Using LaTeX and Awesome-CV to prettify your resume
LaTeX is a wonderful markup language used primarily for typesetting and prettify your text. It is used for academic papers and mathematics in order to better depict mathematical equations. In this article, I will explain how to use LaTeX and Awesome-CV to make a good looking resume.
Why LaTeX?
LaTeX is a somewhat dated language, so why use it? Well, Awesome-CV is a good reason. Awesome-CV is a resume/CV template that is hosted on GitHub that is written in LaTeX. With this template, it is much easier to get a formalized and good looking resume/CV.
Get Started
The easiest way to use LaTeX and Awesome-CV is to simply access Awesome-CV on Overleaf.
Overleaf is an online/web based LaTeX editor/compiler. A Google Docs for LaTeX if you will. Alternatively, you can install and use LaTeX on your computer using these instructions.
How to use the Template
From there, it should be relatively simple to use Awesome-CV. Awesome-CV on Overleaf is split up into several discrete sections.
- resume.tex/cv.tex
- resume/cv folder with resume content .tex files
- awesome-cv.cls
resume.tex or cv.tex
These two are the master documents of the template depending on which version (cv or resume) that you are using. They use the same template but are examples of different uses of Awesome-CV.
First, you will notice the Configuration section:
The config section contains master configurations of your resume/CV. Things like the primary color, the size of the paper, as well as the margins of the resume are set here.
Then, you have the personal info section. Here, you set the basic informations of the resume, including your name, address, and email. Please note that there are commented out options as well that you can add, such as your gitlab or stackoverflow.
Lastly, you have the document itself:
This section points to inputs in other .tex files, which are located in the resume/cv folder. You can remove specific sections here and you can edit the sections directly in the file in the resume/cv folders.
resume/cv folder
In this folder, you will find a bunch of different general sections that you can edit. Each of these files will be a separate \cvsection that includes either \cvskills, \cventries, or \cvhonors. You can edit these to your liking and then recompile using the Overleaf function in order to check your changes.
awesome-cv.cls
Editing awesome-cv.cls is really for more advanced users of this template and LaTeX in general. It sets up all the files that AwesomeCV needs and also defines the template commands. If you wish to fiddle around with this, please note that the AwesomeCV Github Issues/Pull Requests areas might be of help, since other users of the template may have the same changes in mind.
