Top 10 LaTeX packages for academic writing

Q: What is the best LaTeX package for tables?

booktabs for the rules; pair it with siunitx's S column type if the table has numbers to align and with arydshln for dashed horizontal lines. Add breathing room with \renewcommand\arraystretch{1.2}.

Q: How do I balance the columns on the last page of a two-column paper?

balance or flushend; either would probably work.

Q: How do I automatically reference figures and tables in LaTeX?

Use cleveref's \cref{} command, which picks the right word (Figure, Table, ...) for you. You can also use \eqref{} for equations to get references such as (1).

Q: Does microtype actually make a visible difference?

Yes, depending on the font and build system, though it's subtle enough that most readers won't consciously notice it.

Q: Is savetrees safe to use right before a conference deadline?

It's a risky, last-resort trick for shaving text down to fit a page limit, not something to rely on routinely.

Top 10 LaTeX packages for academic writing

In academic writing with L^aT_eX there are a lot of things that can be frustrating to the author. For many of these things there exists many packages that can help alleviate this frustration, but it is hard to find them. In this post I list 10 of my personal favorite packages to help remove some of this frustration, and make your papers look nicer so that you have a higher probability of getting your paper accepted. Hopefully. Probably not. But they will look nicer!

Introduction

At the time of writing, The Comprehensive TEX Archive Network (CTAN) has 6993 packages. Many of these are used very often, such as amsmath, graphics and xcolor (Cormode et al., 2012), and some are not used enough. This post is a list of packages that I find very useful in academic writing, but yet I don’t see them being used that often. I have hand-picked each and everyone from my actual work, and not just because they are popular on CTAN or featured in other top-10 lists. And a blog isn’t really a blog without a top-10 list, I guess.

Without further ado, in alphabetical order, here are 10 useful L^aT_eX packages for your writing pleasure. Once you’ve picked your packages, Top L^aT_eX commands and macros for academic writing covers the commands and macros to pair with them, and Which L^aT_eX Build System Is Fastest? covers compiling the result efficiently.

Quick reference, in case you just want to jump to the right package:

Package	Purpose	Key command
`adjustbox`	Scale a figure or plot to fit	`\usepackage{adjustbox}`
`balance`/`flushend`	Balance the two columns on the last page	`\balance`
`booktabs`	Professional-looking table rules	`\toprule` / `\midrule` / `\bottomrule`
`cleveref`	Clever, automatic cross-references	`\cref{...}`
`glossaries-extra`	Acronym and term lists	`\gls{...}`
`microtype`	Micro-typography: kerning, tracking, protrusion	`\usepackage[...]{microtype}`
`pgfplots`	2D/3D plots and charts drawn in L^aT_eX	`\begin{axis} ... \addplot`
`savetrees`	Pack more text onto the page	`\usepackage[subtle]{savetrees}`
`siunitx`	Typeset numbers and units, aligned table columns	`\SI{...}{...}`
`tikz`	Programmatic figures and diagrams	`\usepackage{tikz}`

Packages

adjustbox

The adjustbox package (Scharrer, 2012) allows scaling of a figure or plot, for example one made in TikZ (Feuersänger et al., 2014).

1
\usepackage{adjustbox}                % Balances the columns of the last page

Here is an example from a real paper, slightly edited for clarity. You can of course scale in more ways than just by width.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
\begin{figure}[t!]
    \centering
    \begin{adjustbox}{width=.75\linewidth}%
        \input{./figures/my_tikz_figure.tex}%
    \end{adjustbox}%
    \caption{An overview of our solution.}
    \label{fig:overview}
\end{figure}

balance or flushend

The two columns on the last page of a two-column paper should be the same length. This package saves you from having to balance the columns manually (Daly, 1999).

1
\usepackage{balance}                % Balances the columns of the last page

Simply add \balance in the first column of the last page, and you’re done! Some users like the flushend package better as this doesn’t require adding anything on the last page.

No column balancing.

With balance.

With flushend.

Examples with and without column balancing using the 2019 SysML L^aT_eX template example.

booktabs

Simply put, booktabs (Fear & Els, 2020) makes your tables look good! It’s practically mandatory for any paper with a table. Remember not to add any vertical bars. Note that I am sneaking in arydshln for the dashed line here, and adding some more breathing room for the rows. Note that arydshln must load after siunitx.

