LaTeX Authoring Skill

Expert-level LaTeX document authoring following arXiv submission best practices and Overleaf conventions. Produces accessible, semantic, publication-ready documents.

Core Principle

"Use macros according to their meaning, not because of the way they appear visually." — arXiv Best Practices

Semantic markup over visual formatting. Always.

Document Structure

Standard Article

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\usepackage{booktabs}          % Professional tables
\usepackage{microtype}         % Typography improvements
\usepackage{cleveref}          % Smart cross-references

\title{Article Title}
\author{Author One\thanks{affiliation} \and Author Two\thanks{affiliation}}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
  Concise summary of the work.
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}
\section{Related Work}
\section{Method}
\section{Results}
\section{Discussion}
\section{Conclusion}

\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliography{references}
\end{document}

Front Matter (arXiv requirement)

Always use semantic front matter commands:

\title{...}
\author{Author One \AND Author Two}
\begin{abstract} ... \end{abstract}

Never simulate titles with \textbf{\Large Title} — this breaks HTML conversion.

Semantic Markup Rules

DO (semantic)

\emph{key phrase}              % Emphasis with meaning
\textbf{important term}       % Bold with purpose
\section{Introduction}         % Structural heading
\begin{theorem} ... \end{theorem}  % Named environment
\label{eq:energy}             % Reference target
\cref{eq:energy}              % Smart cross-reference

DON'T (visual-only)

{\it key phrase}               % Visual italic, no semantics
{\bf important}                % Visual bold, no semantics
{\Large\bfseries Introduction} % Fake heading, breaks structure
\vspace{1em}                   % Manual spacing hack
\\[1em]                        % Line break as spacing

Mathematics

Inline vs Display

% Inline math
The energy $E = mc^2$ is fundamental.

% Display (numbered)
\begin{equation}
  E = mc^2 \label{eq:energy}
\end{equation}

% Display (unnumbered)
\begin{equation*}
  F = ma
\end{equation*}

% Multi-line aligned
\begin{align}
  \nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} &= \frac{\rho}{\epsilon_0} \label{eq:gauss} \\
  \nabla \times \mathbf{B} &= \mu_0 \mathbf{J} + \mu_0 \epsilon_0 \frac{\partial \mathbf{E}}{\partial t}
\end{align}

Common Math Patterns

% Matrices
\begin{pmatrix} a & b \\ c & d \end{pmatrix}

% Cases
f(x) = \begin{cases} 1 & \text{if } x > 0 \\ 0 & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}

% Operators
\DeclareMathOperator{\argmax}{arg\,max}
\DeclareMathOperator{\softmax}{softmax}

% Fractions (prefer \frac for display, \nicefrac for inline)
\frac{\partial L}{\partial \theta}

% Bold math vectors
\mathbf{x}, \boldsymbol{\theta}

Tables

Professional Tables (booktabs)

\begin{table}[htbp]
  \centering
  \caption{Model comparison on benchmark tasks.}
  \label{tab:results}
  \begin{tabular}{lrrr}
    \toprule
    Model & Accuracy & F1 & Latency (ms) \\
    \midrule
    Baseline    & 0.842 & 0.831 & 12.3 \\
    Our Method  & \textbf{0.917} & \textbf{0.904} & 14.1 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Never use \hline — always \toprule, \midrule, \bottomrule from booktabs.

Figures

With Alt Text (arXiv accessibility requirement)

\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth, alt={Bar chart showing accuracy improvements from 84% baseline to 92% with our method across three benchmarks}]{figures/results.pdf}
  \caption{Accuracy comparison across benchmark tasks.}
  \label{fig:results}
\end{figure}

Subfigures

\usepackage{subcaption}
\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig-a.pdf}
    \caption{Training loss}
    \label{fig:loss}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig-b.pdf}
    \caption{Validation accuracy}
    \label{fig:acc}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{Training dynamics over 100 epochs.}
\end{figure}

Bibliography

BibTeX Entry Types

@article{vaswani2017attention,
  title     = {Attention Is All You Need},
  author    = {Vaswani, Ashish and others},
  journal   = {NeurIPS},
  year      = {2017}
}

@inproceedings{devlin2019bert,
  title     = {{BERT}: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers},
  author    = {Devlin, Jacob and Chang, Ming-Wei and Lee, Kenton and Toutanova, Kristina},
  booktitle = {NAACL-HLT},
  year      = {2019}
}

@misc{anthropic2026claude,
  title        = {Claude 4.6 Model Card},
  author       = {Anthropic},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.anthropic.com}},
  note         = {Accessed: 2026-04-08}
}

Citation Commands

% natbib
\citet{vaswani2017attention}  → Vaswani et al. (2017)
\citep{vaswani2017attention}  → (Vaswani et al., 2017)
\citep[see][]{vaswani2017attention} → (see Vaswani et al., 2017)

% biblatex
\textcite{vaswani2017attention}
\parencite{vaswani2017attention}

arXiv Submission Checklist

1. Single directory — all files in one flat directory (no subdirectories for figures)
2. Main file — must be compilable with pdflatex main.tex (or xelatex/lualatex)
3. References — include .bbl file (pre-compiled bibliography), not just .bib
4. Figures — PDF/PNG/JPG only. EPS accepted but PDF preferred. Include alt text.
5. No absolute paths — use \includegraphics{figure1} not \includegraphics{/home/user/fig/figure1}
6. Package compatibility — check LaTeXML supported packages for HTML conversion
7. Compiler — use most recent TeX Live. Set Overleaf to "stop on errors" mode.
8. Font encoding — use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} for proper glyph support
9. No custom styles — avoid \def and \newcommand that redefine standard commands
10. Comments — remove \usepackage{comment} sections before submission

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
{\it text}	\emph{text} or \textit{text}
{\bf text}	\textbf{text}
$$display math$$	\[ display math \] or equation env
\hline in tables	\toprule, \midrule, \bottomrule
Manual spacing \\[1em]	Proper environments and \vspace sparingly
\begin{center} for figures	\centering inside float
Missing \label after \caption	Always \caption{...}\label{...} in that order
\cite without natbib	Use \citet/\citep for author-year styles
Bitmap figures at low DPI	Vector PDF or 300+ DPI PNG
Hardcoded cross-references	Use \ref, \cref, or \autoref

Document Classes

Class	Use Case
article	Journal papers, short reports
report	Longer documents with chapters
book	Books, theses
beamer	Presentations
standalone	Single figures/diagrams for inclusion
memoir	Flexible book/report class
IEEEtran	IEEE conference/journal papers
acmart	ACM publications
revtex4-2	APS/Physical Review journals
aastex63	AAS/Astrophysical Journal
mnras	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Essential Packages

Package	Purpose
amsmath	Math environments (align, equation, etc.)
amssymb	Additional math symbols
amsthm	Theorem environments
graphicx	Image inclusion with alt text
hyperref	Clickable cross-references and URLs
cleveref	Smart cross-references (\cref)
booktabs	Professional table rules
natbib	Author-year citations
microtype	Microtypographic improvements
xcolor	Color support
tikz	Programmatic diagrams
algorithm2e	Algorithm pseudocode
listings	Code listings
minted	Syntax-highlighted code (requires -shell-escape)
siunitx	SI units (\SI{299792458}{\meter\per\second})
subcaption	Subfigures and subtables

Package Load Order

Load in this order to avoid conflicts:

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}    % 1. Input encoding
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}       % 2. Font encoding
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}   % 3. Math
\usepackage{graphicx}          % 4. Graphics
\usepackage{xcolor}            % 5. Colors (before tikz)
\usepackage{tikz}              % 6. Diagrams
\usepackage{booktabs}          % 7. Tables
\usepackage{algorithm2e}       % 8. Algorithms
\usepackage{listings}          % 9. Code
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}   % 10. Citations
\usepackage{hyperref}          % 11. Hyperlinks (LAST or near-last)
\usepackage{cleveref}          % 12. Smart refs (AFTER hyperref)

ORCID Integration

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is the standard persistent identifier for researchers. Format: 0000-0002-1825-0097 (16 digits, hyphenated groups of 4).

Including ORCID in LaTeX Documents

\usepackage{orcidlink}  % Provides \orcidlink command

% In author block
\author{
  Jane Researcher\orcidlink{0000-0002-1825-0097} \and
  John Scholar\orcidlink{0000-0001-5109-3700}
}

Manual ORCID (without orcidlink package)

\usepackage{hyperref}
\newcommand{\orcid}[1]{\href{https://orcid.org/#1}{\includegraphics[height=1em]{orcid.png} #1}}

% Usage
\author{Jane Researcher\thanks{\orcid{0000-0002-1825-0097}}}

ORCID in BibTeX

@article{researcher2026,
  author  = {Researcher, Jane},
  title   = {Important Discovery},
  journal = {Nature},
  year    = {2026},
  note    = {ORCID: 0000-0002-1825-0097}
}

ORCID Record Data Types

ORCID tracks: works (papers, books, preprints), employment, education, funding, peer review, research resources, invited positions, distinctions, memberships, qualifications.

ORCID API Integration

• Public API: Read-only access to public researcher data. No auth required.
• Member API: Read/write with OAuth 2.0 permission. Post works, affiliations, funding.
• Sandbox: sandbox.orcid.org for testing (use before production).
• iD Format: Always display as full URL: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097
• Schema: v3.0 current. Supports DOI, arXiv ID, PubMed ID, ISBN cross-linking.

Best Practices

• Always collect ORCID iD via authenticated OAuth (never manual entry — prevents typos)
• Display the green ORCID icon alongside the iD per brand guidelines
• Link ORCID to arXiv submissions (arXiv supports ORCID in author metadata)
• Include ORCID in all journal submissions, grant applications, and institutional profiles
• Use the ORCID sandbox (sandbox.orcid.org) for development/testing

When This Skill Activates

• Writing LaTeX documents or templates
• Preparing arXiv submissions
• Formatting mathematical expressions
• Creating publication-ready tables and figures
• Managing bibliographies
• Troubleshooting LaTeX compilation errors
• Converting documents between formats
• Creating Beamer presentations
• Integrating ORCID identifiers into papers
• Academic publishing workflow questions