article Related Topics:
LaTeX :: Latexo
 

\mathbf{L}\!{}^\mathbf{A}\!\mathbf{T}\!{}_\mathbf{\displaystyle E}\!\mathbf{X}, written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. It is used mainly by mathematicians, scientists, and engineers in academia. It is also widely used by people outside of these fields as a primary or intermediate format (e.g. translating DocBook and other XML-based formats to PDF) due to the quality of typesetting achieved by TeX.

It offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies, and much more. LaTeX was originally written in 1984 by Leslie Lamport and has become the dominant method for using TeX—few people write in plain TeX anymore. The current version is LaTeX2ε. Both LaTeX and TeX are free software.

Pronunciation

LaTeX is usually pronounced (like "lay-tekh") or (like "lah-tekh"). The last character in the name comes from a capital chi, as the name of TeX derives from the Greek τέχνη (skill, art, technique). While TeX's creator Donald Knuth promoted the pronunciation, Lamport has said he does not favor or deprecate any pronunciation for LaTeX. It is traditionally printed with the special typographical logo shown on this page. In media where the logo cannot be precisely reproduced in running text, the word is typically given the unique capitalization LaTeX to avoid confusion with the word "latex".

The typesetting system

LaTeX is based on the idea that authors should be able to focus on the meaning of what they are writing, without being distracted by the visual presentation of the information. In preparing a LaTeX document, the author specifies the logical structure using familiar concepts such as chapter, section, table, figure, etc., and lets the LaTeX system worry about the presentation of these structures. It therefore encourages the separation of layout from content, while still allowing manual typesetting adjustments where needed. This approach is often regarded as superior to that of "WYSIWYG" word processors and most desktop publishing (DTP) systems, which make isolated visual layout changes easy, but tend to intertwine content and form so tightly that maintaining overall consistency in a document is difficult. Conversely, purely structural systems such as SGML and XML do not directly address presentation at all, relying instead on separate "style" languages such as CSS to handle visual formatting. LaTeX provides great flexibility in both areas.

LaTeX can be arbitrarily extended by using the underlying macro language to develop custom formats. Such macros are often collected into packages which are available to address special formatting issues such as complicated mathematical content or graphics. In addition, there are numerous commercial implementations of the entire TeX system, including LaTeX, to which vendors may add extra features like additional typefaces and telephone support. LyX is a free visual document processor that uses LaTeX for a back-end. TeXmacs is a free, WYSIWYG editor with similar functionalities as LaTeX, but a different typesetting engine.

A number of popular commercial DTP systems use modified versions of the original TeX typesetting engine. The recent rise in popularity of XML systems and the demand for large-scale batch production of publication-quality typesetting from such sources has seen a steady increase in the use of LaTeX.

The example below shows an example of a LaTeX output:

The example below shows the LaTeX input:

\documentclass*{article}
\title{\LaTeX}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle \LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for the \TeX{} typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies, and much more. \LaTeX{} was originally written in 1984 by Leslie Lamport and has become the dominant method for using \TeX; few people write in plain \TeX{} anymore. The current version is \LaTeXe.
\newline
% This is a comment, it is not shown in the final output.
% The following shows a little of the typesetting power of LaTeX
\begin{eqnarray}
E &=& mc^2 \\
m &=& \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
\end{eqnarray}
\end{document}

style="text-align: left" |

Online LaTeX, which uses this example.

Licensing issues

LaTeX is distributed under a free software licence, the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL). The LPPL is not compatible with the GNU General Public License, as it requires that modified files carry a modified filename; this was done to ensure that files that depend on other files will produce the expected behavior and avoids problems similar to DLL hell. A new version of the LPPL that will be compatible with the GPL is in the works. The LPPL is DFSG compliant since its version 1.3.

Editors and IDEs

There are a plethora of editors and IDEs available. So many, in fact, that you should be able to find one that suits your document-creation style, regardless of what that style is.

Tools

Various peripheral tools to automate LaTeX typesetting.

Distributions

  • MiKTeX A popular and up-to-date TeX (including LaTeX) implementation for Windows.
  • ProTeXt "an easy-to-install TeX distribution for Windows, based on MiKTeX." Kept up-to-date.
  • OzTeX A popular and up-to-date TeX (including LaTeX, AMS-TeX, AMS-LaTeX and REVTeX) implementation for OS X and Mac OS.
  • teTeX One of the most popular distribution for Unix systems, developed primarily by Thomas Esser and included in many Linux distributions.
  • fpTeX A TeX distribution for Win32 systems, developed by Fabrice Popineau and based on teTeX.
  • GrailTeX A TeX distribution for Linux based on LaTeX and pdfTeX.

Add-on Packages

  • LaTeX-beamer Create sophisticated, structured presentations and slides using LaTeX.
  • powerdot Another very good class for presentations.
  • bussproofs.sty (and others) A package for setting natural deduction tree proofs.
  • Making a Resume in LaTeX A LaTeX template with instructions for making an easily-maintained resume.
  • ePiX A collection of batch-oriented utilities for *nix, creates mathematically accurate line figures, plots, and movies using easy-to-learn syntax.

External links

Community resources

Periodicals

General tutorials

Advanced and in-depth topics

Case-specific topics

Reference materials

  • The (La)TeX encyclopaedia (HTML)
  • Help with LaTeX (HTML) A LaTeX concept reference.
  • The UK TeX FAQ (HTML) Frequently Asked Questions from comp.text.tex.
  • Help:Formula on MetaWiki. Discussion of mathmatical formulas, including LaTeX markup.
  • TeX Directory Structure, used by many (La)TeX distributions
  • Obsolete packages and commands
  • . The Companion is an excellent resource for intermediate to advanced LaTeX users. For those already somewhat familiar with LaTeX, this is probably the single most useful available book on the subject. The book website has the complete Table of Contents and a sample chapter available for download.
  • sample pages out of the book
  • sample pages out of the book
  • searchable version with sample pages

Domain-specific programming languages | Page description languages | Free TeX software | Typesetting programming languages | Typesetting

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "LaTeX".

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