Contextual Dynamics Lab LaTeX template for grant proposals and full-page documents

This template repository (forked from our primary LaTeX template repository) provides a convenient way of setting up new grant applications and other LaTeX documents that use full-page formatting or space constraints. The template includes our lab-recommended systems for organizing LaTeX code (including bibliography and figures).

Using this template repository

1. Set up the shared lab bibliography. You only need to do this once per computer. Install cdlbib by following the CDL-bibliography installation instructions, and then run

cdlbib setup

This makes the lab's shared bibliography (cdl.bib) available to every LaTeX document on your computer. The template's main.tex file is already set up to use it (\bibliography{cdl}). See the CDL-bibliography documentation for instructions on adding new references.

2. Create a new repository from this template. Visit the GitHub page for this project and click the green "Use this template" button, or create a new GitHub repository and select "ContextLab/latex-base-grants" from the "Repository template" dropdown menu. Then name and configure your repository. The official version of each project lives under the ContextLab organization.

3. Fork the new repository, and do your work in your fork. Work from individual lab members should always happen in a fork (<username>/<repository name>) of the ContextLab repository. To update the ContextLab (upstream) repository, submit a pull request from your fork.

To compile your document, run pdflatex, then bibtex, and then pdflatex twice more:

pdflatex main
bibtex main
pdflatex main
pdflatex main

Using Overleaf

You can also draft your document on Overleaf. If you do, be sure to sync your Overleaf project with a GitHub repository as well. Overleaf projects can't use the bibliography installed on your computer; follow these instructions to link the shared bibliography into your Overleaf project instead.

Recommended organization

If you are writing a grant application or another document that requires additional documentation or files, the lab-recommended approach to organizing files is the following:

root
└── all files needed to generate a PDF of your document(s)
└── figs : pdf copies of each figure
    └── source: source files used to construct individual figure panels or components
└── admin: files and documents related to administrative tasks (e.g., cover letters, forms, budget spreadsheets, etc.)