# Make a poster by LaTeX

## Poster template

- [PDF](https://www.math.nsysu.edu.tw/~chlin/Publications/Slides/poster-template.pdf)
- [source](https://github.com/jephianlin/JLaTeX/blob/master/poster-template.tex)

## Environment

In Mathematics and many fields, the documents are usually done by $\LaTeX$ thanks to its elegant math symbols and fine typesetting. This workflow requires you to prepare a `tex` source file and to compile it by the `latex` command. You may install $\LaTeX$ on you machine; see [here](https://www.latex-project.org/get/#google_vignette). In this article, we recommend you to use the online platform [Overleaf](https://overleaf.com/) to edit and compile your source file.

:::info
**Steps**:

1. Register an account of [Overleaf](https://overleaf.com/).
2. Once logged in, you will see the list of your projects, which is empty at the beginning.
3. Choose a project or create a new project. In our case, you may create a new project called "poster".
4. Once you are in your "poster" project, you will see three things:
- list of files on the left (at the beginning, the only file is `main.tex` ),
- an editor for your `tex` file in the middle,
- the preview on the right.
:::

## The poster

We will use the `tikzposter` package to make our poster---this Overleaf [page](https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Posters) gives a more detailed tutorial.

:::info
**Steps**:

1. Log into your Overleaf account and get into the "poster" project.
2. Downlaod `poster-template.tex` from [here](https://github.com/jephianlin/JLaTeX/blob/master/poster-template.tex) and upload it to your Overleaf project. You may remove the empty `main.tex` if you wish.
3. Edit your `poster-template.tex` file and click the green "Recompile" button to see the prevew.
:::

Here are some explanation of the template. The big structure of the template looks like following.

\documentclass[a0paper, 25pt, portrait]{tikzposter}

... preamble area to include settings ...

\title{Coefficients of the characteristic polynomial}
\author{Jephian C.-H. Lin}
\date{\today}
\institute{National Sun Yat-sen University}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

... content ...

\end{document}

The settings like `title`, `author`, `date`, and `institute` are straightforward. You may replace the current setting with your information.


Now let us focus on the content part. You may use the code below to add two blocks on the same row.

\begin{columns}
\column{0.5}
\block{Overivew of the characteristic polynomial}{
... content of block 1 ...
}

\column{0.5}
\block{An example}{
... content of block 2 ...
}
\end{columns}


Inside the blocks you may use the standard $\LaTeX$ code to write your content. Here we provide a few resources for learning $\LaTeX$.

- [KaTeX Supported Functions](https://katex.org/docs/supported.html): for looking up symbols
- [LA Tea Style Guide](https://sagelabtw.github.io/LA-Tea/style.html): a few quick examples
- [Learn LaTeX in 30 minutes](https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Learn_LaTeX_in_30_minutes): comprehensive tutorial