ECN No Name Newsletter: September, 1996

The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.

[previous article] [next article]

The TEX Computer Typesetting System

NO NAME NEWSLETTER -- September 1996

Mark Senn

The TEX computer typesetting system is available at ECN. The TEX system includes the TEX and LATEX programs and other software to preview, print, spell check, and otherwise manipulate documents.

The TEX program was written by Prof. Donald Knuth of Stanford University to typeset his series of books The Art of Computer Programming. Prof. Knuth wasn't happy with the quality of the typesetting in the books and wrote TEX to produce better looking output. TEX is good at typesetting documents and is especially good at typesetting mathematics.

The lowered ``E'' in TEX is to emphasize that it does typesetting. TEX is pronounced like the first syllable of ``technology'' and rhymes with ``blecchhh.''

ECN SunOS computers have old TEX system programs in /usr/unsup/bin. These programs are totally unsupported. I don't answer questions about them and no further work will be done on them. ECN Solaris computers have newer TEX system programs in /usr/opt/bin. Please use these programs---they are supported. The remainder of this document describes the TEX system on Solaris.

The TEX Program

TEX reads a ``.tex'' input file containing the text you would like typeset along with commands on how to typeset it and makes a ``.dvi'' (device independent) output file. The device independent output file can be printed on a wide variety of output devices including dot matrix printers, laser printers, and phototypesetters. At the ECN the only output devices currently supported are PostScript laser printers.

TEX uses low level commands that aren't very powerful. You can define your own commands to make typing input files more convenient, but defining those control sequences can sometimes be quite complicated.

The LATEX Program

LATEX is based on TEX but has many higher level constructs to make document production easier. For example, the LATEX book ``document class'' has a chapter{Chapter Name Goes Here} command that will skip to a new page, print the chapter name in large type and make an entry for the chapter in a table of contents.

I strongly suggest using LATEX instead of TEX unless you are greatly concerned about the exact appearance of your documents and your documents are short. LATEX has document classes (i.e., macros) available for letters, articles, reports, books, slides, theses, etc.

TEX System Commands

Command
Description
tex file
TEX file.tex making file.dvi
latex file
LATEX file.tex making file.dvi
xdvi file
preview file.dvi on X Windows
dvipr file
print file.dvi on printer specified by LPDEST environment variable
texspell file
spell check file.tex

A Complete LATEX Example

The ex.tex file below is an example LATEX file. The indentation in the file is not necessary, I just put it in to make the document's structure more apparent. 
% This is ex.tex. 
   \documentclass{article}
   \begin{document}
     \title{A Short Example}
     \author{Mark Senn}
     \maketitle
     This is the first paragraph.
     It is long and wordy to demonstrate
     the paragraph indentation.


     This is the second paragraph.
   \end{document}
Type "latex ex" to process ex.tex with LATEX.

The resulting ex.dvi output file produced on August 13, 1996 contains commands to typeset the following (scaled down to fit on this page):

Typing "xdvi ex" previews ex.dvi using the X Window System. Typing"dvipr ex" prints the document on the printer specified by your LPDEST environment variable.

Upcoming Short Courses

Beginning LATEX
2:00PM, Wednesday, September 18, MSEE B-12.

If you know how to use a text editor, you'll learn enough at this short course to typeset simple text and mathematics. This short course will be available on the web later at "http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/ECN/Documents/" .

Using LATEX For Your Thesis
2:00PM, Wednesday, October 2, MSEE B-12

You will learn enough at this short course to do almost all of your Purdue thesis. A few difficult details won't be covered during the class period because of time constraints but you will learn several tricks of the trade to make typesetting your thesis easier so you can concentrate on the content, instead of the format, of your thesis. This short course will be available on the web later at "http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/ECN/Documents/" .

Intermediate LATEX
2:00PM, Wednesday, October 16, MSEE B-12

This is a continuation of Beginning LATEX and discusses how to typeset difficult text and mathematics. Other new topics introduced include:
LATEX graphics
LATEX tables
PostScript graphics
TEX's ``halign'' command.
This short course will be available on the web later at "http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/ECN/Documents/" .

Advanced LATEX

This is a continuation of Intermediate LATEX and discusses how to typeset very difficult text and mathematics. The following topics will be covered at an advanced level:
bbfig
BibTeX
LATEX graphics
LATEX tables
METAFONT
PicTeX
PostScript graphics
psfig
PSTricks TeX graphic system
TeX's ``align'' command
and other special problems

This information will be available (only) on the web later.

Books

If I were to get only one book about LATEX it would be A Guide To LATEX 2e: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users. A list of LATEX books available (now or in the near future) from Purdue libraries follows.

webmaster@ecn.purdue.edu
Last modified: Tuesday, 09-Sep-97 17:37:31 EST

[HTML Check] HTML