Consider this example, adapted from L^aT_eX_animal_table_with_booktabs.svg">Animal table with booktabs.png (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license).

1
\usepackage{booktabs}              % Nicer tables

A table typeset with the booktabs package, using horizontal rules instead of a full grid.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
\documentclass[border=6pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.2}

\usepackage{caption}          % provides \captionof; floats don't work in standalone
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage{arydshln}
\sisetup{round-mode=places, round-precision=2, table-format=2.2}

\setlength\dashlinedash{0.6pt}
\setlength\dashlinegap{1.5pt}
\setlength\arrayrulewidth{0.5pt}

\begin{document}
\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}   % gives \captionof a box to measure against
\centering
\captionof{table}{\textbf{This is my table,} there are many like it, but this one is mine.}
\label{tbl:mytable}
\begin{tabular}{llS}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Item}} \\
\cmidrule(r){1-2}
Animal & Description & {Price (\$)} \\   % braces protect header from S-column parsing
\midrule
Gnat  & per gram & 13.6547 \\             % extra decimals; rounded to 2 places
      & each     &  0.01 \\
\hdashline                    % soft break: Gnat's two prices belong together, next animal starts
Gnu   & stuffed  & 92.50 \\
Emu   & stuffed  & 33.33 \\
Armadillo & frozen & 8.99 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{document}

cleveref

Using the cleveref package (Cubitt, 2012), we can refer to figure, tables etc without specificing the type. See~\cref{tbl:mytable} produces “See table 1”.

1
2
3
4
\usepackage[capitalise]{cleveref}  % Clever references to stuff.
\crefname{figure}{Fig.}{Fig.}
\crefname{lstlisting}{listing}{listings}
\Crefname{lstlisting}{Listing}{Listings}

The result is configurable, and we can for example change the figure type name with \crefname{figure}{Fig.}{Fig.}, where the first Fig. is the singular form and the second is the plural form.

glossaries-extra

Using the package glossaries-extra we can add a list of terms and a list of acronyms to our document (Talbot, 2016; Talbot, 2018). It is also very useful for making sure that acronyms are written out the first time they are used.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
\usepackage[acronym,toc,symbols]{glossaries-extra}
\usepackage{glossary-longbooktabs}
\setabbreviationstyle[acronym]{long-short}

\makeglossaries
\newacronym{gcd}{GCD}{Greatest Common Divisor}

\newglossaryentry{eta}{name={\ensuremath{\eta}}, sort={eta}, description={Learning rate}, type={symbols}}

\clearpage
\printglossary[type=symbols,style=long-booktabs]
\clearpage
\printglossary[type=acronym,style=long-booktabs]

We can then use \gls{gcd} whenever we need to use the acronym Greatest Common Divisor (GCD) or \gls{eta} when we need to use the symbol for the learning rate. See Glossaries on Overleaf for more examples.

I am using bib2gls (Talbot, 2025) and store my glossaries in .bib files. This requires running bib2gls in the build process. This fork of latexrun solves that.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={../includes/acronyms},
  type=acronym,
  sort={en-GB}
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={../includes/symbols},
  type=symbols,
  sort={en-GB}
]

\GlsXtrLoadResources[
  src={../includes/terms},
  type=terminology,
  sort={en-GB}
]

Entries can look like

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
@acronym{AI,
    short = {AI},
    long = {Artificial Intelligence}
}

@entry{t,
    name={\ensuremath{t}},
    sort={t},
    description={time},
    type={symbols}
}

@entry{kappascopecreep,
    name={\ensuremath{\kappa}-scope creep},
    sort={kappascopecreep},
    description={The probability that "just one more experiment" expands the paper's contribution list by one},
    type={symbols}
}

microtype

Text typeset in L^aT_eX already looks great, but can be made even nicer with microtype (Schlicht, 2019). Looking deeper at the micro-typographics extensions provided by microtype is a great way to ensure getting trapped in a rabbit hole for a long time. Here are the settings I use, borrowed from the excellent post Tips on Writing a Thesis in L^aT_eX (Khirevich, n.d.).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
\usepackage[
    protrusion=true,
    activate={true,nocompatibility},
    final,
    tracking=true,
    kerning=true,
    spacing=true,
    factor=1100]{microtype}
\SetTracking{encoding={*}, shape=sc}{40}

Without microtype.

With microtype.

