TeX Resources on the Web
Additions and corrections are always welcome, please email webmaster@tug.org. (In fact, we are
seeking a volunteer to do a systematic review and reorganization of this
page; please contact us if you are interested. A list of other tasks in TeX community is also available.)
- CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network):
downloads, software, documentation.
- TeX user groups around the world.
- FAQ, documentation
- Free TeX implementations
- TeX extension projects
- Packages and programs
- TeX web projects
- Commercial/shareware TeX vendors and projects
- Publisher information
- Miscellaneous
- Donald Knuth's
home page
If you have a general question, start with the TeX Frequently Asked
Questions. If it doesn't help, try the visual FAQ.
Introductions to the TeX world:
General TeX help:
If you have questions not answered by the above, read on for more
documentation links, or the most widely used general help forums for TeX
are (no guarantees, this is all done by volunteers):
LaTeX manuals:
- LaTeX Cheat
Sheet, a two-page quick reference by Winston Chang.
- LaTeX
Documentation Pointers, giving references to documentation for most
common LaTeX tasks, by Jim Hefferon.
- The not so
Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, by Tobias Oetiker (pdf, ps, source in
many languages).
- Formatting
Information, by Peter Flynn (html or
pdf).
Includes installation and usage information.
- LaTeX Wikibook,
a guide to LaTeX.
- The LaTeX 2e home
page, and the LaTeX bugs
database, a searchable collection of bugs and fixes.
LaTeX tutorials:
LaTeX reference:
LaTeX for particular fields:
Writing new LaTeX packages, classes, and styles:
Books on LaTeX:
- A Guide to LaTeX2e, by
Helmut Kopka and Patrick Daly (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-17385-6,
fourth edition, 2003).
- Learning LaTeX, by David Griffiths and Desmond Higham
(SIAM, ISBN 978-0-898713-83-1, 1997, 84pp). A short example-based book
covering core LaTeX and a few packages.
- The LaTeX Companion, by Frank
Mittelbach, Michel Goossens, Johannes Braams, David Carlisle, and Chris
Rowley (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54199-8, second edition, 2004).
- The LaTeX Web Companion: Integrating
TeX, HTML, and XML, by Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, Eitan
Gurari, Ross Moore and Robert Sutor (Addison-Wesley, ISBN
0-201-43311-7).
- The LaTeX Graphics
Companion, by Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, and Frank Mittelbach
(Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-85469-4).
- Digital
Typography Using LaTeX, by Apostolos Syropoulos, Antonis
Tsolomitis, and Nick Sofroniou (Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-95217-9).
- First
Steps in LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser,
ISBN 0-8176-4132-7).
- First
Steps in LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser,
ISBN 0-8176-4132-7).
- Math
into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser Boston and
Springer Verlag New York, ISBN 0-8176-4131-9 and ISBN 3-7648-4131-9).
Download Part
I of the book in Postscript or PDF format.
- More
Math into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser, ISBN
978-0-387-32289-6).
- TeXikon, a
handbook in German on TeX and LaTeX, by Rudolf Potucek and Stefan
Schwarz, published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 3-8931-9690-0).
- Introduktion
till LaTeX, in Swedish, by Per Jacobsson (ISBN 9-7891-4403-3143).
- LaTeX Sources, a
convenient compendium of the LaTeX2e sources. Download a collected pdf
for free or buy a hardcover at cost.
Online references for other TeX-related software:
Fonts:
- Discussion of available fonts, both free and
proprietary.
- Font
Installation Guide: Using PostScript fonts to their full potential
with LaTeX, by Philipp Lehman (91pp, pdf).
- Installing
PostScript fonts in LaTeX, by Peter Flynn.
- Typeface
sampler, by Peter Flynn, showing all the Type 1 and Type 3
typefaces which are freely available (pdf, with sources and more samples).
- Using TrueType
fonts with (pdf)(La)TeX, by Damir Rakityansky.
- Essential NFSS
users guide by Sebastian Rahtz; then see
Font selection in
LaTeX by Walter Schmidt.
- Fontname, a naming scheme for TeX fonts.
- The STIX web site, a
project for getting mathematical characters into Unicode, and creating
fonts with them.
- More references
to works on typography and printing, and
references
to TeX, from William Adams.
Graphics:
Indexing:
Plain TeX:
- TeX by
Topic, A TeXnician's Reference, by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley,
1992; 307pp). Available under the GFDL.
