If you want to write beautiful documents, LaTeX is undoubtedly the best way to do so. It's basically a programming language that you can use to make documents, with an easy-to-use syntax that can be made as easy or as advanced as you want it to be. What's more, gone are the days where you need to set up your own LaTeX environment to write in (though you can), as there are tools like Overleaf that act exactly like Google Docs, but allow you to write in LaTeX with support for packages, too.

If you aren't already using LaTeX for your documents, you definitely should. Chances are you've seen documents written with it countless times and didn't realize, that most academic papers in the sciences are written in it. If you're not sure why you should use it, then these are some of the biggest reasons why.

5 Professional formatting

Make your documents look their prettiest

Do you want your documents to look nice? LaTeX is a great way for them to stand out, especially if you're working on something like a resume as well. There are countless templates out there that you can use, where all you need to do is edit the text that's already there for you. There's no programming experience required, and you'll instantly have an advantage over the competition thanks to the clean layout and professional look.

If you're also working on a thesis or research paper, then it's simply a no-brainer. It has exceptional mathematical libraries that you can use to your advantage to write equations with actual notation, rather than relying on the way people typically would write equations in a document. It has support for all mathematical symbols too with full mathematical typesetting.

4 Customizability

You control everything

When you're trying to customize a Word document, have you ever struggled with trying to get the page exactly how you want it to? LaTeX makes this incredibly easy, and most of your page parameters like size and margins are defined at the very beginning of your document. Instead of trying to find a menu option that might take you multiple clicks, you just need to scroll back up and change the value of one parameter at the top of your document, recompile it, and instantly see the results.

Plus, with the huge number of packages out there that you can use, there's something for everyone and every type of document. It's not just for academia; LaTeX can be great for even simpler projects.

3 Version control support

Integration with Git is easy

Version control like Git isn't just for programmers; you can use it for all kinds of productivity tasks. LaTeX is one of them, and if you install it locally, you can initiate a Git repository in your LaTeX folder and make commits when you make big updates. I actually did this for my bachelor's thesis when I completed my computer science degree, and it worked surprisingly well.

Of course, Git is another tool that you need to learn if you do want to use it, but for large documents, it's honestly worth considering getting to grips with as it will make it so much easier to manage your changes and go back to previous revisions if you need to. Tools like Overleaf on a paid plan offer built-in Git support too, which can handle the integration for you if you don't want to run it locally.

2 LaTeX makes citations and indexes easy

Bibliography has never been this convenient

If you need to make citations in your documents, LaTeX is by far the best that I've used. Basically, you define a bibliography and each item has a name, and when you write the sentence with the citation, you just invoke the citation command with a reference to the name. What's even better is that it'll also handle numbering and listing citations at the end of the document, while inserting individual citations on a per-page basis into the footer, too.

If you're writing documents that use citations, this takes a lot of the manual work out of it so that you can focus on writing instead. On top of all of that, it can also handle your index and table of contents, with automatic linking so that the person reading your document can click to jump to individual sections.

1 LaTeX is open-source and free to use

Even Overleaf can be self-hosted for free

While services like Overleaf have paid subscriptions, LaTeX itself is completely free to use. It's fully open source, and you can choose from countless different writing environments to make your documents in. If you have a NAS or some kind of home lab, you can host your own Overleaf server so that you can manage your documents on your own hardware. The community edition of Overleaf lets you collaborate with as many people as you want, while also supporting Git, too.

This is all enabled thanks to the open-source nature of LaTeX, and there are countless other options out there that you can try when hosting your own server. Is it worth it? It depends, and the free version of Overleaf might be more than good enough for you, but it's a fun weekend project at the very least. Plus, you can use local installations like TexMaker if you just want to run it locally on your own PC.