Examples with and without microtype. Examples were compiled with pdfL^aT_eX in TeX Live 2019.

pgfplots

The pgfplots package (Feuersänger, 2014) can be used for creating 2D and 3D plots. It is built on top of the PGF/TikZ package (Feuersänger et al., 2014) and allows the creation of high-quality, customizable, complex graphs, charts, or diagrams directly within your document.

The package supports a wide variety of plot types, such as line plots, scatter plots, bar plots, histograms, and contour plots. pgfplots can load data from external files, enabling generation of plots without leaving the L^aT_eX environment. Used together with tikzplotlib you can convert plots from matplotlib.

1
\usepackage{pgfplots}

A 2D line plot generated directly from data using the pgfplots package.

See Publication ready figures for a longer post on the pgfplots package (Feuersänger, 2014).

savetrees

Here is a controversial package. It really doesn’t belong on the recommended package list, but I will keep it here anyways. savetrees (Pakin, 2007) is magic. It is highly useful when you are approaching a conference deadline and you have one page over the conference limit. Using the subtle mode, we can preserve the document layout and try to make L^aT_eX pack text tighter.

1
\usepackage[subtle]{savetrees}

Without savetrees.

With subtle savetrees.

With moderate savetrees.

With extreme savetrees.

Examples with various degrees of savetrees. The examples were compiled using pdfL^aT_eX from TeX Live 2019.

siunitx

Typesetting numbers with units is actually not trivial. siunitx (Wright, 2009) adds, among others, the commands \qty and \num so that we can write \qty{1024}{\byte} or \num{{}e5}, which makes things look much nicer.Ranges can be typeset with \qtyrange{1}{99}{\px} or \numrange{1}{99}.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
\usepackage{siunitx}

% SI unit setup
\sisetup{
    exponent-product=\cdot
}

\DeclareSIUnit{\belmilliwatt}{Bm}
\DeclareSIUnit{\dBm}{\deci\belmilliwatt}
\DeclareSIUnit\px{px}

Another use for this package is for aligning numbers in a table, and we can directly use the table format S or S[table-format=3.2], see also Publication ready tables.

tikz

TikZ and PGF (Feuersänger et al., 2014) are packages for programatically creating figures, and deserve a longer writeup. Because you render the figures within the document itself, your drawing will match the fonts and style of the rest of the document. The downside is that it has a very steep learning curve, but the Internet is full of great examples, and your favorite AI assistant can draw pretty well in TikZ.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
\usepackage{tikz}

\usetikzlibrary{shapes, decorations, calc, arrows}
\usetikzlibrary{3d,fit,backgrounds, decorations.text}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning, shapes.symbols}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathreplacing, calligraphy}

\tikzset{>=latex}

A TikZ diagram combining shapes, arrows, and positioning libraries, from a published paper.

Here’s the tweet in question:

GPT-5.5, not fully saturating the TikZ unicorn test yet but getting awfully close ...

(yes this is actual TikZ code, I personally find it so unbelievable that I'm putting the code below for anyone to verify for themself) pic.twitter.com/abkFTMySGe
— Sebastien Bubeck (@SebastienBubeck) April 23, 2026

See more examples of TikZ figures on TeXample.net.

FAQ

What is the best L^aT_eX package for tables?

booktabs for the rules; pair it with siunitx’s S column type if the table has numbers to align and with arydshln for dashed horizontal lines. Add breathing room with \renewcommand\arraystretch{1.2}.

How do I balance the columns on the last page of a two-column paper?

balance or flushend; see the section above. Any of them would probably work.

How do I automatically reference figures and tables in L^aT_eX?

Use cleveref’s \cref{} that picks the right word (“Figure”, “Table”, …) for you. Bonus, use \eqref{eq:myequation} for equations to get references such as (1).

Is `glossaries-extra` overkill for a short paper?

No, you can reuse your acronyms and symbols across papers and documents. Only the included acronyms or symbols will be listed.

Does `microtype` actually make a visible difference?

Yes it does, depending on the font and build system. Will anyone notice and give you compliments - absolutely not.

Is `savetrees` safe to use right before a conference deadline?

No. Will you do it anyways? Yes.

Conclusion

There are probably more top ten lists of L^aT_eX packages than there are packages, and here’s another one. Hope you enjoyed it!

What are your favorite packages? Comment below!

