LaTeX Practice LaTex: Find the New Sandbox for LaTex Practice

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Users are seeking alternatives for practicing LaTeX after encountering issues with a sandbox link. Overleaf is suggested as a viable option, although some express concerns about its free plan limitations. The discussion reveals that many users have successfully utilized Overleaf without incurring costs, depending on their document needs. A specific LaTeX practice sandbox link is shared, and users are reminded to avoid creating threads solely for LaTeX practice. The conversation also touches on computer performance issues related to image files, with suggestions for cleaning up unnecessary files to improve speed.
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I would like to practice with LaTex and the link to the sandbox is no good. Point me in the right direction?
 
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What link are you talking about?
 
Hmm . . . I wanted to try overleaf, but the free plan doesn't give you that much :(
 
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Hmm . . . I wanted to try overleaf, but the free plan doesn't give you that much :(

Huh?? I've written many assignments and research papers using overleaf. I never paid a single thing.
 
micromass said:
Huh?? I've written many assignments and research papers using overleaf. I never paid a single thing.
Well, I’ve created a lot of free accounts that only gave 1GB of data and I used it all up in less than a month.
I suppose documents are different from image files, though.
 
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Well, I’ve created a lot of free accounts that only gave 1GB of data and I used it all up in less than a month.
I suppose documents are different from image files, though.

Yeah sure, if you're planning to use overleaf to save images or to make a LaTeX document that's basically an image book, then you'll use it up fairly quickly. Right now, I have 20 LaTeX documents on my overleaf account. Many of which have about 10 images. I'm not even close to filling up 1/3 of the 1GB requirement.

On my computer, I also have an entire probability course with about 400 (low-quality) images and 2000 pages. Its size is 25MB. So trust me, 1GB is a lot of space in this context.
 
micromass said:
On my computer, I also have an entire probability course with about 400 (low-quality) images and 2000 pages. Its size is 25MB. So trust me, 1GB is a lot of space in this context.
Yeah, okay. Guess I'll give overleaf a go then!

(400 low-quality images?? That's nothing! :smile:)
 
  • #10
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Yeah, okay. Guess I'll give overleaf a go then!

(400 low-quality images?? That's nothing! :smile:)

I'm not sure what kind of text you are going to write with more than 400 images...
 
  • #11
micromass said:
I'm not sure what kind of text you are going to write with more than 400 images...
Ah, you misunderstood. The previous accounts I made had nothing to do with LaTeX. I have no intention of adding images to LaTeX documents, either. I was just talking about images in my PC in general--I’m constantly creating new ones it slowing down my computer greatly.
 
  • #12
Another possibility is http://www.sharelatex.com
Lately I've encountered their documentation when doing searches for issues. (Along side stackexchange ofcourse)
I used it as well and it's quite handy. Although I do use offline editing for big documents, dual screens don't work with sharelatex as far as I can see.
 
  • #13
ProfuselyQuarky said:
What link are you talking about?

Sandbox
If you wish to practice writing LaTeX or test some code, a sandbox is available https://www.physicsforums.com/mathjax/test/preview.html . Please do not create threads just to practice LaTeX

This one.
 
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  • #14
Kevin McHugh said:
Sandbox
If you wish to practice writing LaTeX or test some code, a sandbox is available https://www.physicsforums.com/mathjax/test/preview.html . Please do not create threads just to practice LaTeX

This one.
Sorry this has been offline for a bit.
 
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  • #15
Kevin McHugh said:
Sandbox
If you wish to practice writing LaTeX or test some code, a sandbox is available https://www.physicsforums.com/mathjax/test/preview.html . Please do not create threads just to practice LaTeX

This one.
Oh! Well, I didn't even know that something on PF like that existed o_O
 
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  • #16
If you want to practice LaTeX on PF, just start a post and click the "Preview..." button to see what it looks like. All the work is done on your computer via Javascript, so PF's servers don't take a performance hit for it. (at least that's my understanding of it) Just don't hit the "Post Reply" button if you don't actually want to post it!
 
  • #17
Thanks JT.
 
  • #18
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Ah, you misunderstood. The previous accounts I made had nothing to do with LaTeX. I have no intention of adding images to LaTeX documents, either. I was just talking about images in my PC in general--I’m constantly creating new ones it slowing down my computer greatly.
Quarky, I'm puzzled. In what way do images slow your computer down? I have well over 200,000 images on my computer, many of them full sized right out of the camera, and it has no effect on the speed of my computer, which is why I'm wondering what's happening with your computer.
 
  • #19
phinds said:
Quarky, I'm puzzled. In what way do images slow your computer down? I have well over 200,000 images on my computer, many of them full sized right out of the camera, and it has no effect on the speed of my computer, which is why I'm wondering what's happening with your computer.
Well, my images are huge (sometimes twice as large as photos from a camera) and most of them are in really high resolution. Besides that, the original images’ file extensions support layers so I can edit them (which takes up more space) and then I have copies of each and every file in a more common file extension like .jpg or .png. If there is something I’m doing wrong, I’d really like to know.

But I guess I can’t blame my slow PC entirely on images. Maybe I’ve got too many programs and downloads, too?

phinds said:
In what way do images slow your computer down?
It takes a long time for things to load properly.
 
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  • #20
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Well, my images are huge (sometimes twice as large as photos from a camera) and most of them are in really high resolution. Besides that, the original images’ file extensions support layers so I can edit them (which takes up more space) and then I have copies of each and every file in a more common file extension like .jpg or .png. If there is something I’m doing wrong, I’d really like to know.

But I guess I can’t blame my slow PC entirely on images. Maybe I’ve got too many programs and downloads, too?It takes a long time for things to load properly.
There is nothing about what you describe that should slow your computer down in any way OTHER than that if you are a loading a large multiple-layer image into an image manipulation program then it will take longer than loading a simple non-layered smaller image. In other words, the number and size of all the JPG or PNG files on your computer have nothing to do with general CPU or I/O speed except when loading/storing a specific image.

EDIT: to add one thing, my statement above has at least one exception and that is that if you are running Windows and have indexing turned on then the more files you have, the more it is true that the automatic indexing process slows your computer down, but this is a truly trivial amount --- I mention it only to remain technically correct.
 
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  • #21
phinds said:
There is nothing about what you describe that should slow your computer down in any way OTHER than that if you are a loading a large multiple-layer image into an image manipulation program then it will take longer than loading a simple non-layered smaller image. In other words, the number and size of all the JPG or PNG files on your computer have nothing to do with general CPU or I/O speed except when loading/storing a specific image.

EDIT: to add one thing, my statement above has at least one exception and that is that if you are running Windows and have indexing turned on then the more files you have, the more it is true that the automatic indexing process slows your computer down, but this is a truly trivial amount --- I mention it only to remain technically correct.
Meh… I guess I just need a new computer then. Too bad, there was something else I wanted but I guess it’s going to have to wait until I go to college or something :/

And it IS spring, so maybe I should do some spring cleaning on my desktop (and all those folders and compressed folders which are pretty much black holes).
 
  • #22
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Meh… I guess I just need a new computer then. Too bad, there was something else I wanted but I guess it’s going to have to wait until I go to college or something :/

And it IS spring, so maybe I should do some spring cleaning on my desktop (and all those folders and compressed folders which are pretty much black holes).
There are some pretty decent free cleaner programs that will get rid of some of the bloat that may be causing some of the system slowdown (assuming you are running windows). Every now and then I run CCleaner and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. You DO have to be careful what sites you download them from because although they themselves are fine, they are often accompanied by undesirable extras that will further bloat your system. If you happen to be running Norton security, it will tell you when that is the case and then you can either find a different download site or read on the internet about how to get rid of the extra bloatware that accompanies them.
 
  • #23
phinds said:
There are some pretty decent free cleaner programs that will get rid of some of the bloat that may be causing some of the system slowdown (assuming you are running windows). Every now and then I run CCleaner and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. You DO have to be careful what sites you download them from because although they themselves are fine, they are often accompanied by undesirable extras that will further bloat your system. If you happen to be running Norton security, it will tell you when that is the case and then you can either find a different download site or read on the internet about how to get rid of the extra bloatware that accompanies them.
Yes, I’ve got CCleaner and all that, so it’ll be put to use. Thanks, phinds, you seem to be a complete computer junkie :)
 
  • #24
ProfuselyQuarky said:
Yes, I’ve got CCleaner and all that, so it’ll be put to use. Thanks, phinds, you seem to be a complete computer junkie :)
Well, I'm not all that much up on modern technology but I wrote my first computer program in 1962 and my most recent one last night.
 
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  • #25
If all else fails a fresh install of your operating system should help as well.
But backup important data first.
 
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