My programmer is recommending that I use LaTeX for notebook. I like the software and plan to use it, but has anybody tried it? And if so, what are some tips you could give? Thanks!
A few teams have used it. It’s not great thought because… well… its LaTeX. The closes thing there is with community support is Typst. The notebookinator is a project with templates and other useful things for notebooks. it can be found here: GitHub - BattleCh1cken/notebookinator.
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I use it as part of my job, and I can say that LaTeX can be very powerful in the right uses. For creating reusable/includable documentation, it’s wonderful. For being able to create documents that can get reviewed like code (comparing from-to diffs), it’s great.
What LaTeX is not is user friendly right off the bat; there is a BIG learning curve. There are sites like Overleaf that make it somewhat more usable, but if you’re not doing highly technical documentation/research papers/math dissertations, it’s probably not the best use of your time for what you’re going to get out of it.
If you want to learn something while you document your process so that you have some college application material or start building a potential engineering skill for a future job, by all means, dive in. Just be ready for some pain and frustration while you learn the syntax and debugging.
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LaTex? If it was good enough for my diploma thesis, it’s good enough for your design notebook.
But since it’s so long ago I have really used it, I don’t have much practical tips. On general note, I would say, it allows you to set up your “style guide” in form of macros for various notebooking aspects, which can improve your notebook consistency and overall looks.
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Typst Composer is a pretty powerful app. Having used LaATex, it has similar powers. One of the things it has is a slightly cleaner syntax for doing things. Lots of programmers / science people have used Markdown as a method. This gives them a leg up on the easier syntax needed for Typst.
@QuestionableApple has offered up a notebook template that may make it easier for teams to put the documents together. A template can make or break the amount of time you spend. A good template is your friend and helps you along. A bad template has you spending hours working on fixing the template rather than writing words.
The biggest advantage that things like Typst or LaTex have is the ability to load data and do calculations and plots on the page. Currently you need to go to an external program, munch the data, spit out a graph, then cut and paste it. If teams get used to doing the data analysis as part of the page, that will make it easy to do the analysis. That makes it more likely to gather the data on flywheel speed vs distance and get that into the notebook as test information (something the judges like to see).
I use a similar page builder called Markdeep to create web pages for some projects I’m working on. Markdeep is a small 200Kb js app that I attach to each page (it’s the size of a picture, not much overhead) and then it processes the page inside the web browser at the user end. There is a good demo of Markdeep.
I think the untapped use of these formatters is the ability to create hyperlinked documents. PDF supports this now. To be a judge and see a diagram with a link to “gear testing” that takes you off to that page and back again is great. While most books are linear, to be able to move inside the book makes it easier for the judge to answer questions “wonder how they tested that”, see the link and follow it.
This type of hyperlinks does place a challenge on the author / editor to not create dead ends, but keeping the notebook together will help resolve that. It also opens up alternatives to a simple TOC of dates, but also weave a TOC of the important things about the base, another about the shooter, another about the hang device. You can also index in there by builder / coder / driver (ie: A list of links to everything Kyle did).
This will also start teams down a better path on how to structure their books. While most teams do the plain diary style with just task items, lots of teams put in more of a narrative.
To cycle back to important points raised here:
A document system with the rubric imbedded into the template is going to help you on a regular basis to make sure your notebook is meeting the judge criteria. Nagging that you are missing testing information, a template can help you to start collecting max points.
I look at tools like LaTex, Typst, etc. as the CAD of the word world. For most of us using Word or LibreWriter to their full extent will be fine. I’m excited about what the next season of notebooks will look like.
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If you are planning to get into Computer Engineering Computer Science, or anything involving Engineering and Math, then boy oh boy you will most likely be using LaTeX, and lucky if you won’t. LaTeX is kind of a love-hate relationship as personally I find the interpreter for the language to be lackluster and not as helpful as most modern interpreters. If you plan to use LaTeX on your Windows computer you will likely need to wait somewhere between 20 minutes to an hour to download the LaTeX libraries, which is the equivalent of watching paint dry as you see the progress bar ever so slightly gets closer to the finish line. But, other than that, it feels very much like you are writing a Python flavored HTML page except it is a document.
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I may have found a fatal flaw in Typst. You can not insert PDF files into a Typst file. Lots of systems won’t produce svg files that Typst wants for pictures. YMMV.
Personally, I’ve don’t think LaTeX is something you should use for your notebook because it is not really optimised for quickly getting ideas down as you do your designing etc. I would recommend using LaTeX in general, like for homework etc. as it is very common later on as @EngineerMike mentioned. LaTeX is optimised for maths (yes, there is an “s”) and not really for this sort of work. Google docs is good enough, and typst splits the difference, with consistent formatting and it isn’t too hard to use. Overall, I recommend slides or docs or the Microsoft Office alternatives, but it is down to you. I personally am using typst because I have been using LaTeX for around 2.5-3 years now, but I wouldn’t recommend going straight into it.
p.s. please use cloud based stuff like typst online or overleaf as opposed to the typst vscode extension or a LaTeX desktop app because imo the desktop ones are much harder to get used to.
Graduated from Georgia Tech last semester and we love Overleaf here. Used it throughout my undergrad and still using it in grad school.
In terms of vex, I think its overkill if you plan to replace your entire notebook. I think classic written entires + photographs go a long way.
As others have said, it does have its place for neatly formatting code. In fact I made a python script that automatically writes and formats LaTeX code for you. You can see the details here.
It hasn’t been updated in a while, so it may not work immediately, but I’m sure with some chatgpt and googling you can take some inspiration from this. Feel free to add / modify features to suit your needs.
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