The UK TeX FAQ Your 437 Questions Answered version 3.19a, date 2009-06-13 October 8, 2009 NOTE This document is an updated and extended version of the FAQ article that was published as the December 1994 and 1995, and March 1999 editions of the UK TUG magazine Baskerville (which weren’t formatted like this). The article is also available via the World Wide Web. Contents Introduction 10 Finding the Files 10 A The Background 10 1 What is TeX?............................. 10 2 How should I pronounce “TeX”?................... 11 3 What is MetaFont?........................... 11 4 What is MetaPost?........................... 11 5 Things with “TeX” in the name.................... 12 6 How can I be sure it’s really TeX?................... 13 7 Are TeX and friends Y2K compliant?................. 14 8 What is e-TeX?............................ 14 9 What is PDFTeX?........................... 14 10 What is LaTeX?............................ 15 11 What is LaTeX2e?........................... 15 12 How should I pronounce “LaTeX(2e)”?................ 15 13 Should I use Plain TeX or LaTeX?.................. 15 14 How does LaTeX relate to Plain TeX?................ 16 15 What is ConTeXt?........................... 16 16 What are the AMS packages (AMSTeX, etc.)?............ 16 17 What is Eplain?............................ 16 18 What is Lollipop?........................... 17 19 What is Texinfo?............................ 17 20 If TeX is so good, how come it’s free?................ 18 21 What is the future of TeX?....................... 18 22 Reading (La)TeX files......................... 18 23 Why is TeX not a WYSIWYG system?................. 19 24 TeX User Groups........................... 19 B Documentation and Help 20 25 Books on TeX and its relations.................... 20 26 Books on Type............................. 22 27 Where to find FAQs.......................... 22 28 How to get help............................ 23 29 Specialist mailing lists......................... 23 30 How to ask a question......................... 24 31 How to make a “minimum example”................. 24 32 (La)TeX Tutorials, etc.......................... 25 33 Online introductions: Plain TeX.................... 26 34 Online introductions: LaTeX..................... 26 1 35 Specialised (La)TeX tutorials..................... 26 36 Reference documents......................... 27 37 WIKI pages for TeX and friends................... 28 38 Typography tutorials.......................... 28 39 Directories of (La)TeX information.................. 28 40 Freely available (La)TeX books.................... 28 41 Documentation of packages...................... 29 42 Learning to write LaTeX classes and packages............ 29 43 MetaFont and MetaPost Tutorials................... 30 44 BibTeX Documentation........................ 30 45 Where can I find the symbol for . ................... 31 46 The PiCTeX manual.......................... 31 C Bits and pieces of (La)TeX 31 47 What is a DVI file?.......................... 31 48 What is a DVI driver?......................... 32 49 What are PK files?........................... 32 50 What are TFM files?.......................... 32 51 Virtual fonts.............................. 32 52 What are (TeX) macros........................ 33 53 \special commands......................... 33 54 How does hyphenation work in TeX?................. 34 55 What are LaTeX classes and packages?................ 34 56 Documented LaTeX sources (.dtx files)............... 35 57 What are encodings?.......................... 35 58 What are the EC fonts?........................ 36 59 What is the TDS?........................... 37 60 What is “Encapsulated PostScript” (“EPS”)?............. 37 61 Adobe font formats.......................... 38 62 What are “resolutions”?........................ 38 63 What is the “Berry naming scheme”?................. 39 D Acquiring the Software 39 64 Repositories of TeX material..................... 39 65 Ready-built installation files on the archive.............. 40 66 What is the CTAN nonfree tree?................... 40 67 Contributing a file to the archives................... 40 68 Finding (La)TeX files......................... 41 69 Finding new fonts........................... 42 70 The TeX collection.......................... 42 E TeX Systems 42 71 (La)TeX for different machines.................... 42 72 TeX-friendly editors and shells.................... 45 73 Commercial TeX implementations.................. 46 F DVI Drivers and Previewers 48 74 DVI to PostScript conversion programs................ 48 75 DVI drivers for HP LaserJet...................... 48 76 Output to “other” printers....................... 48 77 DVI previewers............................ 