Professors spend significant time creating teaching materials such as lecture notes, handouts, homework/exercises, labs, and exams. Tools that professors use to create teaching materials include Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LaTeX. Both Microsoft Word and Google Docs are what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) document programs whereas LaTeX is a typesetting system that uses a markup language to format plain text.
As compared to Microsoft Word and Google Docs, LaTeX is more modular, easier to create equations, allows programmatic control over typography and formatting, and separates content from the format. In the long term LaTeX can reduce the time and effort required to create teaching materials. For these reasons, the authors chose to use LaTeX to create teaching materials for their courses.
The authors will discuss how they take advantage of LaTeX's modularity, programmability, and typography to prepare their course materials. Some examples will be provided such as how LaTeX is used to create consistent looking syllabi and how it is used to turn on/off solutions in lecture handouts.
The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025