In this workshop we will select a CV LaTeX template and modify it on Overleaf. A brief overview of what LaTeX is and its syntax will be provided. This workshop was organized by the Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics Working Group.
LaTeX (mainly pronounce as either /ˈlɑ.tɛk/ or /ˈleɪ.tɛk/) is a markup language. As other markup languages (e.g., HTML and markdown), LaTeX is a way to systematically annotate text so that documents are processed with the desire formatting without having to click and select different formatting options. The advantage of using markup for text formatting is that you can easily change the style of your formatting without having to change the style markup throughout your document. The idea is to separate the presentation (i.e., formatting and layout) from the content of your text (i.e., the actual words). A lot of journals offer LaTeX templates so that you guarantee you are abiding to the journals formatting style without actually having to do any formatting yourself.
In fact, Microsoft Word has a way to mark certain parts of the text as Emphasis
or Strong
instead of italics and bold so that you can create the semantic structure for text formatting. This helps you when you want to change what italics and bold (and other type of formatting) look like, but it also makes your document more accessible – screen readers will often reflect the emphasis or the strong formatting using different prosody for the words with semantic structure (but they won’t do so if you just use bold and italics from the formatting menu).
Let’s check what Microsoft Word’s
style pane
does and how to apply and change a style.
Home
tab on the top menu, click on Styles Pane
, which will open the Styles pane to the right of your documentStyles Pane
and the selecting Modify Style...
LaTeX allows you to markup your text for your semantic structure without having to hunt for the right button on a graphical interface. It takes some time to be able to type in LaTeX, but once you do you can write and format (and reformat) documents much more easily.
Nowadays there are a lot of LaTeX templates available for free, so you don’t have to build your document from scratch. That is also another advantage of using LaTeX, you can create your own template and share it with others, who in turn can focus only on the content (i.e., words) of the document and not worry about the layout and formatting.
Overleaf is a Google Drive for LaTeX document, e.g., it is a cloud-based LaTeX editor. Its Free plan allows you to create unlimited private projects. For collaboration, you need a paid plan. You can sign up with your university Google account, which I highly recommend since you won’t have to remember a unique password to get to your Overleaf documents.
Register using Google
if you don’t have an Overleaf account or Log In
if you doNew Project
and then choose Résumé/CV
We will start by browsing Overleaf’s extensive template library to look for a CV we like.
Once you found a template you like, click on it and choose Open as Template
– this will copy the document to your Overleaf home.
When you open a LaTeX document on Overleaf, you see two main panels: