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+---
+title: My LaTeX setup
+subtitle: How to set up a simple LaTeX environment with XeTeX and latexmk
+author: Loek
+date: January 24 2022
+tags:
+    - software
+    - latex
+    - git
+cover: /img/latex.png
+---
+
+I started using LaTeX instead of MS Word about two years ago, and I've never
+regretted the decision. I switched out of frustration because Word makes it
+really easy to mess up your document structure without you noticing.
+
+## Cool features LaTeX gets you
+
+- Automatically numbered figures with references that automatically update
+- Really simple bibliography management with `biblatex`
+- Packages that help you typeset scientific things like chemistry or physics
+- Professional looking output documents with very little effort
+- Automation of repetitive things with macros
+- It's a plain text format, so it works well with `git` or other version
+	control software
+- Probably more
+
+## Installation
+
+This guide is for Arch Linux and it's derivatives, but you can use
+[pkgs.org](https://pkgs.org) to find the mentioned packages if they're under a
+different name in your distro's package manager.
+
+### Required packages
+
+- `biber`
+- `texlive-most`, containing:
+	- `texlive-bibtexextra`
+	- `texlive-core `
+	- `texlive-fontsextra `
+	- `texlive-formatsextra`
+	- `texlive-games`
+	- `texlive-humanities`
+	- `texlive-latexextra`
+	- `texlive-music`
+	- `texlive-pictures`
+	- `texlive-pstricks`
+	- `texlive-publishers`
+	- `texlive-science`
+
+tl;dr
+
+```
+# pacman -S texlive-most biber
+```
+
+### Force XeTeX compiler with latexmk
+
+To force latexmk to use the `xelatex` compiler instead of `pdflatex` you can
+create `~/.config/latexmk/latexmkrc` with the following content:
+
+```
+$pdflatex = "xelatex %O %S";
+$pdf_mode = 1;
+$dvi_mode = 0;
+$postscript_mode = 0;
+```
+
+
+## Hello world
+
+> I have recently made another repository on my profile for template files, you
+> can find it [here on github](https://github.com/lonkaars/templates) or [here
+> on git.pipeframe.xyz](https://git.pipeframe.xyz/lonkaars/templates). It
+> includes a latex starting point with more commonly used packages, and other
+> files I tend to copy from other projects
+
+LaTeX uses a lot of auxiliary files for compilation, so it's a good idea to
+create a new directory for every document. After creating a new directory,
+create a .tex file and open it with a text editor.
+
+```tex
+\documentclass[12pt, a4paper, dutch]{article}
+\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
+\usepackage{babel}
+
+\bigskipamount=7mm
+\medskipamount=4mm
+\parindent=0mm
+
+\begin{document}
+Hello world!
+\end{document}
+```
+
+This is the starting point I generally use for all my documents. It uses a4
+paper and 2.54cm margins, which is the default in Word (in Europe). Because
+most of my documents are in Dutch, I add the `dutch` option to my document
+class, and import the babel package for correct word breaking and built-in
+latex heading translations. I also disable paragraph indenting, and modify the
+`\bigskip` and `\medskip` distances.
+
+After creating the .tex file, you can run `latexmk <your .tex file>` to compile
+the document. When it's done, you should have a new .pdf file in your directory
+with the same name as the .tex file.
+
+Keep in mind that you can probably install an extension for your text editor to
+have it automatically compile and refresh your document for you. If you're
+using Visual Studio Code, you can use the [LaTeX
+Workshop](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=James-Yu.latex-workshop)
+extension, and for vim I use [vimtex](https://github.com/lervag/vimtex) with
+[coc-vimtex](https://github.com/neoclide/coc-vimtex) for
+[coc](https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim).
+
+## Notes
+
+### LaTeX and git
+
+Because LaTeX creates a lot of temporary files, you should add the following to
+your repository's `.gitignore`:
+
+```gitignore
+*.aux
+*.bbl
+*.bcf
+*.blg
+*.fdb_latexmk
+*.fls
+*.log
+*.out
+*.run.xml
+*.synctex.gz
+```
+