Getting Started with TeX, LaTeX, and Friends

This page is for the benefit of new TeX system users. As such, it tries to be short and simple. Much more information is available through the links listed here.

What's going on here?

TeX is a typesetting language. Instead of visually formatting your text, you enter your manuscript text intertwined with TeX commands in a plain text file. You then run TeX to produce formatted output, such as a PDF file. Thus, in contrast to standard word processors, your document is a separate file that does not pretend to be a representation of the final typeset output, and so can be easily edited and manipulated.

Here are some links with further background:

• Very basic explanation of editing, typesetting, word processing, etc., and how TeX fits in the picture. (Courtesy of Gerben Wierda.)
• The Pointers to Frequently Asked Questions document provides a short overview of the TeX world.
• The levels of TeX web page explains some of the most common components and terms used throughout TeX.
• The Wikipedia encyclopedia article on TeX gives a more detailed overview.

Help using TeX

• Look here first: The TeX FAQ answers many questions on TeX, LaTeX, and friends.
• If you're not sure what words to search for, try the visual FAQ.
• comp.text.tex newsgroup;
• texhax mailing list archives.

If searching fails, the books listed on this page are a comprehensive guide to the TeX system.

Finding software and/or packages:

• The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) is the primary repository for TeX-related software on the Internet.
• The TeX Catalogue has descriptions for most TeX packages, and may help you find what you need.

If you've tried everything and are still stuck, feel free to email texhax@tug.org, or post to comp.text.tex. (No guarantees, this is all done by volunteers.)

Installing TeX and LaTeX

If you are looking to install a complete system, we recommend TeX Live for Unix/GNU/Linux, MacTeX for MacOSX, and proTeXt for Windows. You can join TUG or another user group and have physical discs sent to you, or you can purchase the distributions without joining. These distributions are (almost entirely) free software, so you can also download the big ISO images and burn your own discs; see the distribution home pages for details.

There are many other TeX implementations, some free, some shareware, some commercial.

Online (La)TeX documentation

Here is just a little of the principal TeX documentation available on the web. A much more complete list of documentation links is available.

LaTeX:

• The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, by Tobias Oetiker (pdf, ps, in many languages).
• Formatting Information, by Peter Flynn (html or letter/a4 pdf). Installation as well as usage information.
• Online LaTeX tutorials, from Andy Roberts.
• LaTeX Cheat Sheet, a two-page quick reference by Winston Chang.

Plain TeX:

• TeX by Topic, A TeXnician's Reference, by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley, 1992; 307pp).
• TeX for the Impatient, by Paul Abrahams, Kathryn Hargreaves, and Karl Berry (Addison-Wesley, 1990; 357pp).

Fonts: a discussion of the fonts available for use with TeX is available separately.

General help: don't forget the FAQ and visual FAQ.

Books to buy

Since TeX predates the Internet, let alone the web, it has a long tradition of documentation being available in book form. (Not to mention being a typesetting program!) Here are the books we recommend most highly.

• The TeXbook, by Donald E. Knuth (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-13448-9, 1984). The basis of it all.
• A Guide to LaTeX2e, by Helmut Kopka and Patrick Daly (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-17385-6, fourth edition, 2003). Covers core LaTeX from the ground up, and discusses commonly used packages for graphics, web integration, and more.
• The LaTeX Companion, by Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens, Johannes Braams, David Carlisle, and Chris Rowley (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-36299-6, second edition, 2004). Also covers core LaTeX, plus a vast array of additional packages.

As usual, please see these additional documentation links for more books and other references.

Sample LaTeX documents

If you have TeX installed and just want to get started, you can peruse and process this introductory LaTeX document (small2e). When you've mastered that, move on to this more complex example (sample2e).

The basic procedure is to create plain text files in any editor (Emacs, WinShell, WinEdt, etc.), and then run pdflatex myfile.tex from a command line to get PDF output. Or run latex to get DVI output, instead of PDF. GUI-oriented front ends are available for all platforms if you prefer to work that way.

Happy typesetting!