LaTeX course attracts students to computer lab
Professor Rafael Beraldo gives a series of talks on using the system
12/6/2025
There’s a new course at IMPA Tech! On Tuesday (10), students from the Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics of Technology and Innovation began to learn more about the history and usability of LaTeX, a written document production software aimed at academia. Throughout June, Professor Rafael Beraldo will hold two more meetings with the undergraduates at IMPA Tech’s computer lab in Port Maravalley.
The course aims to introduce LaTeX – a widely used system for producing technical and scientific documents – and teach students how to use it efficiently. “Unlike the text editors we are used to – such as Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer or Google Docs – text editing is not visual, but programmed. Learning LaTeX is important because many academic journals require, or at least prefer, documents prepared using this system. In addition, the software makes it possible to automate a number of aspects of the text, from layout to generating references,” said the professor.
The first class of the course brought together students from classes 2024 and 2025, with different levels of knowledge about the platform. “The classroom was full and the students were interested and participative, especially after we got our hands dirty, that is, we produced our first document. It was interesting to see the difficulties and how they were overcome,” added Beraldo.
Student Yasmin de Barros, who has already had contact with LaTeX in activities under the Jr. Scientific Initiation Program (PIC), saw the course as an opportunity to deepen her knowledge. “[In this first class], we learned some basic commands and saw what they did in practice. I know I’ll need this knowledge for my academic life and, in the future, in my professional career,” he said.
Beatriz Nunes, another student, said that she already uses LaTeX to solve lists of exercises during her degree. Even so, the course brought new lessons. “I found the content very interesting. We had the opportunity to learn more about the history of LaTeX and its creators. I’m looking forward to the next meetings and I want to learn how to create figures and explore more of the tool’s features,” she said.
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