LaTeX Documentation Project

Table Of Contents

Introduction to LaTeX
How To Create Documents with LaTeX
Samples of LaTeX Source
LaTeX Related Tools (Converters)
References of LaTeX
Ftp sites of LaTeX

Introduction to LaTeX

Unike many word processing programs, which concentrate on formatting material on the page (often called WYSIWYG, for "what you see is what you get"), LaTeX tries to concentrate on "content." LaTeX is a Generalized Mark-up Language macro package for the TeX typesetting program. That is, one specifies the structure: sections, title, appendix, authors' names, etc., which bear little relation to how this will look on a page. That is determined by the document style files (*.sty); standard ones are provided for such things as articles, reports, books, and letters. However, these style files may be readily replaced by others, giving a completely different look. Of course, it is possible in LaTeX to specify much about the physical layout, but this tends to be done with commands that define things like space between lines or amount to indent paragraphs rather than by positioning each piece of text on the page as is typical in WYSIWYG systems.

LaTeX produces as output a Device Independent (*.dvi) file that contains commands that can be translated into commands for a variety of output devices. It also produces a transcript or log (*.log) file that contains summary information and diagnostic messages for any errors discovered in the input file and an auxiliary (*.aux) file which contains cross refererence information for Tables, citations, etc. It is sometimes necessary to run LaTeX twice so that it has correct cross reference information, especially when modifications have changed the numbering.

Back to Table of Contents

How to Create Document with LaTeX

1. Create .tex file as your source. Click Help On LaTeX to get online help on the syntax of the typesetting commands. (example : use emacs or vi to edit .tex file)
2. Process this .tex file using latex command to generate .dvi file. This .dvi file is Device Independent file which can be used to create output on a range of printing devices. (example : latex foo.tex )
3. There are several converters you can us to print .dvi files. One of them is dvi2ps command that is widely available on all Unix platforms. Use this converter to convert the .dvi to .ps file. (example : dvi2ps foo.dvi > foo.ps)
4. Now you can print this .ps file to any postscript printers. (example : lpr foo.ps )

Back to Table of Contents

Samples of LaTeX Source

• small and basic sample : small.tex and its small.dvi and its small.ps
• LaTeX 2e sample by Leslie Lamport: sample2e.tex and its sample2e.dvi and its sample2e.ps

Back to Table of Contents

LaTeX related Tools

• dvi2ps utility

  This tools convert .dvi (Device Independent) files to .ps (Postscript) files.

• LaTeX to HTML Converters

  There are several LaTeX converters we can use. These tools are very useful to convert your existing LaTeX documents to HTML pages. See Hyperlatex and Latex2HTML

Back to Table of Contents

References of LaTeX

LaTeX: A Document Preparation System by Leslie Lamport (2nd edition)

This book is a must for first timer

The LaTeX Companion

This book is for more advanced users

• LaTeX Information Center (A good way to start your library research)
• TeX and LaTeX Online Info

For faq, search on faq topic and newsgroup choose as followed :

• FAQ - comp.text.tex - Tex, LaTeX, ...
• FAQ - comp.text.tex - Full Text Search
• Usenet - comp.text.tex - Discussion about the TeX and LaTeX systems & macros.
• LaTeX Resources - Collection of pointers to other LaTeX references
• Hypertext Help with LaTeX

Ftp sites of LaTeX

See this list of ftp sites to get LaTeX.

Back to Table of Contents