Articles

This page provides a list of articles which focus on providing background technical information on a wide range of TeX- and LaTeX-related topics. New articles are continually added so be sure to bookmark and revisit this page!

Multi-part article series

• A six-part series: How do TeX macros actually work?
• A six-part article series on \expandafter, TeX tokens and expansion

Background reading

• What's in a Name: A Guide to the Many Flavours of TeX
• The two modes of TeX engines: INI mode and production mode
• An introduction to \endlinechar: How TeX reads lines from text files

TeX tokens

• A New Series of Articles: TeX Tokens and Related Concepts—But Why (and How)?
• What is a "TeX token"?
• What is a TeX token list?

Kpathsea and file searching

• An introduction to Kpathsea and how TeX engines search for files

LaTeX page layout

• Taming LaTeX's Page Layout: A Visual Template and Toolset for Book Authors

LuaTeX

• An Introduction to LuaTeX (Part 1): What is it—and what makes it so different?
• An Introduction to LuaTeX (Part 2): Understanding \directlua
• Using LuaTeX to run tools and utilities installed on Overleaf’s servers

Unicode, UTF-8 and multilingual work

• Unicode, UTF-8 and multilingual text: An introduction

Understanding TeX boxes

• Pandora’s \hbox: Using LuaTeX to Lift the Lid of TeX Boxes
• How TeX Calculates Glue Settings in an \hbox
• Boxes and Glue: A Brief, but Visual, Introduction Using LuaTeX

TeX tables

• TeX Tables: How TeX Calculates Spanned Column Widths

Mathematical typesetting

• OpenType-based math typesetting: An introduction to the STIX2 OpenType fonts

Miscellaneous topics

• The Stoic Resilience of PDF Within a Digital Ecosystem
• How to use latexmkrc with Overleaf: examples and techniques
• How to create a multilingual, customisable CD disk jewel case calendar using LaTeX
• A quick visual guide to creating table cells with diagonal lines in LaTeX
• How to write in Markdown on Overleaf
• Markdown into LaTeX with Style
• LaTeX is More Powerful than you Think - Computing the Fibonacci Numbers and Turing Completeness
• The TeX family tree: LaTeX, pdfTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX and ConTeXt
• Mathtools - for beautiful math
• Using Latexdiff For Marking Changes To Tex Documents
• How to draw Vector Graphics using TikZ in LaTeX
• Getting started with BibLaTeX