2

I have a draft that contains 15-16 seminars (=detailed solution of problems + some additional information that was omitted in lectures). Currently I am polishing my draft in order to provide my students with this notes. However, I gradually extend the content of seminars and sometime adapt them for the audience and the final notes can be different.

So, I would like to ask: what is the best way to create, update and versionate lecture notes?

Now I have the online LaTeX project (in Overleaf) but it is need to compile the project which can be sometimes a bad practice: a student can obtain "messy" version of text. I teach Statistical Physics & Condensed Matter, so LaTeX-support is absolutely required. Also, I use TikZ to make some plots and so on, so support of including png/jpg/pdf images is required. The lecture notes are subdivided by parts and chapters (each chapter = one seminar), so at least markdown support is required. In nutshell, the perfect solution should have:

  1. LaTeX-support (at least common packages)
  2. Image including support
  3. Content structure (headings, sections, etc)
  4. Easy to edit

I have a brief look at Notion, Obsidian, Word-Press and github-pages. But all three variants seem not perfect. I would be grateful for any comment.

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    Why not just post on your school intranet a pdf generated from your LaTeX? What additional functionality do you want that pdf wouldn't provide?
    – Dimitri Vulis
    Jun 13 at 21:58
  • @DimitriVulis , for instance, for a given seminar I would like to have a possibility to explicitly hide/show supplemental info like proofs, more complicated problems and so on. In the PDF I can still use Appendices or highlight supplemental info, but if some desired solutions (mentioned in question) exist I would like at least to look at
    – Artem Alexandrov
    Jun 13 at 22:02
  • 3
    Many people like to print out their lecture notes, and read them on paper, although this may be more common among people older than your students. For them, a proof in an appendix would be preferable to "click to reveal" text.
    – Dimitri Vulis
    Jun 13 at 22:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

It seems to me that you are looking for a non-existing software solution that allows you to include and exclude parts of your manuscript based on rules you are setting.

The best work-around is to have a modular latex structure where you can manually include and thereby exclude files that you want and do not want in your pdf.

You will still need to proof-read each custom-built pdf, but this should be quick.

Also, once you start handing out pdf to students or publish pdf on the web, you no longer have control on what future students have access to. You are working in a sufficiently hard field to guarantee that most of your students are quite smart and capable to find holes in the walls that you build around your products.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .