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LATEX is a macro package developed by Leslie Lamport that is
built on TeX, which was developed by Dr. Donald E. Knuth of
Stanford University.
LATEX is available on Windows, Macintosh, and Unix-based systems, which means almost anybody can get their hands on it. Moreover, it is entirely free, so anyone interested in it can try out risk-free. Isn't it wonderful? My first experience with LATEX happened with a NeXT computer installed in the undergraduate lounge called "Hilbert Space" of the math department of the University of Oregon. The room had also two Macintosh computers, which I also used from time to time. However, I didn't have to use them all the time because what I needed to work on was just an ascii text file. I usually worked in the computer lab in the main library of the university. Currently, I am working entirely with my own PC with a Windows Me installed. As I have never owned a computer other than PC, I talk only about the case for Windows. Sorry, Mac or Linux users. My advisor at the University of Oregon once told me there were only proprietary LATEX systems available for Windows-based systems. Bad news for those who have to use Windows as your boss and colleagues require you to edit Winword or Excel files, huh? Don't worry! Windows actually has free versions of TeX. Currently, I have a LATEX implementation called MikTeX installed on my desktop, but there are others. The choice of implementation is entirely yours, but I recommend MikTeX for its ease of installation and other nice features. For further information, see the TeX Users Group Home Page (www.tug.org). What else do you need? Well, as you need to create a text file with lots of command, you'd like to have a good text editor software. There are many text editors, free and not free. If you are going to work with MikTeX, I strongly recommend WinEdt. WinEdt is a shareware, meaning that it's not free beyond the trial period. However, I believe it is worth your investment. For more information visit its homepage (www.winedt.com). Further more, you will want to write postscript1 files and view them on your screen. I recommend that you get the latest version of Ghostscript and GSView. By the way, Ghostscript comes with ps2pdf, which enables you to create pdf documents from postscript files. Now you can readily publish your document on the web as most people have Adobe Acrobat Reader. I wouldn't talk about the actual installation phase of any of the above softwares, as I believe it's so easy. In summary, my recommendation is
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