LaTeX is a typesetting system that excels at producing technical documents, including mathematical formulas, scientific notation, and structured content. Unlike something like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, LaTeX de-couples the design of the document from the content. Designs are created separately, and LaTeX documents are written in plain-text/markup commands that can be styled after the fact.

Helpful LaTeX Snippets

Below are a handful of helpful snippets/concepts.

Cases (Math)

If we want to write a formula that has “case” or “if” logic, we use a “cases” block, e.g.

The actual text that produces the above is:

y = \begin{cases} x^3 \text{ if } x>0 \ 0 \text{ otherwise} \end{cases}