Little LaTeX Pearls: a grad student's catalogue of tiny wins

A new post titled "Little LaTeX Pearls" has been circulating on Lobsters and personal blogs, offering a compact catalogue of LaTeX tricks and macros the author says made grad-school paper-writing less painful. It has been reported that these are the small, repeatable tweaks the writer carried through years of drafts — the sort of craft knowledge you only notice after it saves you at 2 a.m. The tone is practical, even affectionate; this is advice from someone who’s lived through obscure package conflicts and come out the other side.

What’s in the catalogue?

The write-up collects generally applicable snippets for math typesetting: macros to keep notation consistent, small spacing fixes, and convenience commands that cut boilerplate. Examples are short and concrete — copy-paste ready, the kind of thing you drop into your preamble and forget about until you need it. Who doesn’t love a macro that makes an equation breathe properly? These aren’t flashy new packages; they’re tiny ergonomic improvements that save time and reduce friction.

Readers on Lobsters reacted the way coders do: appreciative and a little nostalgic. It has been reported that several commenters noted how such habits smell like craftsmanship — the academic equivalent of a well-oiled dotfiles repo. The emotional core here is low-key but real: the quiet satisfaction of small, repeatable wins that turn a messy manuscript into something presentable. A single well-placed macro can feel like a tiny victory.

If you want to skim the tips yourself, the original post is hosted on ionathan.ch and was shared on Lobsters. Allegedly, it’s especially useful for early-career researchers and anyone who wrestles with LaTeX more than they’d like. Read it, steal a pearl, and never fight an errant space in an equation again: https://ionathan.ch/2026/04/08/LaTeX.html.

Sources: ionathan.ch, Lobsters