48 78 Generating bitmaps from DVI..................... 49 G Support Packages for TeX 49 79 (La)TeX-friendly drawing packages.................. 49 80 TeXCAD, a drawing package for LaTeX............... 50 81 Spelling checkers for work with TeX................. 50 82 How many words have you written?.................. 50 H Literate programming 51 83 What is Literate Programming?.................... 51 84 WEB systems for various languages................. 51 2 I Format conversions 52 85 Conversion from (La)TeX to plain text................ 52 86 Conversion from SGML or HTML to TeX.............. 52 87 Conversion from (La)TeX to HTML................. 53 88 Other conversions to and from (La)TeX................ 54 89 Using TeX to read SGML or XML directly.............. 55 90 Retrieving (La)TeX from DVI, etc................... 55 91 Translating LaTeX to Plain TeX.................... 56 J Installing (La)TeX files 56 92 Installing things on a (La)TeX system................. 56 93 Finding packages to install...................... 56 94 Unpacking LaTeX packages...................... 57 95 Generating package documentation.................. 57 96 Installing files “where (La)TeX can find them”............ 57 97 Which tree to use........................... 58 98 Where to install packages....................... 59 99 Tidying up after installation...................... 59 100 Shortcuts to installing files....................... 60 101 Installation using MiKTeX package manager............. 60 102 Installing using ready-built ZIP files................. 60 103 “Temporary” installation of (La)TeX files............... 60 104 “Private” installations of files..................... 61 105 Installing a new font.......................... 62 106 Installing a font provided as MetaFont source............. 63 107 Installing a PostScript printer built-in font.............. 63 108 Preparing a Type 1 font........................ 63 109 Installing a Type 1 font........................ 64 110 Installing the Type 1 versions of the CM fonts............ 65 K Fonts 65 K.1 MetaFont fonts 65 111 Getting MetaFont to do what you want................ 65 112 Which font files should be kept.................... 66 113 Acquiring bitmap fonts........................ 67 K.2 Adobe Type 1 (“PostScript”) fonts 67 114 Using PostScript fonts with TeX................... 67 115 Previewing files using Type 1 fonts.................. 68 116 TeX font metric files for PostScript fonts............... 68 117 Deploying Type 1 fonts........................ 69 118 Choice of scalable outline fonts.................... 69 119 Weird characters in dvips output.................... 74 K.3 Macros for using fonts 74 120 Using non-standard fonts in Plain TeX................ 74 K.4 Particular font families 76 121 Using the “Concrete” fonts...................... 76 122 Using the Latin Modern fonts..................... 76 L Hypertext and PDF 77 123 Making hypertext documents from TeX................ 77 124 Making Acrobat PDF documents from (La)TeX........... 78 125 Quality of PDF from PostScript.................... 79 126 The wrong type of fonts in PDF.................... 79 127 Fuzzy fonts because Ghostscript too old............... 80 128 Fonts go fuzzy when you switch to T1................ 80 129 Characters missing from PDF output................. 80 130 Finding ‘8-bit’ Type 1 fonts...................... 80 131 Replacing Type 3 fonts in PostScript................. 82 132 Hyperref and repeated page numbers................. 82 133 Searching PDF files.......................... 82 3 M Graphics 83 134 Importing graphics into (La)TeX documents............. 83 135 Imported graphics in dvips ....................... 84 136 Imported graphics in PDFLaTeX................... 84 137 Imported graphics in dvipdfm ..................... 85 138 “Modern” graphics file names..................... 86 139 Importing graphics from “somewhere else”.............. 86 140 Portable imported graphics...................... 87 141 Repeated graphics in a document................... 87 142 Limit the width of imported graphics................. 88 143 Top-aligning imported graphics.................... 88 144 Displaying MetaPost output in ghostscript .............. 89 145 Drawing with TeX........................... 90 146 Drawing Feynman diagrams in LaTeX................ 91 147 Labelling graphics........................... 91 N Bibliographies and citations 92 N.1 Creating bibliographies 92 148 Creating a BibTeX bibliography file.................. 92 149 Creating a bibliography style..................... 93 150 Capitalisation in BibTeX....................... 93 151 Accents in bibliographies....................... 94 152 ‘String too long’ in BibTeX...................... 94 153 BibTeX doesn’t understand lists of names.............. 94 154 URLs in BibTeX bibliographies.................... 95 155 Using BibTeX