Difference between revisions of "TeX"

Revision as of 12:18, 13 July 2011

TeX (pronounced /ˈtɛx/, as in Greek, often /ˈtɛk/ in English; written with a lowercase 'e' in imitation of the logo)[1] is a typesetting system. It has been used successfully since the eighties and produces the highest quality output available from a free system. It is published under and Open Source license. Help about using the PM&C styles is given below in the code snippets section. This is also a good local resource.

Installing TeX

To install a copy of MiKTeX on your system, follow the following steps:

• Download the miktex.zip file. Extract to a temporary folder. Note that this is the (2.4) version.
• It might be faster for advanced users to download [ftp://ftp.up.ac.za/mirrors/miktex.com/miktex/pub/setup/wget.exe wget.exe and then open a command window and type the following (in an empty folder):

wget -r --no-directories ftp://ftp.up.ac.za/mirrors/miktex.com/tm/packages
wget -r --no-directories ftp://ftp.up.ac.za/mirrors/miktex.com/setup

This also ensures you get the latest packages. If you don't understand that, skip it.

• Locate and run the setup.exe in the folder you just extracted (or downloaded).
• Follow these instructions, which include screenshots (you can leave out the downloading part).

If you didn't follow those instructions, the gist of it is

• determine which option you want to install (small, medium, large). The disk space requirements vary from 200 to about 500 MB. The large option contains all the options you might need, and some you'll never use!
• select the install option on the first page and then click the defaults for the rest of the options.
• Go get some coffee, smoke a cigarette, do some other work. Perhaps wait for lunch before attempting this. The install takes ages (up to an hour on an oldish computer).

When the install has finished, you will have a working TeX system.

• Now learn TeX by reading this and have a look at the code snippets section

The next step is to install an editor and some PostScript tools.

Installing Postscript tools

PostScript tools for lab users. Simply install:

• Ghostscript and
• Ghostview.

Use all the defaults and not much can go wrong.

Installing LaTeX editors

The best IDE for new LaTeX users is TeXNicCenter (http://ragnarok.up.ac.za/programdownloads/latexide).

Just follow the instructions on that page to install the editor and the UK (en_GB) spellchecker files. When you run the editor it will ask you to choose an environment. Remember that you are using MiKTeX, so you can use the default settings. It might ask you for the "DVI editor". You will have to navigate to the folder where you installed MiKTeX (default is c:\texmf\miktex\miktex\bin\yap.exe).

If you have more courage and are mildly insane, you can try the best editor in existence, originally coded by Richard Stallman himself. Try Installing Emacs on Windows. You know you want to.

References

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX