The UK Tex FAQ Your 463 Questions Answered Version 3.27, Date 2013-06-07
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The UK TeX FAQ Your 463 Questions Answered version 3.27, date 2013-06-07 June 7, 2013 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 Licence of the FAQ 10 Finding the Files 10 A The Background 11 1 Getting started.............................. 11 2 What is TeX?.............................. 11 3 What’s “writing in TeX”?....................... 12 4 How should I pronounce “TeX”?................... 12 5 What is Metafont?........................... 12 6 What is Metapost?........................... 12 7 Things with “TeX” in the name.................... 12 8 What is CTAN?............................ 14 9 The (CTAN) catalogue......................... 15 10 How can I be sure it’s really TeX?................... 15 11 What is e-TeX?............................ 15 12 What is PDFTeX?........................... 16 13 What is LaTeX?............................ 16 14 What is LaTeX2e?........................... 16 15 How should I pronounce “LaTeX(2e)”?................ 16 16 Should I use Plain TeX or LaTeX?................... 17 17 How does LaTeX relate to Plain TeX?................. 17 18 What is ConTeXt?............................ 17 19 What are the AMS packages (AMSTeX, etc.)?............ 18 20 What is Eplain?............................ 18 21 What is Texinfo?............................ 18 22 If TeX is so good, how come it’s free?................ 19 23 What is the future of TeX?....................... 19 24 Reading (La)TeX files......................... 19 25 Why is TeX not a WYSIWYG system?................. 19 26 TeX User Groups........................... 20 B Documentation and Help 21 27 Books relevant to TeX and friends.................... 21 28 Books on TeX, Plain TeX and relations................. 21 29 Books on LaTeX............................. 21 30 Books on other TeX-related matters.................. 22 31 Books on Type............................. 22 32 Where to find FAQs.......................... 23 33 Getting help online.......................... 24 1 34 Specialist mailing lists......................... 24 35 How to ask a question......................... 25 36 How to make a “minimum example”................. 25 37 Tutorials, etc., for TeX-based systems................. 26 38 Online introductions: Plain TeX.................... 26 39 Online introductions: LaTeX...................... 27 40 (La)TeX tutorials............................ 27 41 Reference documents......................... 28 42 WIKI books for TeX and friends................... 29 43 Typography tutorials.......................... 29 44 Freely available (La)TeX books.................... 29 45 Documentation of packages...................... 29 46 Learning to write LaTeX classes and packages............ 30 47 LaTeX3 programming.......................... 31 48 Metafont and Metapost Tutorials.................... 31 49 BibTeX Documentation......................... 31 50 Where can I find the symbol for . ................... 32 51 The PiCTeX manual.......................... 32 C Bits and pieces of (La)TeX 32 52 What is a DVI file?.......................... 32 53 What is a DVI driver?......................... 33 54 What are PK files?........................... 33 55 What are TFM files?.......................... 33 56 What are virtual fonts?......................... 33 57 What are (TeX) macros........................ 34 58 \special commands......................... 35 59 Writing (text) files from TeX..................... 35 60 Spawning programs from (La)TeX: \write18 ............ 35 61 How does hyphenation work in TeX?................. 36 62 What are LaTeX classes and packages?................ 36 63 What are LaTeX “environments”.................... 37 64 Documented LaTeX sources (.dtx files)............... 38 65 What are encodings?.......................... 38 66 What are the EC fonts?........................ 39 67 Unicode and TeX........................... 40 68 What is the TDS?........................... 40 69 What is “Encapsulated PostScript” (“EPS”)?.............. 41 70 Adobe font formats........................... 41 71 What are “resolutions”?........................ 42 72 What is the “Berry naming scheme”?................. 42 D Acquiring the Software 43 73 Repositories of TeX material..................... 43 74 Ready-built installation files on the archive.............. 43 75 What was the CTAN nonfree tree?.................. 43 76 Contributing a file to the archives................... 44 77 Finding (La)TeX files......................... 44 78 Finding new fonts........................... 45 79 The TeX collection.......................... 45 E TeX Systems 46 80 (La)TeX for different machines.................... 