What are the macros you guys use to speed up LaTeX-ing?

[tesselate]

Hello everyone!
I was wondering if you guys could suggest some macro-s that you use in your LaTeX preamble, to speed up typing up your homeworks/reports.
I think typesetting any report looks very professional, so I don't want to stop LaTeX-ing them. However, it does take a huge chunk of my day, to just type up long equations. I was wondering if you had any tips to share to speed up this process?

 

[jedishrfu]

You could make a one page cheat sheet of common latex symbols and phrases and then have both documents open when writing your report using copy and paste to compose your report.

This saves you a little time in looking up stuff or typing stuff.

 

[JorisL]

Hello everyone!
I was wondering if you guys could suggest some macro-s that you use in your LaTeX preamble, to speed up typing up your homeworks/reports.
I think typesetting any report looks very professional, so I don't want to stop LaTeX-ing them. However, it does take a huge chunk of my day, to just type up long equations. I was wondering if you had any tips to share to speed up this process?

You can check the source of some complex articles on arxiv to see how they go about long equations.

I sometimes define shortcuts like \lp to denote \left(, same for brackets and curly braces.
When I needed to write a lot of wedge products $\wedge$ I defined a shortcut \w.

Those are small things that can speed up your writing especially the macros for parentheses.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

I use all of these:

\def\cA{{\cal A}}
\def\cB{{\cal B}}
\def\cC{{\cal C}}
% etc...

\def\CC{\mathbb{C}}
\def\RR{\mathbb{R}}
\def\PP{\mathbb{P}}
\def\ZZ{\mathbb{Z}}
\def\QQ{\mathbb{Q}}
\def\HH{\mathbb{H}}
\def\SS{\mathbb{S}}

\newcommand{\dd}{\mathrm{d}}                   % exterior d
\DeclareMathOperator*{\hodge}{\star}               % hodge star
\newcommand{\vol}{\mathrm{vol}}               % volume form
\DeclareMathOperator{\Lie}{\mathcal{L}}      % Lie derivative
\DeclareMathOperator*{\diag}{\mathrm{diag}}       % diagonal matrix
\DeclareMathOperator{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}       % span
\DeclareMathOperator{\ad}{\mathrm{ad}}           % Lie algebra adjoint
\DeclareMathOperator{\Ad}{\mathrm{Ad}}           % group adjoint
\DeclareMathOperator{\Ric}{\mathrm{Ric}}           % Ricci tensor
\DeclareMathOperator{\Rf}{\mathfrak{R}}           % Ricci form
\DeclareMathOperator{\into}{\raisebox{0.2ex}{\reflectbox{\rotatebox[origin=c]{180}{$\neg$}}}}
                                           % interior product
\DeclareMathOperator{\ins}{\iota}                   % insertion operator
\newcommand{\norm}[1]{{\lVert {#1} \rVert}}           % norm
\newcommand{\abs}[1]{{\lvert {#1} \rvert}}           % absolute value
\newcommand{\inprod}[2]{\langle {#1}, {#2} \rangle}
\newcommand{\binprod}[2]{\big \langle {#1}, \, {#2} \big \rangle}
\DeclareMathOperator{\codim}{codim}           % codimension
\DeclareMathOperator{\sign}{sign}               % signum
\DeclareMathOperator{\id}{\mathrm{id}}   % identity
\DeclareMathOperator{\lcm}{\mathrm{lcm}}       % least common multiple

% better overlines
\newcommand*\widebar[1]{%
   \mkern2.2mu%
   \overline{%
       \mkern-2.2mu%
       %\rule{0pt}{6pt}%
       {#1}%
       \mkern-1.8mu%
   }%
   \mkern1.8mu%
}

\usepackage{forloop}
\newcounter{ct}

% (-+++...) Minkowski signature
\newcommand{\mink}[1]{(\mathord{-} \forloop[-1]{ct}{#1}{\value{ct} > 1}{\, \mathord{+}})}

% (+++...) Euclidean signature
\newcommand{\eucl}[1]{(%
   \ifthenelse{#1 > 0}{%
       \mathord{+} \forloop[-1]{ct}{#1}{\value{ct} > 1}{\, \mathord{+}}%
   }{}%
)}

% generic (---...+++...) signature
\newcommand{\sig}[2]{(%
   \ifthenelse{#2 > 0}{%
       \mathord{-}  \forloop[-1]{ct}{#2}{\value{ct} > 1}{\, \mathord{-}}%
       \ifthenelse{#1 > 0}{\,}{}%
   }{}%
   \ifthenelse{#1 > 0}{%
       \mathord{+} \forloop[-1]{ct}{#1}{\value{ct} > 1}{\, \mathord{+}}%
   }{}%
)}

You're on your own for figuring out what packages might be required to access various symbols.

 

[tesselate]

Thank you for your suggestions! This will definitely cut down on time. I have implemented some of the commands from Ben Niehoff's preamble, and created some on my own. Also, looking at arxiv sources is my go-to place now if I come across something new.