Using LaTeX to create technical documentation
Why LaTeX?
Some time ago I was tasked with creating technical documentation for a “big data” software. They required that I use LaTex. In these series of posts, I distilled out the basic steps needed to make high-quality product documentation using LaTeX. For those not familiar with this system, it isn’t as easy to use as say Jekyll or Markdown and it is limited in its output, usually PDF. But it can be done - and done very well. These topics share with you my painful experiences with it so you don’t, hopefully, have to go through the same pain points.
LaTeX is not commonly thought of as a tool to produce technical documentation. This is because it is used primarily in academia and science. However, with a bit of effort, it can be used to generate very high quality documentation for software or hardware products.
Use these topics as a template to get you started
I tried to make these topics linear. At the same time you can use them as reference topics for specific problems you may have. But remembers, these topics are not the final word on using LaTeX for tech docs. The same resources I used are available for you. Google is your guide.
To start, we will create a LaTeX template using the book class. This class uses A4 paper size and the base point font size will be 11 pt.