LaTeX Research Diary Template

A professional, structured LaTeX template designed for research progress updates, laboratory diaries, and technical reports. Created by nguyenpanda.

Features

• Professional Cover Page: Clean and modern cover page with support for custom headers, logos, and report metadata.
• Custom Code Styling: Integrated nguyenpandaCode package for high-quality code snippets in Python, C++, CUDA, and more using listings.
• Multi-Report Structure: Organized directory structure (tex/01/, tex/02/, ...) allowing you to maintain multiple reports in a single project.
• Academic Fonts: Pre-configured support for modern fonts (Work Sans, Bernoru, JetBrains Mono) with automatic fallback to Latin Modern if fonts are missing. Optimized for LuaLaTeX.
• Bibliography Support: Integrated with biblatex (Numeric-comp style) for easy reference management.
• Smart Build System: Includes a Makefile for automated compilation and PDF management.

Directory Structure

.
├── nguyenpandaReport.cls  # Core report class
├── nguyenpandaCode.sty    # Custom code styling package
├── Makefile               # Build script
├── .latexmkrc             # Latexmk configuration
├── media/
│   └── image/logo/        # Logos and project images
├── refs/
│   └── refs.bib           # Bibliography file
└── tex/
    ├── 01/                # Example report directory
    │   ├── main.tex       # Root file for report 01
    │   ├── abstraction.tex
    │   ├── conclusion.tex
    │   ├── sample.cu      # Sample CUDA code
    │   └── sample.py      # Sample Python code
    └── template/          # Boilerplate for new reports
        ├── main.tex
        ├── abstraction.tex
        └── conclusion.tex

How to Use

1. Create a New Report

To start a new report (e.g., tex/02): 1. Copy the tex/template directory to tex/02. 2. Update the \input paths in tex/02/main.tex to point to the correct files (e.g., \input{tex/02/abstraction}). 3. Modify the metadata (title, author, date) and cover page settings in tex/02/main.tex.

2. Compilation

Compile your reports using the provided Makefile. By default, it uses lualatex.

# Compile report 01 (default)
make compile

# Compile a specific report (e.g., tex/02)
make compile DIR=02

# Full build (compiles and copies PDF to tex/DIR/pdf/)
make full DIR=01

# Clean intermediate build files
make clean DIR=01

3. Customizing Fonts

The template is optimized for LuaLaTeX. - To use custom fonts, place them in a font/ directory following the structure defined in nguyenpandaReport.cls. - Use the defaultfont option in \documentclass to use Latin Modern fonts: latex \documentclass[11pt, defaultfont]{nguyenpandaReport} - Use the twocolumn option for a two-column layout: latex \documentclass[11pt, twocolumn]{nguyenpandaReport}

Custom Commands

Code Snippets (nguyenpandaCode)

• \begin{pycode}[caption={...}] ... \end{pycode}: Python code environment.
• \begin{cppcode}[caption={...}] ... \end{cppcode}: C++ or CUDA code environment.
• \pyfile[caption={...}]{path/to/file}: Load Python code from an external file.
• \cppfile[caption={...}]{path/to/file}: Load C++/CUDA code from an external file.
• \filecode[language=..., caption={...}]{path/to/file}: Generic command to load code with a specific language.

Cover Page

Use the following commands in your preamble to customize the cover: - \coverTitle{...}: Main report title. - \coverAuthor{...}: Author name. - \coverType{...}: Type of report (e.g., Research Diary, Technical Report). - \coverHeader{...}: Text at the top of the cover (e.g., University/Lab name). - \coverImage{...}: Path to the cover logo (relative to media/image/). - \reportPlace{...}: Location of the report. - \reportTime{...}: Date/Time of the report.

License

MIT License. Feel free to use and modify for your research needs.