- TeX for
the Impatient, by Paul Abrahams, Kathryn Hargreaves, and Karl Berry
(Addison-Wesley, 1990; 357pp). Available under the GFDL.
- A gentle
introduction to TeX, by Michael Doob (Greek
translation available).
- Reference cards for AMSTeX
and Plain TeX, by Joseph Silverman.
- Plain TeX
reference, from Norm Walsh.
- A
Beginner's Book of TeX, by Silvio Levy and Raymond Seroul (Springer
Verlag, ISBN 0-387-97562-4).
- TeX for the
Beginner, by Wynter Snow (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54799-6).
- To proto vima sto TeX, Greek translation and enhancement
of TeX starting from square one, by Dimitrios
Filippou (Paratiritis Editions, ISBN 960-374-081-0, 2001).
Overall TeX system:
- TDS, the TeX Directory
Structure standard, a recommended layout for TeX systems.
- A freely available book on the TeX system: Making TeX Work,
by Norman Walsh (O'Reilly, 1994; 15 chapters, 6 appendices).
- Victor
Eijkhout's course notes, with a basic intro to LaTeX usage,
explanation of font encodings, and a computer science approach to many
aspects of TeX.
Presentations about TeX:
Advocacy:
TeX Family in 2009 article is
available online, originally published in AMS Notices magazine.
Also see the AMS list of TeX
resources and TeX-related
publications. You may also want to check out Bibliography
on TeX & Co from LORIA, Nancy, France.
Finally, the TeX
category in the Open Directory
Project has a large list of links. (Please also submit new sites
there.)
Some notable TeX implementations that are entirely, or least
primarily, free software:
- TeX Live is a distribution provided by
most TeX user groups which supports many Unix systems, MacOSX, and
32-bit Windows.
- MacTeX, TeX Live with additions and easy
installation for MacOSX.
- MiKTeX, an independent
distribution for Windows with a flexible package manager.
- proTeXt, MiKTeX with additions and
a thorough installation guide for Windows.
- USBTeX, a
self-contained live system for Windows that can be run from, e.g., a USB
stick with no installation.
- Knoppix,
a live GNU/Linux system on a bootable CD that includes TeX. Portable
LaTeX (Slackware-based) and Ready LaTeX
(Kubuntu-based) are similar live CD's, specifically constructed for
writing (La)TeX documents.
The AMS also maintains a list of freeware and
shareware TeX implementations.
If you want to inspect Knuth's own sources for educational or other
such purposes, without any of the scaffolding and enhancements that have
come to surround them in modern systems, you can get them from Stanford; the material is
also mirrored on CTAN.
- e-TeX, extended TeX.
Required by current LaTeX, incorporated in all common executables except
tex itself (run etex).
- pdfTeX, a
TeX variant by Hàn Thế Thành which can produce PDF
output as well as DVI, including documentation.
- XeTeX, a TeX implementation
by Jonathan Kew for MacOS X, with Unicode and native font support. (TeXgX is its
predecessor for MacOS 7.)
- LuaTeX, embedding Lua and
MetaPost in TeX and opening up the program.
- Aleph, essentially Omega +
bug fixes + e-TeX. May be folded back into Omega eventually. FAQ
entry.
- Omega, Unicode-based TeX (available on CTAN as part of web2c). FAQ
entry.
- Ant,
a typesetting system similar to TeX written in Objective Caml, by Achim
Blumensath.
LaTeX, biggest and most
widely used TeX macro package.
ConTeXt, Hans Hagen's
powerful, modern, TeX macro package; a serious contender for those
wanting a production-quality publishing system. Integrated support for
XML, MetaPost, and much more. The ConTeXt Garden Wiki is a good place
to start. Also, Aditya Mahajan writes regular introductory ConTeXt
articles for TUGboat:
fonts,
tables,
tables II,
indentations.
Dave Walden has also written on ConTeXt:
Trying
ConTeXt and A bigger experiment.
Free editors and front-ends (see also vendors
below):
- AUC-TeX for Emacs,
a sophisticated TeX environment.
- iTeXMac for MacOSX.
- Kile for KDE/Linux.
- LaTeX Editor (LEd)
for Windows.
- LyX for Windows and X, a
well-developed front end for TeX.
- MonkeyEditor for the web,
including collaboration and publication.
