication costs.
- Papers written in Latex have the same output whether the authors prepared them on a Linux, a Mac or Windows machine. In OpenOffice Writer or Word, this is not always the case.
- As your document size increases, particularly if they contain many images, softwares such as Word and Writer start to crash. Latex/Overleaf may take slightly longer to process, but they usually don’t crash. It’s extremely stable, no matter how complex the documents are. At least, you don’t have to worry about crashing when typing/preparing your content.
- Similar to OpenOffice Latex is free. Please note that Overleaf may not be free in future but the Latex code can be compiled in free Latex compilers outside of Overleaf.
- Google doc is a great tool for collaborative efforts but it lacks many features that Latex/Word offer. For example, citing/organizing references. Latex has excellent referencing system.
- Some top conferences on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (such as ICML) only accept submissions in Latex format.
- Many CS/IT graduates who have prepared reports using Overleaf/Latex often brag about high typographical quality of their reports. This is particularly true for documents that are heavy on mathematics. Those who don’t know about Latex, always keep wondering how Word/Writer can be used to prepare such reports.
- TeX (The core of Overleaf/Latex) has been around for over thirty years, and the underlying language hasn’t changed very much in that time.
- Your document is relatively safe because the file format is open and there’s no virus threat.
- Latex provides a consistency of the layout, i.e., it is really difficult to mess up the typography. This lets you concentrate on the contents and does not distract you by being concerned about the looks of the document.
I am not an Overleaf/Latex maniac and I don’t use it for everything. However, I strongly believe that CS/IT students should learn it once while at university. Even just to know that such an alternative to Word/Writer exist and are widely used.