We are going to typeset a very clean and easy layout for a curriculum vitae using LaTeX, currvita and ClassicThesis. While I’m not extremely familiar with those styles, I took inspiration from the code snippet for a CV which is to be found at page 202 of “L’Arte di Scrivere con LaTeX” by Lorenzo Pantieri, available in Italian at [PDF] the author’s website.
As always, a preview of the final document follows (those screenshots are from multiple documents and variations thereof).
1 The Preamble
\documentclass{scrartcl} % classe article di KOMA
1.1 Margin Notes
In the economy of this document, margin notes will be fundamental markers as the following image clearly shows
First we need to set margin notes to default to the left margin (reversemarginpar), then I create a new shortcut command which will set the notes ragged left, italic, and small.
\reversemarginpar \newcommand{\MarginDate}[1]{\marginpar{\raggedleft\itshape\small#1}}
1.2 Style and Currvita helper package
For a more in–depth analysis of the packages, refer to CTAN and the appropriate documentation.
\usepackage[LabelsAligned]{currvita} % CV package \usepackage[nochapters]{classicthesis} % ClassicThesis style
1.3 Miscellaneous Commands
\usepackage{url} % per gli indirizzi Internet \renewcommand{\cvheadingfont}{\LARGE\color{Maroon}} \renewcommand{\cvlistheadingfont}{\large} \renewcommand{\cvlabelfont}{\qquad} %Setup hyperref package, and colours for links, text and headings \usepackage{hyperref} \hypersetup{ colorlinks,breaklinks, urlcolor=Maroon, linkcolor=Maroon} \usepackage{eurosym}
1.4 Boxes and Dimensions
We will need to know the width of the biggest entry in the work experience “period”, in this way we make sure we have enought space for all the periods to align neatly.
\newlength{\datebox} \settowidth{\datebox}{Summer 2007} \newcommand{\Sep}{\vspace{2em}} % a trivial separator % the following is for languages \newlength{\langbox} \settowidth{\langbox}{English}
1.5 Helper Commands: NewWorkExperience and Description
NewWorkExperience creates a Date – Job coupling, with a third argument for a location.
\newcommand{\NewWorkExperience}[3]{\noindent\hangindent=2em\hangafter=0 \parbox{\datebox}{\textit{#1}}\hspace{1.5em} #2 #3% \vspace{0.5em}}
while Description is simply a ragged right text box which contains a description of the job.
\newcommand{\Description}[1]{\hangindent=2em\hangafter=0\noindent\raggedright\footnotesize{#1}\par\normalsize}
The Document
The document is very simple, there is nothing particularly fancy and it is mostly self–explanatory.
\begin{document} \thispagestyle{empty} \begin{cv}{\spacedallcaps{Marco Tullio Cicerone}} \vspace{1.5em} \spacedlowsmallcaps{Personal Data} \vspace{0.5em} \NewWorkExperience{}{\textit{Born in Matera,}}{13 November 1920} \NewWorkExperience{email}{\href{mailto:name.surname@gmail.com}{name.surname@gmail.com}}{} \NewWorkExperience{phone}{+123 456 7890}{} \vspace{1.5em} \noindent\spacedlowsmallcaps{Work Experience} \vspace{0.5em} \NewWorkExperience{Current}{Trader at Enoi spa,}{Milan} \Description{Provided analysis of spreads, \MarginDate{Physical Natural Gas Trading} in particular time and location spreads, with emphasis on trading opportunities on the curve, also taking into account the availability of storage facilities. Became familiar with logistic implications of physical gas trading and developed knowledge of continental virtual hubs for gas exchange.} \Sep \NewWorkExperience{2008--2009}{Lehman Brothers,}{London} \Description{Developed spreadsheets for risk analysis\MarginDate{Commodities Exotics Trading} on exotic derivatives on a wide array of commodities (ags, oils, precious and base metals), managed blotter and secondary trades on structured notes, liaised with Middle Office, Sales and Structuring for bookkeeping} \Sep \NewWorkExperience{Summer 2007}{Lehman Brothers,}{London} \Description{Received pre-placed offer from the Exotics Trading Desk as a \MarginDate{Summer Internship} result of very positive review. Rated ``truly distinctive'' for Analytical Skills and Teamwork} \vspace{1.5em} \spacedlowsmallcaps{Education} \vspace{0.5em} \NewWorkExperience{July 2008}{Bocconi University,}{Milan} \Description{110/110 \textit{summa cum laude}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Major: Quantitative Finance\MarginDate{Master of Science in Finance}\newline Thesis: ``Sublinear and Locally Sublinear Prices'' \newline Advisor: Prof.~Erio \textsc{Castagnoli}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Gpa: 28.61/30} \Sep \NewWorkExperience{July 2006}{Bocconi University,}{Milan} \Description{110/110 \textit{summa cum laude}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Major: Quantitative Finance\MarginDate{Some Other Education}\newline Thesis: ``Sublinear and Locally Sublinear Prices'' \newline Advisor: Prof.~Erio \textsc{Castagnoli}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Gpa: 28.61/30} \vspace{1.5em} \spacedlowsmallcaps{Additional Information} \vspace{0.5em} \Description{Sept. 2006 Scholarship for graduate students with an outstanding curriculum (\euro\ 30,000) } \vspace{1em} \Description{June 2006 Gmat\textregistered: 730 (q:50;v:39) \MarginDate{Gmat}96\textsuperscript{th} percentile; \newline\textsc{awa}: 6.0/6.0 (89\textsuperscript{th} percentile)} \vspace{1em} \Description{\parbox{\langbox}{\textsc{English}}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ \ Fluent} \vspace{0.5em} \Description{\parbox{\langbox}{\textsc{French}}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ \ Fluent} \MarginDate{Languages} \vspace{0.5em} \Description{\parbox{\langbox}{\textsc{Italian}}\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ \ Mother Tongue} \vspace{1em} \Description{\LaTeX\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Typography\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Programming\ \ $\cdotp$\ \ Other\MarginDate{Interests}} \enlargethispage{\baselineskip} \end{cv} \end{document}
The PDF Document is available here and the tex source here.
