Lab report LaTeX template
A good lab report says what you did, shows your data and explains what it means, and LaTeX is very good at the second and third parts: numbers with uncertainties, units, equations and plots come out consistent and professional. This template is a complete short report on measuring the acceleration due to gravity with a pendulum, with the title block, abstract, theory, method, results, discussion, conclusions and references already in place, so you only have to replace the example with your own experiment.
What's included
- Title block with student, partners, course, instructor, group and date
- Abstract and numbered sections from introduction to conclusions
- Numbered equations with cross-references, including an uncertainty propagation example
- Data table with booktabs and siunitx columns that align numbers and uncertainties
- Plot drawn with pgfplots, with error bars and a fit line, so no image files are needed
- Bibliography in references.bib with author-year citations
How to customize it
Change the report details at the top of main.tex (\reporttitle, \student, \course, \instructor and the rest) and the title block updates itself. Write quantities with \qty{9.81}{\metre\per\second\squared} so units stay consistent, replace the rows of the table and the coordinates in the axis environment with your own measurements, and add sources to references.bib to cite them with \parencite{key}. If you prefer an image, use the \includegraphics line left in the figure.