LaTeX/How to get help

From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Getting help is nothing to be ashamed of, just be sure to do a bit of work yourself to relieve the load of your helpers. How to do that?
Prepare a minimal working example that reproduces your issue which will give helpers the perfect starting point for your problem. If you don't know how to prepare such a minimal example (also called MWE), just follow the link above.

Once you get a bit experienced, you will be able to solve problems on your own. :-)

Prominent places to ask are LaTeX.org or TeX.Stackexchange.
There are places in many languages around the world, you might find a community answering your question in your mother tongue.

Why is a minimal working example (MWE) important?[edit | edit source]

A document is set up of many many little commands, which makes it complex. It is a bit like a stew recipe with many ingredients and different techniques of cutting the vegetables and cooking the meat. If there is a problem with a document, the reason can be chased down to just one or two ingredients, helpers don't need to see the whole recipe, it is yours.