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]]>Letterspacing may increase the readability of your text, whereby the principle applies to
a) text set in bold;
b) text set in small caps.
It does not apply to text set in lowercase. In other words, don’t letterspace text set in lowercase.
How does this apply to a Resume?
There are at least two cases in which we can enhance the readability of our Curriculum Vitae or Resume, one which is especially important.
In fact, if you think about it, your name and surname are sitting at the top of the CV, which makes them a focal point where the eye is attracted instantly. This is the reason why your name must be typographically distinguished in some way: typically it is set in bold face, or small caps, or even ALL CAPS!
Problem is, sometimes bold text and small caps benefit from a little letterspacing, so we will see how that is achieved with fontspec and its easy to implement [LetterSpace = <number>] option when calling the \fontspec{some font} command, as we will shortly show after a visual preview of what we can do.
Here follows the XeLaTeX code to typeset the examples above (which are gathered in the pdf file at the end of the post).
% typeset the lowercase text \newcommand{\text}{Kramer Seinfeld} \fontsize{36}{36} \fontspec{Fontin} %make sure you have Fontin installed %\bfseries %if you want text in bold face, the second example %\scshape %if you want text in small caps, make sure you have the font installed \marginpar{\scshape\addfontfeature{Color=FF0000} letterspace} \text\marginpar{0.0} {\addfontfeature{LetterSpace=2.0} \text\marginpar{2.0}} {\addfontfeature{LetterSpace=5.0} \text}\marginpar{5.0}
Next CV Typographic Tip will be about emphasizing text, how much should you emphasize your text so that it doesn’t look like this (see the Not so short introduction to LaTeX)?
By the way, anyone ever heard of “Seinfeld”?
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On wikipedia, Linux Libertine is described as:
[…] a serif proportional font that looks like a 19th century book type, though it has been developed for today’s usability. It contains more than 2000 Unicode characters, including support for many different languages of the western Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew typeset. Additionally it offers several ligatures (such as ff, fi, ct, …) and has special characters like IPA characters, arrows, floral symbols, Roman numbers, oldstyle numbers, small caps etc. The OpenType implementation allows automatic positioning and substitution like true fractures, ligatures and kerning
You can find more about Linux Libertine at their website, a few examples of glyphs and characters are shown below, together with a preview of the CV Template that we will build using this typeface:
Features:
- Grid Based with my custom style file (more on this in the following weeks)
- Linux Libertine Font and Qlassik Medium for the name header
- Nice and Clean color structure based only on shades of grey
- Custom itemization of Computer Languages with gradient bullets
- Support for inserting in an easy way a picture
- Support for a personal quote, a very short summary, or a career objective right below the name, emphasizing its importance
Check out the code and the final result and let me know your feedback…
The document with its grid can be seen here and a zip bundle with the .sty to generate the grid is at this link
% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------% % Created by Alessandro with TeXShop % % ----> Sep 1, 2009 % % Compiled with XeLaTeX, on Mac OS X 10.5 % % Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported % % Share, change, spread, and have fun! % % http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ % % You can find more at http://cv-templates.info % % ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------% \documentclass{article} %% LaTeX Preamble - Common packages \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % Any characters can be typed directly from the keyboard, eg éçñ \usepackage{textcomp} % provide lots of new symbols \usepackage{graphicx} % Add graphics capabilities \usepackage{xcolor} % Colors % Define Colors \definecolor{lightg}{HTML}{999999} \definecolor{medg}{HTML}{666666} \definecolor{darkg}{HTML}{333333} \usepackage{wrapfig} %FONTS \usepackage{fontspec} % not using this much although I should have \font\head="Qlassik Medium:letterspace=4" at 34pt % http://www.dafont.com/qlassik.font \font\subhead="Linux Libertine O Bold" at 15pt \font\Quote="Linux Libertine O Bold Italic:mapping=tex-text" at 16pt \font\Text="Linux Libertine O" at 11pt \font\Textit="Linux Libertine O/I:+onum" at 11pt % /I select Italic \font\Textblack="Linux Libertine O/BI" at 9pt % /BI select Bold Italic \font\Textsc="Linux Libertine O:+smcp" at 11pt % +smcp selects Small Caps \font\wdate="Linux Libertine O:+smcp, letterspace=4,+onum" at 9pt % +onum old style numerals \usepackage[margin=10mm]{geometry} % Margins \usepackage[pdftex,bookmarks,colorlinks,breaklinks]{hyperref} % PDF \usepackage{setspace} % leading % Commands to keep the code clean % Below experience section you can see this structure % WorkDate -> Keyword % ^^ Multi line WorkDescription ^^ \newcommand{\workdate}[1]{% \textcolor{lightg}{\wdate #1}} \newcommand{\workdescription}[1]{% \raggedright\textcolor{medg}{\Text \begin{spacing}{1.1818}#1 \end{spacing}}} % Variation with reduced leading \newcommand{\workdescriptionVAR}[1]{ \raggedright\textcolor{medg}{\Text \begin{spacing}{1.1}#1 \end{spacing}}} %Styling Itemizations \usepackage{enumitem} \renewcommand{\labelitemi}{\textcolor{lightg}{\symbol{"F6B9}}} % Bullets \definecolor{noteone}{HTML}{999999} \definecolor{notetwo}{HTML}{848484} \definecolor{notethree}{HTML}{424242} \definecolor{notefour}{HTML}{212121} \definecolor{notefive}{HTML}{000000} \newcommand{\fivenotes}{% \textcolor{noteone}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notetwo}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notethree}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notefour}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notefive}{\symbol{"2022}} } \newcommand{\fournotes}{% \textcolor{noteone}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notetwo}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notethree}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notefour}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} } \newcommand{\threenotes}{% \textcolor{noteone}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notetwo}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notethree}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} } \newcommand{\twonotes}{% \textcolor{noteone}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{notetwo}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} } \newcommand{\onenote}{% \textcolor{noteone}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} \textcolor{white}{\symbol{"2022}} } % Important: This is not an official package, is a customized typogrid % .sty file which I wrote and enables the 5 column grid \usepackage[draft, columns=5]{mytypogrid} \begin{document} \parindent=0cm \begin{minipage}[t]{0.59\linewidth} \head \textcolor{darkg}{RICHARD STALLMAN}\\ \\ \begin{wrapfigure}{i}{0pt} \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{gnu.png} \hspace{25pt} \end{wrapfigure} \raggedright\Quote\color{darkg} \kern -10pt``\ I like computers, music and butterflies --- among other things.'' \vspace{3em} \hrule \end{minipage} \hfill \begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \Textit \textcolor{darkg}{born}\ \textcolor{lightg}{ March 16, 1953} \vspace{2.2em} \subhead \textcolor{darkg}{Contacts}\\\color{medg} \Text \textcolor{medg}{ Free Software Foundation\\ Boston, Massachusetts, USA}\\ \textcolor{darkg}{phone} : 123 456 789\\ \textcolor{darkg}{email} : rms@gnu.org \vspace{1em} \textcolor{lightg}{http://www.stallman.org/} \end{minipage} \vspace{2.3em} \subhead \symbol{"E000}\ Experience \hspace{0.205\textwidth}\begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \vspace{0pt} \workdate{1983}\hfill\Textblack Manifesto \workdescription{Published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix.} \end{minipage} \hfill \begin{minipage}[t]{0.387\textwidth} \vspace{0pt} \workdate{1985}\hfill\Textblack Emacs \workdescription{Popularized the concept of copyleft, a legal mechanism to protect the modification and redistribution rights for free software. It was first implemented in the GNU Emacs General Public License.} \end{minipage} \vspace{1em} \hspace{0.205\textwidth}\begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \workdate{1987}\hfill\Textblack GNU \workdescription{The first program-independent GNU General Public License (GPL) was released. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed.} \end{minipage} \hfill \begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \workdate{1991}\hfill\Textblack Linux \workdescription{Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student, used the GNU development tools to produce the Linux kernel} \end{minipage} \vspace{3em} \hrule \vspace{4.1em} \subhead\kern -13pt\symbol{"E000} Computer Specialties \symbol{"E050} Programming Languages\\ \hspace{0.205\textwidth}\begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \hfill\Textblack ...in words... \workdescriptionVAR{\vspace{5pt} The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. \\\vspace{10pt}GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain. \\\vspace{10pt} As well as being the official compiler of the GNU operating system, GCC has been adopted as the standard compiler by most other modern Unix-like computer operating systems, including GNU/Linux, the BSD family and Mac OS X. \\\vspace{10pt}GCC has been ported to a wide variety of processor architectures, and is widely deployed as a tool in commercial, proprietary and closed source software development environments.} \end{minipage} \hspace{3.1mm} \begin{minipage}[t]{0.38\textwidth} \Textblack ...and in bullets. \vspace{5pt} \begin{itemize}[leftmargin=25pt, rightmargin=55pt, labelsep=10pt, itemsep=0pt, topsep=0pt]\Text \item \textcolor{medg}{C++}\hfill \fournotes \item \color{medg}C\hfill \threenotes \item Lisp\hfill \fivenotes \item Bash \hfill \twonotes \item GNU/Linux \hfill \fournotes \item Lisp\hfill \fivenotes \item Bash \hfill \twonotes \item GNU/Linux \hfill \fournotes \item Lisp\hfill \fivenotes \item Bash \hfill \twonotes \item GNU/Linux \hfill \fournotes \item Lisp\hfill \fivenotes \item Bash \hfill \twonotes \item GNU/Linux \hfill \fournotes \end{itemize} \end{minipage} \vfill \raggedleft\wdate Typeset \today \end{document}
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The Typographer
Most of the templates built with LaTeX look like prehistoric documents and are embarassing in that they are usually designed with the standard font, with the standard class, no colours whatsoever, no creativity.
