Alpha Space -> Academic -> LaTeX

Introduction

La(TeX) is a typesetting system that is very suitable for producing scientific and mathematical documents of high typographical quality.

TeX is a computer program created by Donald E. Knuth at Stanford University. Knuth started writing the TeX typesetting engine in 1977. TeX as we use it today was released in 1982, with some slight enhancements added in 1989 to better support 8-bit characters and multiple languages. TeX is renowned for being extremely stable, for running on many different kinds of computers, and for being virtually bug free. The version number of TeX is converging to PI and is now at 3.141592.

LaTeX is a macro package based on TeX. LaTeX was originally written by Leslie Lamport at Microsoft. These days LaTeX is maintained by Frank Mittelbach at EDS.

Installation

I prefer the following packages, because they are free and small. A newbee had better install them in this order.

1. PS/PDF: Ghostscript & GSview
2. LaTeX implementation: MikTeX
3. Editor: TeXnicCenter

Documentations

General

• A (Not So) Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, v4.20, 2006/05/31
• The UK TeX FAQ List

Math

• amsmath user's guide, v2.0, 2002/02/15
• Short Math Guide for LaTeX, v1.09, 2002/03/22

Table

• Publication quality tables in LaTeX, v1.61, 2005/04/14

Graphics

• Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX and pdfLaTeX, v3.01, 2006/01/12
• A User's Manual for MetaPost, v0.9, 2005/05/08

Bibliography

• BibTex Documentation
• Natural Sciences Citations and References, v8.0, 2007/02/05

Page Layout

• Page layout in LaTeX, v3.1, 2004/03/02

Manuals

• LaTeX Reference Manual
• LaTeX Command Summary
• The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List, 2005/09/22