1 Introduction

1.1 What is LATEX? LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting. It is most often used for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents but it can be used for almost any form of publishing. LaTeX is not a word processor! Instead, LaTeX encourages authors not to worry too much about the appearance of their documents but to concentrate on getting the right content.

1.2 Software TeX Distributions The easiest way to set up TeX is with a 500MB TeX distribution that includes many current TeX tools. The TeX distribution to download depends on what operating system you run.

Windows - proTeXt is an installer for MikTeX, Ghostview and some extra software.

Linux - TeXLive is included as a package in most versions of Linux.

Mac OS X - MacTeX is a TeXLive installer for Mac.

Editors Windows:

Notepad, Texmaker, MeWa, Texlipse, Led, TeXworks, LyTeX, LyX, TeXnicCenter, Emacs, Scite, WinShell, Vim. (I would recommend TeXWorks if you want a GUI)

Mac OS X:

TexShop, Vim, Emacs, BBEdit, jEdit, TextWrangler, TeXworks, LyX, Texmaker Xcode- Latex. (I would recommend TexShop of TeXWorks if you want a GUI)

Linux:

LyX, Vim, Emacs, Texmaker, TeXworks, Kile, TeXmacs, gEdit. (I would recommend TeXWorks if you want a GUI)

Of all the above editors, only TeXmacs and LyX are WYSIWYGs (What You See Is What You Get).

1 1.3 Resources Books:

Math Into Latex by George Gratzer

More Math Into Latex by George Gratzer

The LaTeX Companion, second edition by F. Mittelbach and M Goossens with Braams, Carlisle, and Rowley

Online:

TeX Users Group (www.tug.org)

Self-guided introductory course (http://www.math.uiuc.edu/∼hildebr/tex/course/)

A (Not So) Short Introduction to LaTeX2e by Oetiker, Partl, Hyna, Schlegl. (http://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf)

Community driven Q&A for users of TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and related typesetting systems (http://tex.stackexchange.com)

AMS-Latex (http://www.ams.org/publications/authors/tex/amslatex)

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