46 81 Unix and GNU Linux systems..................... 46 82 (Modern) Windows systems...................... 46 83 Macintosh systems............................ 47 84 Other systems’ TeX availability..................... 47 85 TeX-friendly editors and shells.................... 48 86 Commercial TeX implementations.................. 49 2 F DVI Drivers and Previewers 50 87 DVI to PostScript conversion programs................ 50 88 DVI drivers for HP LaserJet...................... 50 89 Output to “other” printers....................... 50 90 DVI previewers............................. 51 91 Generating bitmaps from DVI...................... 51 G Support Packages for TeX 51 92 (La)TeX-friendly drawing packages................... 51 93 TeXCAD, a drawing package for LaTeX............... 52 94 Spelling checkers for work with TeX................. 52 95 How many words have you written?.................. 52 H Literate programming 53 96 What is Literate Programming?.................... 53 97 WEB systems for various languages................. 53 I Format conversions 54 98 Conversion from (La)TeX to plain text................ 54 99 Conversion from SGML or HTML to TeX.............. 54 100 Conversion from (La)TeX to HTML................. 55 101 Other conversions to and from (La)TeX................ 56 102 Using TeX to read SGML or XML directly............... 57 103 Retrieving (La)TeX from DVI, etc.................... 57 104 Translating LaTeX to Plain TeX.................... 58 J Installing (La)TeX files 58 105 Installing things on a (La)TeX system................. 58 106 Finding packages to install...................... 58 107 Unpacking LaTeX packages...................... 58 108 Generating package documentation.................. 59 109 Installing files “where (La)TeX can find them”............ 59 110 Which tree to use........................... 59 111 Where to install packages....................... 60 112 Tidying up after installation....................... 61 113 Shortcuts to installing files........................ 61 114 Installation using MiKTeX package manager.............. 61 115 Installation using TeX Live manager.................. 61 116 Installing using ready-built ZIP files................. 62 117 “Temporary” installation of (La)TeX files............... 62 118 “Private” installations of files..................... 63 119 Installing a new font.......................... 64 120 Installing a font provided as Metafont source............. 64 121 ‘Installing’ a PostScript printer built-in font............. 64 122 Preparing a Type 1 font........................ 64 123 Installing a Type 1 font........................ 65 124 Installing the Type 1 versions of the CM fonts............ 65 K Fonts 66 K.1 Adobe Type 1 (“PostScript”) fonts 66 125 Using Adobe Type 1 fonts with TeX................. 66 126 Previewing files using Type 1 fonts.................. 66 127 TeX font metric files for Type 1 fonts.................. 67 128 Deploying Type 1 fonts......................... 67 129 Choice of Type 1 fonts for typesetting Maths.............. 67 130 Weird characters in dvips output.................... 73 K.2 Macros for using fonts 73 131 Using non-standard fonts in Plain TeX................ 73 K.3 Particular font families 74 132 Using the “Concrete” fonts...................... 74 133 Using the Latin Modern fonts..................... 75 K.4 Metafont fonts 76 134 Getting Metafont to do what you want................ 76 135 Which font files should be kept..................... 77 136 Acquiring bitmap fonts......................... 77 3 L Hypertext and PDF 78 137 Making PDF documents from (La)TeX................ 78 138 Making hypertext documents from TeX................ 78 139 The hyperTeX project......................... 78 140 Quality of PDF from PostScript.................... 79 141 The wrong type of fonts in PDF.................... 79 142 Fuzzy fonts because Ghostscript too old............... 80 143 Fonts go fuzzy when you switch to T1................ 80 144 Characters missing from PDF output................. 80 145 Finding ‘8-bit’ Type 1 fonts....................... 81 146 Replacing Type 3 fonts in PostScript................. 82 147 Hyperref and repeated page numbers................. 82 148 Searching PDF files.......................... 82 M Graphics 83 149 Importing graphics into (La)TeX documents............. 83 150 Imported graphics in dvips ....................... 84 151 Imported graphics in PDFLaTeX................... 84 152 Imported graphics in dvipdfm ..................... 85 153 “Modern” graphics file names..................... 86 154 Importing graphics from “somewhere else”.............. 86 155 Portable imported graphics....................... 87 156 Repeated