AI disclosure

This post was audited with AI-assisted quality tools (Claude Sonnet 5) to identify SEO, accessibility, and citation issues, and to apply the resulting mechanical fixes (internal links, alt text, metadata, citations). All prose is my own.

References

Cormode, G., Muthukrishnan, S., & Yan, J. (2012). Scienceography: The study of how science is written. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 7288 LNCS, 379–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30347-0_37
Scharrer, M. (2012). The adjustbox Package. CTAN, 1–29. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/adjustbox
Feuersänger, C., Menke, H., & Tantau, T. (2014). TikZ & PGF manual. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/pgf
Daly, P. W. (1999). Balancing the Two Columns of Text on the Last Page. 3–4. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/balance
Fear, S., & Els, D. (2020). booktabs – Publication quality tables in LATEX. CTAN. https://ctan.org/pkg/booktabs
Cubitt, T. (2012). The cleveref package. Sort, 1–28. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/cleveref
Talbot, N. L. C. (2016). User Manual for glossaries. 1–240.
Talbot, N. L. C. (2018). Glossaries-Extra : an Extension To the Glossaries Package. 1–201.
Talbot, N. L. C. (2025). bib2gls — Command line application to convert .bib files to glossaries-extra.sty resource files (Version 4.7). https://ctan.org/pkg/bib2gls.
Schlicht, R. (2019). Microtype. 1–249. https://ctan.org/pkg/microtype
Khirevich, S. Tips on Writing a Thesis in LaTeX. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from http://www.khirevich.com/latex/microtype/
Feuersänger, C. (2014). Manual for Plotting Package pgfplots. 1–500. https://ctan.org/pkg/pgfplots
Pakin, S. (2007). The savetrees package. 1–25. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees
Wright, J. (2009). siunitx — A comprehensive ( SI ) units package. System, 1–60. https://www.ctan.org/pkg/siunitx

Suggested citation

If you would like to cite this work, here is a suggested citation in BibTeX format.

@misc{isaksson_2020,
  author="Isaksson, Martin",
  title={{Martin's blog --- Top 10 LaTeX packages for academic writing}},
  year=2020,
  url=https://blog.martisak.se/top-ten-latex-packages/,
  note = "[Online; accessed 2026-07-01]"
}

Revisions

01 Jul 2026 - Fix dark-mode image issues on Top 10 LaTeX packages post
01 Jul 2026 - Refresh Top 10 LaTeX packages post to pillar-post quality (95/100)
27 Jul 2023 - Change table-of-contents
25 Jul 2023 - Update Top-10 post.
14 Jun 2020 - Workaround for link with LaTeX in it
13 Jun 2020 - Change directory structure
13 Jun 2020 - Change references that pointed to other files
03 May 2020 - Add reference to glossaries-extra
03 May 2020 - Fix: Broken link
03 May 2020 - Fix: Repeated word in abstract
03 May 2020 - Add paper stack effect
03 May 2020 - Post: Top 10 LaTeX packages

Top 10 LaTeX packages for academic writing

Categories

Tags

Table of contents

Introduction

Packages

adjustbox

balance or flushend

booktabs

cleveref

glossaries-extra

microtype

pgfplots

savetrees

siunitx

tikz

FAQ

What is the best L^aT_eX package for tables?

How do I balance the columns on the last page of a two-column paper?

How do I automatically reference figures and tables in L^aT_eX?

Is `glossaries-extra` overkill for a short paper?

Does `microtype` actually make a visible difference?

Is `savetrees` safe to use right before a conference deadline?

Conclusion

AI disclosure

References

Suggested citation

Revisions

Categories

Tags

Table of contents

Introduction

Packages

adjustbox

balance or flushend

booktabs

cleveref

glossaries-extra

microtype

pgfplots

savetrees

siunitx

tikz

FAQ

What is the best LaTeX package for tables?

How do I balance the columns on the last page of a two-column paper?

How do I automatically reference figures and tables in LaTeX?

Is glossaries-extra overkill for a short paper?

Does microtype actually make a visible difference?

Is savetrees safe to use right before a conference deadline?

Conclusion

AI disclosure

References

Suggested citation

Revisions

What is the best L^aT_eX package for tables?

How do I automatically reference figures and tables in L^aT_eX?

Is `glossaries-extra` overkill for a short paper?

Does `microtype` actually make a visible difference?

Is `savetrees` safe to use right before a conference deadline?