Plain LaTeX — what one would do when writing a math paper, just load a few packages and you’re good to go.
I wanted to showcase the possibility that XeLaTeX offers to customize a lot of aspects of the style of your document, and for the purpose of this tutorial I figured I was a web designer and wanted to showcase, along with my computer skills and my experience, example thumbnails of work as a designer and finishing off the document with a fancy contact section.
A preview follows
1 – Toolkit: Packages and Preamble
1.1 – Graphics and Colours
\documentclass[10pt]{article} %Load Graphics and Colours \usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{tikz} \usetikzlibrary{backgrounds} \usepackage{wrapfig} \definecolor{linkcolour}{HTML}{2b2b2b} \definecolor{text1}{HTML}{2B2B2B} \definecolor{headings}{HTML}{CC3300} \definecolor{backgroundColor}{HTML}{CC3300}
This is the color combination that will be used
1.2 – Margins and Leading
%margins \usepackage[hmargin=1.25cm, vmargin=1cm]{geometry} \linespread{1.2} \usepackage{setspace}
Things to notice:
- the linespread command is used for the whole document;
- the setspace package is used to address specific paragraphs;
1.3 – Styling Itemization
Styling Itemization with Custom Calluna Symbol
The package enumitem allows you to apply a custom style to your enumerations, and many other things like spacing and indenting: check out the documentation on CTAN.
%Styling Itemizations \usepackage{enumitem} \renewcommand{\labelitemi}{\symbol{"E052}}
1.4 – Fonts for XeLaTeX; Calluna and Helvetica Neue
We will use the following two professional fonts:
CALLUNA
Calluna Regular — A wonderful new free professional font
HELVETICA NEUE BOLD
Adobe Helvetica Neue Black
Helvetica Neue is a commercial fonts and may not be available to your system: I suggest taking a look at some other free fonts for headings, for example Qlassik Bold
%Fonts and Tweaks for XeLaTeX \font\headers="Helvetica Neue Bold:letterspace=5" at 20pt \font\SectionHeaders="Helvetica Neue Bold:letterspace=5" at 14pt \font\Career="Calluna:color=2b2b2b" at 13pt \font\Text="Calluna:color=2b2b2b" at 11pt \font\TextAlt="Calluna:color=CC3300" at 11pt \font\TextSC="Calluna:+smcp, color=2b2b2b" at 11pt \font\slash="Calluna:+zero, color=2b2b2b" at 40pt \font\slashAlt="Calluna:+zero, color=CC3300" at 40pt \font\ContactHeaders="Calluna" at 170 pt \font\trick="Calluna:color=FFFFFF" at 0.1 pt
Other things to notice here:
- letterspace is modified to allow for headings to be more legible. This is usual practice with all caps text;
- color is given to the command setting the font name;
- +smcp is XeTeX syntax to recall Small Caps in the font table;
- +zero is XeTeX syntax to recall Slashed Zero in the font table;
- trick will be used as a workaround to hyperlinks not working properly for images in XeLaTeX;
- I decided to use this syntax, however you could more easily access font features with the well-known fontspec package.
1.5 – Hyperref Package
%Setup hyperref package, and colours for links, text and headings \usepackage{hyperref} \hypersetup{ colorlinks,breaklinks, urlcolor=linkcolour, linkcolor=linkcolour}
1.6 – Custom Sections
%custom \section \usepackage{titlesec} %CV Sections inspired by: %http://stefano.italians.nl/archives/26 \titleformat{\section} {\SectionHeaders\raggedright}{}{0em}{} \titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{0pt}{5pt} \thispagestyle{empty}
Continued at NEXT PAGE
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This tutorial has been contributed to the wikibooks project. You can find it at this link (currently accepted)
Table Data are notoriously hard to read line by line.
In the very same way, grades in a Curriculum can be hard to read.
A nifty and quick workaround is to shade alternate rows with different colours, preferably one white and the other a little darker.
Confused?
Apple will give you a hand: just look at your iTunes — and I will make your job easier by posting a screenshot here (click on them!).
So usual question: how do we go from a normal table to a table with shaded rows, in LaTeX & Friends?
In images, how do we make the transition from the first to the second screenshot?
The answer is simple and it is all a matter of looking into the xcolor package documentation, which provides you with the command which we will be using in order to get the shaded rows.
The package documentation is available, as always, on CTAN.
Let us start with the preamble of the document:
\documentclass{article} \usepackage[table]{xcolor} \definecolor{tableShade}{HTML}{F1F5FA} %iTunes \definecolor{tableShade2}{HTML}{ECF3FE} %Finder \begin{document}
things to note down are:
- we use the xcolor package;
- we invoke the [table] option, otherwise we won’t be able to use the table color features;
- we define a new color which will be used to shade odd (or even) rows.
For our examples we use the following two colours, grabbed from iTunes and Finder on Mac OS X.
