Rendering LaTeX-style plots in Mathematica

latex_plots_in_mathematica.md

Here's how to render plots in Mathematica which fit nicely into LaTeX documents.

First, download the LaTeX fonts onto your machine. This page describes how to do so for MaCOS. This is not needed on Ubuntu.

To use the LaTeX font for both axis-numbers and labels, add this option to your plot on Mac OS:

LabelStyle -> {FontFamily -> "CMU Serif", FontSize -> 12}

and this on Ubuntu:

LabelStyle -> {FontFamily -> "Latin Modern Roman", FontSize -> 12}

Plots can be made more aesthetic by giving them complete, black borders with ticks only on the bottom and left axis, via

Frame->True, FrameStyle->Black, FrameTicks->{{Automatic,None},{Automatic,None}}

in combination with FrameLabel to label the axis.

For example,

Plot[
 x^2, {x, 0, 1}, 
 LabelStyle -> {FontFamily -> "CMU Serif", FontSize -> 12},
 FrameLabel -> {"Variable", "Quadratic"},
 Frame -> True, FrameStyle -> Black, 
 FrameTicks -> {{Automatic, None}, {Automatic, None}}
 ]

yields the following plot:

Even text in circuit drawings rendered with QuESTlink's DrawCircuit[] function can be changed to the LaTeX font, using:

DrawCircuit[u, BaseStyle -> {FontFamily -> "CMU Serif"}]

Replace "CMU Serif" with "Latin Modern Roman" on Ubuntu