LaTeX for Blind Beginners, The Tutorial I Wish Someone Had Given Me at 16!
LaTeX looks scary the first time you see it. If you actually hear it, it sounds even worse. A bunch of backslashes, braces, symbols… It feels like math decided to learn programming out of spite.
But once you understand the logic behind it, LaTeX becomes the most accessible and blind-friendly way to write math — cleaner, faster, and more predictable than any editor with buttons and visual menus. Here, we start from the very beginning and use examples from high-school math. If you are using a screen reader to go through this post, turn on the maximum verbosity level because there are small sneaky symbols hidden everywhere if you do not.
LaTeX is to be written in special files with the ending “.tex”, so for example our first file could be named “first_example.tex”. A LaTeX file is not something you open with Microsoft Word. It is basically a pure text file with no fancy properties, but it contains commands telling LaTeX how to produce a PDF document.
Therefore, you can open “first_example.tex” using any text editor: Notepad in Windows, gedit in Linux, or TextEdit in macOS.
But let us now look into this mysterious new kind of document and see how it actually works.  1. The Document Class Your LaTeX document must begin with a declaration like:
\documentclass{article}
Think of it as telling LaTeX: “Hey, today I want to write an article — please behave accordingly.”
Different classes exist: • article — for short documents • report — for longer work like theses • book — for books • beamer — for presentations
When you’re starting out, article is your best friend. Simple, elegant, does what you need, no drama.
2. Packages — the Superpowers You Install Packages are extra tools that add functionality. For example: • amsmath → better math tools • amssymb → more symbols • geometry → control page layout • graphicx → insert images
To tell LaTeX that you want to use this additional functionality, you include the package like this: \usepackage{amsmath} Every package gives you new commands.
3. Beginning and Ending the Document After loading packages, it’s time to begin the actual document. You do this with:
\begin{document}
and end it with:
\end{document}
So for example:
\begin{document} Your text and equations go here. \end{document}
Everything between these two lines becomes the content of your PDF. Everything above it is setup commands and are not visible in the final document.
Now let’s finally write something, because the whole point is to produce a readable PDF — without fighting with our friend Billy (Billy the big Billy the Microsoft guy).
4. The Two Symbols That Rule the LaTeX Universe Before we write equations, we must understand two characters:
The Backslash: Whenever LaTeX sees “\”, it thinks: “Oh! A command! Something special is happening!”
Examples: \sin \frac \sqrt \theta \cos \tan \alpha
Everything that starts with a backslash is a function, symbol, or instruction. This single rule already makes you aware that you have to pay special attention as a LaTeX reader that the text is interrupted and something else is going on. Curly Braces { } Curly braces bundle things together and act as containers for LaTeX functions and commands arguments..
• In fractions: numerator in {…}, denominator in {…} • In exponents: the whole exponent goes in {…} • In functions: arguments often go in {…}
so remember this: Braces = grouping, Backslash = command.
5. Writing Your First Equation! Let’s begin with something familiar — Pythagoras:
a squared plus b squared equals c squared.
This is one of the most famous equations in mathematics. Here is how we write it in LaTeX:
$a^{2} + b^{2} = c^{2}$
Why the dollar signs? Because this is one way to tell LaTeX: “Pay attention — I’m including math inside my sentence.”
The ^ symbol is used for exponents and the {} symbols are used to tell LaTeX what is the actual exponent. Congratulations — you wrote your first LaTeX equation!
Now let’s write a fraction. Fractions use the command \frac{numerator}{denominator}, which needs two brace groups.
Example: the definition of sine — opposite over hypotenuse:
$\frac{opposite}{hypotenuse}$
Let us now look at some trigonometry with familiar symbols. You already know the definitions:
sin(θ) = opposite / hypotenuse cos(θ) = adjacent / hypotenuse tan(θ) = opposite / adjacent
Here is how LaTeX thinks:
• \sin is the mathematical sine symbol. • \theta is the Greek letter θ.
So if we want the sine of theta, we write: $\sin{\theta}$
The \ tells LaTeX this is a function, and the { } give it the argument. If we wrote “theta” with letters, LaTeX would literally type t-h-e-t-a — and I’m sorry, my ancestors were a bit funny with their letters so this would not work properly.
Now let’s write the definition of tangent using what we know: $\tan{\theta} = \frac{\sin{\theta}}{\cos{\theta}}$
It is very important that every “{” has a matching “}”, because otherwise everything breaks apart and your document becomes chaos.
If we want to write that the sine of 45 degrees is 1 over the square root of 2, we use the square-root function \sqrt{}:
$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}$
At this point you’re using backslashes, fractions, roots, Greek letters — real math.
6. Three ways to Include Equations in the document
You already know how to use single $ symbols at the beginning and end of an equation. This keeps the math inline with your text and is recommended for small equations.
For larger equations, one should use double dollar signs. For example:
$$\sin^{2}{\theta} + \cos^{2}{\theta} = 1$$
This displays the identity centered on its own line.
We also used { } in the exponent — this is good practice, especially for more complicated expressions.
The other way to write math is by using the environment:
\begin{equation} … \end{equation}
This works like \begin{document} and \end{document}, but specifically for equations. Inside this environment you do not use $ or $$ because LaTeX already knows it is math.
This method is slower to type but looks cleaner and automatically numbers your equations, something very useful in longer documents.
7. A Minimal Working LaTeX Document
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{amssymb}
\begin{document}
I already love AudioThrive, because this is where I finally learned how to write the Pythagorean theorem in \LaTeX: $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$. I even learned how to write the definition of the tangent function: $\tan(\theta) = \frac{\sin(\theta)}{\cos(\theta)}$. And as a bonus, I can now type the classic identity $\sin^2(\theta) + \cos^2(\theta) = 1$. At this point I definitely want to subscribe — I don’t want to miss the next tutorial!
\end{document}
Everything between \begin{document} and \end{document} is what gets into the final pdf document we want to create. Everything before it is setup.
8. Turning This Strange Text Document Into a PDF Now comes the fun part: how do we turn this weird file full of slashes and braces into a beautiful PDF document?
That depends on your system. First, you must have LaTeX installed. Then you must use a program that takes your .tex file and compiles it into a PDF. You can do this by following the installation guides in the posts below, depending on your operating system.