Latex

Pronunciation

in the International Phonetic Alphabet decides (lè-tekh) or (lah-tekh).

This pronunciation was encouraged by the creator of Donald Knuth, which pronounces it in old Greek (tekh).

Indeed, the last character in the name comes from the Greek capital letter Chi, and the name TeX drift of the Greek word τέχνη (art, technique).

Its X (or “ KH ”) is the equivalent of the Spanish jota ( caja ), CH German ( ach ), CH Scot ( log ), or Russian KH. It is about the same sound that one pronounces at the beginning of the Khaled first name, its not easily assimilable for the French-speaking people. (But which resembles the " g" the Dutch-speaking ones as in " Ik ga" when it is " roulé").

The practice curious to pronounce it comes from an explanation about Knuth in the book indicating that the name came from the Greek technê , root of the English word “technology”, whereas in old Greek τέχνη does not decide but.

Leslie Lamport, the creator of, does not encourage nor does not condemn any particular pronunciation.

Much preferred the pronunciation ( latec ), by amalgam on the significance of “KH”, or more simply ( latex ), being given the difficulty of pronouncing the sound (- KH) in certain languages (like French).

Principle

require of the writer to concentrate on the logical structure of its document, its contents, while the page layout of the document (caesura of the words, subparagraphs) is left with the software. thus separate the form from the contents. With the software of the type WYSIWYG ( What You See Is What You Get , which see is what you obtain), such OpenOffice.org '' Writer '' or Microsoft Word the writer can concentrate only on the structure while being expressed with Styles, the form automatically and being immediately visualized with the screen, which helps with the control of the coding of the structure. This method of drafting is strongly recommended, but as it is not obligatory, it is used rather little.

Nevertheless, there exist software today making it possible to compile documents in this manner, like Lyx. Other software, like TexMacs, is not intended to produce documents but has a function of export towards this format. Under Windows, the environments of development for most known are TexnicCenter and WinEdt. Under GNU/Linux, one can quote WineFish, for the environment GNOME, or Kile, available in the environment KDE. Under Mac OS X, one can quote TeXShop and ITeXMac. There exist also solutions multi-platforms, either in the form of portable complete applications (Texmaker), or in the shape of modules for editors or integrated environment of development general practitioners, available for many operating systems: very powerful AUC TeX for Emacs (or XEmacs), TeXlipse for Eclipse.

Thus, the drafting of a document is done most of the time through a text editor, then the compiled document is treated (compiled) with in order to obtaining its version formatted at the Format of data DVI (for DeVice Independent in English, “independent of the peripheral ”) ready for visualization on screen or transform in format PostScript or pdf ( Portable Document Format ) for impression.

an initial training more important requires than that which is necessary for the software of the type WYSIWYG, at least for the page layout of small simple documents. But once this phase of training (enough easy: one can compare that with the training of the language HTML) achieved, the fact of concentrating on the contents and to leave with the care to present the document becomes very appreciable: the quality of the produced document is high (mathematical formulas, compliance with the typographical rules), the management of the bibliographical references (BibTeX), classifications and contents are coherent without one having to be concerned with it. In addition, with the user the possibility leaves of adapting it to its specific needs by creating or modifying macro-orders. The site Comprehensive {{TeX}} Archive Network (CTAN) gathers a great number of these macro-orders gathered in parcellings . In addition, the evolution of is ensured by an active and structured community in user groups. These qualities, in addition to the exemption from payment of the software, make of it the privileged tool for drafting of the worlds academic and scientist in certain disciplines. He is indeed current in mathematics, data processing and physics to see the editors proposing files of style, and to declare that they prefer this format with that of Microsoft Word (which is for the moment a standard in fact of the interactive word processing, in the world of the company). Certain editors refuse even the tenders not being in this format.

Uses of

is often used by people having to produce sometimes complex contents (equations) having a setting forms of it standard , i.e. not requiring particular working.

For this reason it is particularly used by students, editors, mathematics professors and of physics, scientists, mainly in data processing, engineering, mathematics and physics. Naturally, a user of can not find himself very well in one of these categories.

He is also integrated in other software:

O' Reilly Media;
MediaWiki ;
SPIP the French-speaking software most known of collaborative production of multilingual Internet site.
On some forums Internet, in particular on forums of mathematics and physics. It can for example be integrated on the forums PhpBB.

is able to produce many different types of document (by defect or by employing extensions), in particular articles, course, books, presentations, diagrams, reports/ratios, letters, labels, small pockets of Compact disk, posters, calling cards.

It should be noted, however, that the drafting of one document to the particular page layout (like a newspaper or a magazine) can be easier to realize with other types of software (see the article Desktop publishing).

is distributed under license lppl (for Project Public License). This license although free is incompatible with the LPG.

Example of document

Simple example: \ documentclass {minimal} \ begin {document} \ \ end {document} allowing to produce the mathematical formula

\ sum_ {n=1} ^ {+ \ infty} \ frac {1} {n^2} = \ frac {\ pi^2} {6}

. The orders are preceded by a “ \ ”. An order can have parameters. The optional parameters are to be put between hooks. The obligatory parameters must be framed by accodances. However, if the parameter in question makes only one character length or if it is about another order, the accodances can be omitted.

The order \ documentclass is the first ordering of any document: it defines the general appearance of the document - here, it is article:

article: the document is condensed to the maximum (no automatic page break). Intended for the recto impression. The number of page is centered in footer. A document of the article type does not contain any chapter (order \ chapter not recognized)…
report ( report/ratio in French): like article but in more ventilated; the order \ chapter is recognized and causes an automatic page break. In the same way, the title page and the contents generate an automatic page break.
book ( delivers French ): like report but even more ventilated. There are more pages (with the screen) but there is less of sheets (with the impression) because book produces a document intended for the recto-back impression: stroke left $\ ne$ right margin (to envisage the binding), the page breaks always lead to an odd page (right-sided of the book). All the pages have a heading which takes again the name of the current chapter (left side) and the name of the current section (right-sided). The numbers of pages are not any more in bottom but in top of the sheets, beside the carryforwards of names of chapter and section.
letter ( letter in French): is used to write mails.
slides: allows to create transparencies.
beamer: allows to create slides.

The contents of the document must be written between \ begin {document} and \ end {document} .

Parcellings

Only, the capacities of are limited enough; the personalization of a document is a difficult task. Fortunately, being itself a “extension” of, it is easily extensible using parcellings (or extensions ). Those, following the example software Libraries, gather orders making it possible to carry out certain current tasks, thus avoiding unceasingly having to reinvent the wheel.

For example, parcelling amsmath, provided by the American company of mathematics (AMS), proves to be an essential companion for the edition of mathematical formulas. Parcelling color brings the color, while graphics allows the insertion of images in the document. babel facilitates the adaptation of the typography of the document to its language and calc makes it possible to achieve simple calculations. The list is interminable; fortunately, all parcellings are joined together within the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN).

and Unicode

was created at one time when Unicode did not exist yet. For this reason, any document text can be written in ASCII, which guarantees interworking: the Diacritique S are indicated by an order, for example \ 'e for “E”. However, with the modern configurations, it is possible to directly type characters accentuated in the document source. It is necessary for that to use jointly parcelling inputenc with fontenc.

as a module of impression

Certain software, as Grisbi uses as a portable module of impression. This approach has however the defect to be relatively heavy at the same time at the time of the installation and the use. At the time of the installation, it is necessary to determine if it is possible to choose the printer, and the previsualisation. During the use, the same problems remain posed.

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