The UK TeX FAQ Your 469 Questions Answered version 3.28, date 2014-06-10 June 10, 2014 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.................... 13 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)”?................. 17 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?............................ 19 22 Lollipop................................ 19 23 If TeX is so good, how come it’s free?................ 19 24 What is the future of TeX?....................... 19 25 Reading (La)TeX files......................... 19 26 Why is TeX not a WYSIWYG system?................. 20 27 TeX User Groups............................ 21 B Documentation and Help 21 28 Books relevant to TeX and friends.................... 21 29 Books on TeX, Plain TeX and relations................. 21 30 Books on LaTeX............................ 22 31 Books on other TeX-related matters.................. 23 32 Books on Type............................. 23 33 Where to find FAQs.......................... 24 1 34 Getting help online.......................... 24 35 Specialist mailing lists......................... 25 36 How to ask a question......................... 25 37 How to make a “minimum example”................. 26 38 Tutorials, etc., for TeX-based systems.................. 27 39 Online introductions: Plain TeX..................... 27 40 Online introductions: LaTeX...................... 27 41 (La)TeX tutorials........................... 28 42 Reference documents......................... 29 43 WIKI books for TeX and friends................... 29 44 Typography tutorials.......................... 29 45 Freely available (La)TeX books.................... 30 46 Documentation of packages...................... 30 47 Learning to write LaTeX classes and packages............. 31 48 LaTeX3 programming.......................... 31 49 Metafont and Metapost Tutorials................... 32 50 BibTeX Documentation........................ 32 51 Where can I find the symbol for . ................... 32 52 The PiCTeX manual.......................... 33 C Bits and pieces of (La)TeX 33 53 What is a DVI file?.......................... 33 54 What is a DVI driver?......................... 33 55 What are PK files?........................... 34 56 What are TFM files?.......................... 34 57 What are virtual fonts?......................... 34 58 What are (TeX) macros........................ 35 59 \special commands......................... 35 60 Writing (text) files from TeX..................... 36 61 Spawning programs from (La)TeX: \write18 ............ 36 62 How does hyphenation work in TeX?.................. 37 63 What are LaTeX classes and packages?................. 37 64 What are LaTeX “environments”................... 38 65 Documented LaTeX sources (.dtx files)............... 38 66 What are encodings?.......................... 39 67 What are the EC fonts?........................ 40 68 Unicode and TeX............................ 41 69 What is the TDS?............................ 41 70 What is “Encapsulated PostScript” (“EPS”)?.............. 41 71 Adobe font formats.......................... 42 72 What are “resolutions”?........................ 42 73 What is the “Berry naming scheme”?................. 43 D Acquiring the Software 43 74 Repositories of TeX material..................... 43 75 Ready-built installation files on the archive.............. 44 76 What was the CTAN nonfree tree?.................. 44 77 Contributing a file to the archives................... 44 78 Finding (La)TeX files......................... 45 79 Finding new fonts........................... 46 80 The TeX collection.......................... 46 E TeX Systems 47 81 (La)TeX for different machines..................... 47 82 Unix and GNU Linux systems...................... 47 83 (Modern) Windows systems....................... 47 84 Macintosh systems........................... 48 85 Other systems’ TeX availability.................... 48 86 TeX-friendly editors and shells.................... 49 87 Commercial TeX implementations.................. 50 2 F DVI Drivers and Previewers 51 88 DVI to PostScript conversion programs................. 51 89 DVI drivers for HP LaserJet....................... 51 90 Output to “other” printers........................ 51 91 DVI previewers............................. 51 92 Generating bitmaps from DVI...................... 51 G Support Packages for TeX 52 93 (La)TeX-friendly drawing packages.................. 52 94 TeXCAD, a drawing package for LaTeX............... 52 95 Spelling checkers for work with TeX................. 52 96 How many words have you written?.................. 53 H Literate programming 54 97 What is Literate Programming?.................... 54 98 WEB systems for various languages................. 54 I Format conversions 54 99 Conversion from (La)TeX to plain text................ 54 100 Conversion from SGML or HTML to TeX.............. 55 101 Conversion from (La)TeX to HTML................. 55 102 Other conversions to and from (La)TeX................ 56 103 Using TeX to read SGML or XML directly............... 57 104 Retrieving (La)TeX from DVI, etc................... 58 105 Translating LaTeX to Plain TeX.................... 58 J Installing (La)TeX files 58 106 Installing things on a (La)TeX system................. 58 107 Finding packages to install...................... 59 108 Unpacking LaTeX packages...................... 59 109 Generating package documentation.................. 59 110 Installing files “where (La)TeX can find them”............ 60 111 Which tree to use........................... 60 112 Where to install packages........................ 61 113 Tidying up after installation....................... 61 114 Shortcuts to installing files....................... 62 115 Installation using MiKTeX package manager............. 62 116 Installation using TeX Live manager................. 62 117 Installing using ready-built ZIP files................. 62 118 “Temporary” installation of (La)TeX files............... 63 119 “Private” installations of files..................... 63 120 Installing a new font.......................... 64 121 Installing a font provided as Metafont source............. 64 122 ‘Installing’ a PostScript printer built-in font............. 65 123 Preparing a Type 1 font........................ 65 124 Installing a Type 1 font........................ 66 125 Installing the Type 1 versions of the CM fonts............ 66 K Fonts 67 K.1 Adobe Type 1 (“PostScript”) fonts 67 126 Using Adobe Type 1 fonts with TeX.................. 67 127 Previewing files using Type 1 fonts................... 67 128 TeX font metric files for Type 1 fonts.................. 67 129 Deploying Type 1 fonts........................ 68 130 Choice of Type 1 fonts for typesetting Maths............. 68 131 Unicode Maths using OpenType fonts................. 74 132 Weird characters in dvips output.................... 74 K.2 Macros for using fonts 74 133 Using non-standard fonts in Plain TeX................ 74 K.3 Particular font families 75 134 Using the “Concrete” fonts...................... 75 135 Using the Latin Modern fonts..................... 76 136 Getting ‘free’ fonts not in your distribution............... 77 3 K.4 Metafont fonts 77 137 Getting Metafont to do what you want................. 77 138 Which font files should be kept.................... 78 139 Acquiring bitmap fonts........................ 78 L Hypertext and PDF 79 140 Making PDF documents from (La)TeX................ 79 141 Making hypertext documents from TeX................ 80 142 The hyperTeX project......................... 80 143 Quality of PDF from PostScript.................... 80 144 The wrong type of fonts in PDF..................... 81 145 Fuzzy fonts because Ghostscript too old................ 81 146 Fonts go fuzzy when you switch to T1................. 81 147 Characters missing from PDF output................. 82 148 Finding ‘8-bit’ Type 1 fonts...................... 82 149 Replacing Type 3 fonts in PostScript................. 83 150 Hyperref and repeated page numbers................. 83 151 Copy-paste-able/searchable PDF files................. 84 M Graphics 84 152 Importing graphics into (La)TeX documents............. 84 153 Imported graphics in dvips ....................... 85 154 Imported graphics in PDFLaTeX................... 86 155 Imported graphics in dvipdfm .....................