All you need to get your table now, besides the data, is ONE command (!).
I repeat: a single command will produce a table with odd rows and even rows of alternate colours.
The command in question is \rowcolors{1}{tableShade}{white}, to be inserted right before your table.
The syntax is pretty easy: \rowcolors{<starting row>}{<odd rows colour>}{<even rows colour>}
and we are done!
The code follows
\begin{center} \rowcolors{1}{tableShade}{white} %SOURCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_craters_on_the_Moon,_T-Z#X \begin{tabular}{l|c|l} \scshape Crater & \scshape Diameter & \scshape Eponym\\ \hline Zach & 70 km & Franz Xaver von Zach (1754-1832)\\ Zagut & 84 km & Abraham Ben Samuel Zagut (circa 1450-circa 1522)\\ Zähringer & 11 km & Joseph Zahringer (1929-1970)\\ Zanstra & 42 km & Herman Zanstra (1894-1972)\\ Zasyadko & 11 km & Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko (1779-1837)\\ Zeeman & 190 km & Pieter Zeeman (1865-1943)\\ Zelinskiy & 53 km & Nikolay Dimitrievich Zelinskiy (1860-1953)\\ Zeno & 65 km & Zeno of Citium (circa 335-263 B.C.)\\ Zernike & 48 km & Frits Zernike (1888-1966)\\ Zhiritskiy & 35 km & Georgiy Sergeevich Zhiritskiy (1893-1966)\\ Zhukovskiy & 81 km & Nikolay Egorovich Zhukovskiy (1847-1921)\\ Zinner & 4 km & Ernst Zinner (1886-1970)\\ Zöllner & 47 km & Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner (1834-1882)\\ Zsigmondy & 65 km & Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (1865-1929)\\ Zucchius & 64 km & Niccolo Zucchi (1586-1670)\\ Zupus & 38 km & Giovanni Battista Zupi (circa 1590-1650)\\ Zwicky & 150 km & Fritz Zwicky (1898-1974) \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{document}
which produces
While this is a useful example, you should consider leaving table headings and the first row white, and using the shade colour from the third row onwards (by specifying 3 instead of 1 in the starting row argument.
Moreover, if you for any reason want to eliminate shading from a particular row, this can be easily done via the \hiderowcolors command, and reactivate shading via the \showrowcolors command.
this second table with custom end line is typeset by the following code:
\begin{center} \rowcolors{3}{tableShade}{white} \begin{tabular}{lcc} \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textsc{Exam}} &\textsc{Grade} & \textsc{Grade Points}\\ \hline Corporate Financial Strategy & A & 4\\ Derivatives & A & 4\\ Money, Credit, and Banking & A & 4\\ Business Strategy & A- & 3.5\\ & & \\ \hiderowcolors &\textsc{Gpa} &\textbf{3.875} \end{tabular} \end{center}
XeLaTeX Source
PDF Output
Related posts:
- CV Tip: Align Columns of Different LaTeX Tables with \settowidth
- CV Tip: Letterspacing your name with XeLaTeX + Fontspec
- Wrapping Text in Rounded Corners ColorBox in LaTeX with TikZ and PGF
- Advanced two-column LaTeX CV Template | Part 2 + TeX Source
- CurrVita & ClassicThesis LaTeX CV Template – 100 lines of code
1. Splitting the document with vertically aligned minipages;
2. Designing the Work Experience and Education Section;
The first part of this tutorial is to be found at this post.
Just for a quick recap, this is what we want to achieve as our final result
After the title, whose code we have seen in the previous post, we are going to setup the document so that the it is nicely divided into two columns.
In order to achieve that with the maximum flexibility, we will make us of minipages, that is, the minipage environment.
You can find more information on this environment at the following link.
I apologize in advance for the indenting, but the code highlighter is kinda funky.
The left-hand side column
We start the left hand side column with the following code:
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\textwidth} %START of left-hand side minipage
The previous code means creating a minipage, i.e. a page within the page, whose vertical alignment is t = top (where other possible choices in the standard non-generalized minipage environment can be b = bottom and c = center).
Moreover, the page width equals 0.5 times the textwidth, which is not the same as the paperwidth!
Now a little trick which will make things easier for the alignment of the two minipages:
\vspace{0pt}
now the reason for this is not 100% clear to me, so I will redirect you to page 25 of the [PDF] epslatex package documentation.
And now the easy stuff: Section Headers, Dates of Employment, Company, Position, a Description of your daily activities…if you’re not sure about how to structure the document, you can refer to this post.
The code for this is pretty straightforward:
% NEW SECTION \section{Work Experience} %WORK EXPERIENCE -1- \raggedleft \emph{Current}, from \textsc{Jan 2009}\par \raggedright\large Trader at \textsc{Enoi} s.p.a., Milan\\ \emph{Physical Natural Gas Trading}\\[5pt] \normalsize{Provided analysis of spreads, in particular time and location spreads, with emphasis on trading opportunities on the curve, also taking into account the availability of storage facilities. Became familiar with logistic implications of physical gas trading and developed knowledge of continental virtual hubs for gas exchange.}\\[10pt]
After listing here a few of your work-related experience, you should consider putting here some more interesting stuff which requires a little more than a single line, for example your participation to conferences, the awards and scholarships you received, or international certificates and qualifications you might have.
