Welcome to the latex/ folder — your starting point for using LaTeX in the development sector, academic writing, or program documentation.
LaTeX is a typesetting system that produces beautifully formatted documents. It’s widely used in academia, research, and technical reporting because it:
- Maintains consistent formatting
- Handles large, structured documents with ease
- Produces publication-ready PDFs
- Supports equations, citations, figures, and multilingual scripts (including Devanagari)
LaTeX helps create clean, professional, shareable outputs — critical for credibility and clarity. In our work across public health, education, gender, and MEL, we’ve used LaTeX to:
- Write fully styled theory of change reports
- Generate synthesis PDFs from raw qualitative data
- Format national policy commentaries
- Build public domain working papers
- Document field tools, survey notes, and multilingual annexures
Compared to Word or Google Docs, LaTeX gives you full control over:
- Margins, spacing, headers
- Referencing (via BibTeX)
- Table layout and figure placement
- Consistent multilingual formatting
- Visit https://www.overleaf.com/
- Create a free account
- Upload the
.texfiles in this folder to start editing in-browser
- Install a TeX distribution: TeX Live (Linux) or MiKTeX (Windows)
- Use an editor like TeXstudio or VS Code with LaTeX Workshop
| File | Description |
|---|---|
quick_start_template.tex |
A beginner-friendly LaTeX file with sections, references, and comments |
annotated_sample_document.pdf |
PDF output of the template with guidance on formatting styles |
field_use_case_latex.md |
A real-world example of LaTeX used in Indian NGO/research settings |
community_links_latex.txt |
Curated links to Indian-relevant LaTeX templates, fonts, and tutorials |
- Use the
polyglossiapackage for Devanagari, Tamil, or other regional scripts - Use
xelatexcompiler for Unicode and font support - Embed custom fonts like
Lohit Devanagari,Noto Sans, orTungafor local reports - Always export PDFs for sharing — most field partners won’t open
.texfiles
If you care about open science, knowledge equity, or building public-domain knowledge, LaTeX is worth learning. It’s a powerful alternative to Microsoft Word that ensures transparency, version control (especially with GitHub), and high-quality outputs.
You don’t need to be a coder — just follow the examples here, and reach out if you need help.