% NEW SECTION \section{International Certificates and Awards} \raggedleft{\textsc{Sep 2006}}\par\raggedright Scholarship for graduate students with an outstanding curriculum (\euro\ 30,000)\normalsize\\[3pt]\raggedleft{\textsc{Jun 2006}}\par\raggedright \textsc{Gmat}\textregistered: 730 (\textsc{q:50;v:39}) 96\textsuperscript{th} percentile\\ \textsc{awa}: 6.0/6.0 (89\textsuperscript{th} percentile)\\[10pt]
%% NEW SECTION \section{\textsc{Computer Skills}} \begin{tabular}{rl} Basic Knowledge: & \textsc{php}, my\textsc{sql}, \textsc{html}, Access\\ & \textsc{Linux}, ubuntu, {\LaTeX}\\ & \\ Intermediate Knowledge: & \textsc{Vba}, Excel, Word, PowerPoint\\ \end{tabular}
and we are done with the left-hand side column
\end{minipage} %END of left-hand side minipage
The right-hand side column
Just like the first minipage, the second is obtained with the following command:
\hfill \begin{minipage}[t]{0.44\textwidth} %START of right-hand side minipage \vspace{0pt} %trick for alignment
notice the \hfill command which puts the minipages as far as possible in the text width. This wouldn’t make sense if the minipages where 50% of the width each, but please notice as well that the right hand side column is slightly smaller, which makes the document look a little more stylish.
It also helps giving more focus on the work experience part, that is, the left hand side minipage.
As for the right hand side section, remember to keep it simple and short, otherwise the content will flow out of the margin, resulting in the common warning of “overfull box”.
The “contact” box
The contact box is the box at the top right of the minipage, with the nicely colored background.
Contact Form
How do we obtain this? The package xcolor and color will give us a hand…
Also, the symbols need a little bit of tweaking as well.
This is the code to produce the box:
\colorbox{shade}{\textcolor{text1}{ \begin{tabular}{c|p{7cm}} & Born in Wonderland, Italy July 3, 1912 \\ \raisebox{-3pt}{\Phone} & +39 123 456789\\ \raisebox{-3pt}{\Envelope} &\href{mailto:albert.einstein@gmail.com} {einstein.einstein@gmail.com} \end{tabular} } }\\[10pt]
The \Phone and \Envelope symbols are provided by the bbding package, which we loaded at the beginning of the document.
A little tweaking is required to the vertical alignment of the symbols via the \raisebox command, although I am not sure as to the reason why this happens.
The next section is very easy to obtain, so I won’t go into the details of its typesetting.
This is the code:
\section{Education} \begin{tabular}{rl} %EDUCATION -1- \textsc{July} 2008 & Master of Science in \textsc{Finance}\\ & \textbf{Bocconi University}, Milan\\ & 110/110 \small\emph{summa cum laude}\\ & Major: Quantitative Finance\\ &\normalsize \textsc{Gpa}: 28.61/30\\ &\\ %EDUCATION -2- \textsc{July} 2006 & Undergraduate Degree in\\ & \textsc{Law} and \textsc{Business Administration}\\ & \textbf{Bocconi University}, Milan\\ &110/110 \small\emph{summa cum laude}\\ &\normalsize \textsc{Gpa}: 29.85/30\\ &\\ %EDUCATION -3- \textsc{Fall} 2005& Exchange Semester at \\ & \textbf{University of Southern California} \\ &Los Angeles\\ &\\ %EDUCATION -4- \textsc{July} 2003& \textbf{Liceo Classico ``E. Duni''}\\ & Matera\\ & Final Grade: 100/100\end{tabular}\\[10pt]
and this is the result:
That’s all for this document.
If you so wish, you can view the text source of the document online at this link.
Alternatively, feel free to download the source and the pdf of the finished document below
XeLaTeX Source
PDF Output
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]]>In this post and in the following parts I will cover and try to explain how to design a two-column layout in LaTeX.
This CV template will have a humanistic look and feel, and it will represent a useful option for those who want to emphasize their work experience over the education they received.
For example, it would be a good solution for professionals with 4/5 previous jobs, who want to give a detailed explanation and description of their previous occupation.
A preview of the result follows.
Let’s give some structure to our task:
- How do we get the two column layout?
The answer is: by dividing the document into two vertically aligned minipages; - How do we get the section titles to look like these?
The answer is: we need to use the titlesec, color, and xcolor packages. Their documentation, as always, is available on CTAN; - Which fonts do we need to typeset this document?
To reproduce exactly the screenshots, you would need Hoefler Text, Zapfino, and Gill Sans.
Even though these fonts are not freely available, Mac OS X users like myself have them already installed in their system.
Other operating system users might try the following free OpenType alternatives: Gentium, Doulos SIL, Fontin, and some of the fonts at this website.
Let’s get started then!
The preamble: required packages
- document class is article;
\documentclass[10pt]{article}
- load graphics packages
%symbols - the ones you see on the left of the email and of the phone \usepackage{bbding} \RequirePackage{color,graphicx} \usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{xcolor} \usepackage{amssymb}
- Define the following colors for the document
%Setup hyperref package, and colours for links, text and headings \usepackage{hyperref} \definecolor{linkcolour}{HTML}{FF0080} %light purple link for the email \definecolor{shade}{HTML}{D4D7FE} %light blue shade \definecolor{text1}{HTML}{2b2b2b} %text is almost black \definecolor{headings}{HTML}{701112} %dark red \hypersetup{colorlinks,breaklinks,urlcolor=linkcolour, linkcolor=linkcolour}
- The following tell the compiler which fonts to use:
\usepackage{fontspec,xltxtra,xunicode} \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text} \setromanfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Hoefler Text} \setsansfont[Scale=MatchLowercase,Mapping=tex-text]{Gill Sans} \setmonofont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{Andale Mono}
Hoefler Text From Wikipedia
- The geometry package will help us with the horizontal and vertical margins
% See geometry.pdf to learn the layout options. There are lots. \usepackage[hmargin=1.25cm, vmargin=1.5cm]{geometry}
- We then customize the footer with the fancyhdr package
\usepackage{fancyhdr} %custom footer \pagestyle{fancy} \fancyhf{} \rfoot{ \color{headings} {\sffamily Last update: \today}. Typeset with \XeTeX } \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
- Finally we customize the section command
\usepackage{titlesec} %custom section %CV Sections inspired by: %http://stefano.italians.nl/archives/26 \titleformat{\section} {\color{headings} \Large\raggedright}{}{0em}{}[\color{black}\titlerule] \titlespacing{section}{0pt}{0pt}{5pt}
Gill Sans Font
The “Title”
The title is very easily obtained: it is a) sans-serif, b) centered, c) Huge (or Huge in LaTeX terminology)
\par{\centering {\sffamily\Huge Albert Einstein }\\
we then add the fancy Curriculum Vitae line just below the name
Fancy Heading
with the following commands:
\begin{document} {\color{headings} \fontspec[Variant = 2]{Zapfino} Curriculum {\fontspec[Variant = 3]{Zapfino}V}it\ae} \\[25pt]\par}
These are the available options with the Zapfino font and the [Variant = <number>] option in fontspec
Upcoming in Part 2:
- Splitting the document with vertically aligned minipages;
- Designing the Work Experience and Education Section;
- Experimenting with more fonts (maybe in Part 3).
Click here for PART 2
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]]>Even more, it should be attractive, and the choice of the typeface is very important.
For a review of the steps required to typeset this CV, please refer to this post.
In this post, we will go over ten tips to help you build your perfect curriculum vitae, with emphasis on the Investment Banking industry.
- Your FULL NAME should be centered and BIG.
Nothing on the CV page should be bigger than your name!
Feel free to emphasize your last name in Small Caps. If you use Fontin, you’re good to go. - A Personal Data Section should follow.
It should include your contacts, most importantly your mobile phone and your email.
Most of the times an Investment Bank HR person will call you on your mobile, or send you an email.
You can make the email clickable, i.e. mailto:yourname@domain.com
- If you have Work Experience, this absolutely goes before the Education Section.
Start with your most recent occupation, your recent work experience will obviously matter most to the reader. - A brief description of your previous work is fundamental.
Names like volatility trading, derivatives, prime services, product structuring and development mean very different things to different people.
You don’t want to mislead the reader. Be clear and precise. - Education is another key section. Make sure you outline at least which College you attended, and your Grade Point Average.
Very important for some employers is your final thesis or dissertation: it is a good indicator of which kind of things you are interested in (e.g. Quantitative Finance? Mergers and Acquisitions? Ballet?) - Any Exchange Program abroad has to be emphasized.
This is a great signal that you are open to other cultures, able to adapt quickly to new environments and, above all, that you know the language of the place you have been to! - Put a link, possibly an internal hyperlink, to all of your exams: this will show self-confidence and it will allow a better analysis and review of your studies from the reader.
- International Certificates like TOEFL, GMAT, IELTS, GRE are objective representations of your learning potential and knowledge of the English language.
They are in great esteem because they are standardized and internationally recognized at most levels!
If you haven’t got any of them, I’ll suggest you start with the TOEFL and then move either to the GMAT or to the GRE. - If you can’t compete on some areas, improve the others.
Are you behind other guys on your GPA? Don’t worry.
Broaden your view of the world:
a) learn a programming language: JAVA, VBA for Excel, C++;
b) learn a foreign language (for real!);
c) participate in social events, clubs, associations and the likes;
d) develop a project for yourself (and yes, everyone’s sick of reading that you manage your portfolio of stocks) - Use Microsoft Word only if it’s impossible for you to do otherwise.
LaTeX (free) and InDesign (not free!) will help you develop a CV which stands out.
Can you imagine someone reading thousands of CVs always with the same typeface, same structure, same formatting?
XeLaTeX is your friend, the Web is your friends with all OpenType Free Fonts you can imagine!
Don’t be too fancy, but don’t be boring: try out LaTeX (google it!) and you will make an impact!
In the screenshot that follows, a recap of what we have seen so far.
The Top Half of a CV
Got anymore tips? Share them in the comments!
Second Half of a CV
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]]>Please let me note before we move on that anything you find on this website is (legally) free. You do not have to pay neither for the software, nor for the fonts I will be using.
At the moment, I am skipping the installation part of the LaTeX system, you can find useful directions here.
It is very simple, but I promise to make a screencast for the installation process if anyone’s actually interested. Let me know.
Your Professional CV in LaTeX
Before we move on with some code, let’s take a peek at what we will build from scratch:
And now let’s get our hands dirty! Any LaTeX document starts with a declaration of the class the document belongs to. This includes setting the paper height and width, the standard font size, margins, etc.
\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
Next we load some packages which will help us out in typesetting the document
%A Few Useful Packages \usepackage{marvosym} \usepackage{fontspec} %load fonts \usepackage{url,parskip} %formatting \usepackage{xunicode,xltxtra} %other packages for XeTeX %Graphics - Colors \RequirePackage{color,graphicx} \usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{xcolor} %better formatting of the A4 page \usepackage[big]{layaureo} %An alternative to Layaureo can be usepackage{fullpage} \usepackage{supertabular} %for Grades \usepackage{titlesec} %custom section %Setup hyperref package, and colours for links \usepackage{hyperref} \definecolor{linkcolour}{rgb}{0,0.2,0.6} \hypersetup{colorlinks,breaklinks, urlcolor=linkcolour, linkcolor=linkcolour}
A fundamental choice is that of the font: this is up to you, but in this version I’m using Fontin, which looks professional and in this way we can give a personal look to the document.
%FONTS \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text} \setmainfont[SmallCapsFont = Fontin SmallCaps]{Fontin}
Important: the way in which your system chooses the name of fonts could be different from mine, generating the following error message
! Font @tempfonta=Fontin at 10.0pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) file or install ed font not found.
If this kind of problem occurs, there is something wrong with the name of the font you are using, but this depends on your system architecture (Linux, Macintosh, Windows). Last thing we tweak is appearance of sections as produced by the obscure command: section
%CV Sections inspired by: %http://stefano.italians.nl/archives/26 \titleformat{section}{Largescshaperaggedright}{}{0em}{}[\titlerule] \titlespacing{section}{0pt}{3pt}{3pt}
where I found a very important hint at this website. This tweak will eliminate numbers from section headings, format them in Large size, apply small caps as font family, and finally draw a rule after the section title. The final resul will be
Custom Section Headings
We are now ready to begin writing the document!
%-------BEGIN DOCUMENT-------- \begin{document}
we then remove page numbers from the footer of the document with
\pagestyle{empty} % non-numbered pages
A CV usually starts with your name,
%--------------------TITLE------------- \par{\centering {\Huge Alessandro \textsc{Plasmati} } \bigskip\par}
then we can move on to the sections of the CV. If you happen to have work experience, you should put this section first, starting from the most recent job — your prospective employer wants to read what you’re doing at the moment more than he wants to read what you did five years ago.
Therefore, we need to insert the following sections in the CV:
- Personal Data, the most important part of it being your email address, mobile number, and date of birth.
- Work Experience, detailing when and where you worked, and a brief description of your daily job.
- Education, again starting from your last degree
- Additional Info which are relevant for the job, including scholarships, certificates, languages, interests, etc.
%Section: Personal Data \section{Personal Data} \begin{tabular}{rl} \textsc{Place and Date of Birth:} & Someplace, Italy | dd Month 1912\\ \textsc{Address:} & CV Inn 19, 20301, Milano, Italy\\ \textsc{Phone:} & +39 123 456789\\ \textsc{email:} & \href{mailto:alessandro.plasmati@gmail.com}{alessandro.plasmati@gmail.com}\\ \end{tabular}
which yields the following section
Personal Data Section
then we have the following section named «Work Experience»
which is rendered by the following code
%Section: Work Experience at the top \section{Work Experience} \begin{tabular}{r|p{11cm}} \emph{Current} & Your job at Your Company, Town \\ \textsc{Jan 2009} \emph{What your company does} \\ & \footnotesize{A description of what you do, because your job's name can be meaningless to the reader}\\ \multicolumn{2}{c}{}\ %this clears the space between two jobs %some other job here \end{tabular}
We then boast our wonderful educational background with something of this nature: 
%Section: Education \section{Education} \begin{tabular}{rl} \textsc{July} 2008 & Master of Science in \textsc{Finance}, \textbf{Bocconi University}, Milan\\ & 110/110 \small\emph{summa cum laude} | Major: Quantitative Finance\ & Thesis: ``Sublinear and Locally Sublinear Prices'' | \small Advisor: Prof. Erio \textsc{Castagnoli} &\normalsize \textsc{Gpa}: 28.61/30 \hyperlink{grds}{\hfill | \footnotesize Detailed List of Exams}\\ &\\ %some other degree here \end{tabular}
notice the hyperlink{grds}: it is an internal hyperlink to another section of the CV. In fact, it will redirect your user to the target you specify in your LaTeX source document with the simple command hypertarget{<name>} Additional sections can be much like the following image: 
This is basically all for this part, it’s a very long post already 
You can find the LaTeX source at the end of the tutorial.
Remember: you need to compile the source with XeLaTeX otherwise it is not going to work. Feel free to contact me in the comments if you need help with anything.
Last but not least, a pdf version of the CV can be found if you click on the icon.
Source Code
PDF Output
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