- pfe
(Programmer's File Editor) for Windows.
- SciTe for Windows
and X, a free source code editor.
- Texmaker for Unix,
MacOSX and Windows, well-developed and documented
front-end for LaTeX.
- TeXnicCenter for Windows,
an integrated environment for LaTeX composition.
- TeXShop
for MacOSX.
- TeXworks, a cross-platform front-end with
an ease-of-use philosophy similar to TeXShop, an integrated PDF viewer,
source/output synchronization, and more.
- Winshell for Windows, a
zero-cost but nonfree editor.
- WineFish for Gnome/Linux.
Packages and programs for making slide presentations:
- Comparison of screen
presentation systems, mostly (La)TeX-based, by Michael Wiedmann.
- Beamer, by Till
Tantau; see also CTAN
directory. A nice Beamer by
example tutorial is available for getting started.
- Beamer presentation
designer program in Python, using Inkscape.
- seminar (slides in LaTeX), notes by
Denis Girou (including bug list and FAQ)
- texpoint, a
add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word to enable use of LaTeX.
- TeX4PPT,
an alternative package for enabling LaTeX in PowerPoint.
- Aurora, another
add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and more that enables use of LaTeX.
Packages and programs dealing with graphics. MetaPost information is on a separate page.
Here we start with PSTricks:
PGF/TikZ graphics:
Xy-pic graphics:
Other programs for creating graphics:
asymptote, a
modern MetaPost replacement with a C++-like syntax and floating-point
numerics, by Andy Hammerlindl, John Bowman, and Tom Prince.
ePiX,
Andy Hwang's C++-based graphics language
Eukleides, geometry diagrams with output in pstricks, including graphical frontend
Inkscape, a multi-platform graphics editor based on SVG.
IPE, a multi-platform graphics editor.
LaTeXPiX,
Windows program that generates LaTeX pictures.
TeXCAD,
a Windows program for drawing or retouching LaTeX {picture}s;
distributed under the GPL.
TpX, a TeX drawing tool for Windows.
Formats and large macro packages:
AMS-TeX and AMS-LaTeX , the American Mathematical Society's TeX packages
EDMAC, Dominik Wujastyk and John Lavagnino's package for typestting critical editions
Eplain, extended plain format
LaTeX 3, new work from the LaTeX developers (news).
The REVTeX package
Shyster, James Popple's
case-based legal expert system which produces LaTeX output.
DVI drivers:
- dvips,
Tom Rokicki's widely-used dvi to PostScript driver
- xdvi,
Paul Vojta's widely-used DVI previewer for the X window system.
- xdvik,
the Kpathsea variant of xdvi.
- dvipdfmx,
extended version of Mark Wicks' original DVI to PDF converter,
by Shunsaku Hirata and Jin-Hwan Cho.
- dvisvg,
for conversion to the W3C SVG (scalable vector graphics) format.
- dvii,
for looking at DVI files and summarizing the contents (fonts,
specials, etc.), by Adam H. Lewenberg.
- IDVI a Java DVI viewer.
PDF viewers (concentrating on free software):
- For Unix:
- xpdf, a standalone implementation.
- GNU gv, a simple
front-end to Ghostscript.
- Evince, a
document viewer for PDF (based on poppler), PostScript,
DVI, and more.
- GGV (Gnome
Ghostview), a Ghostscript front-end for the Gnome window manager.
- Okular,
which supports source specials using pdfsync.
- KGhostView,
a Ghostscript front-end for the KDE window manager.
- Ghostscript itself.
Besides viewing, Ghostscript can distill PostScript to PDF (and
image formats and bounding boxes and many other things).
- For Windows: Sumatra PDF,
free software based on xpdf.
- There is also the proprietary (though zero-cost) Adobe (Acrobat)
Reader, but you probably already knew that.
Excalibur, the Mac TeX-aware spell checker
Kdissert, a
writing tool to help structure ideas and concepts (for KDE).
designer for LaTeX.
OpenOffice math plugin
that allows writing LaTeX formulas in OpenOffice documents.
PerlTeX,
Perl programming plus TeX typesetting.
PerlTeX: Defining LaTeX
macros using Perl, an article by Scott Pakin, author of PerlTeX.
Programming with
PerlTeX, an article by Andrew Mertz and William Slough using
graduated examples.
PyTeX, Python programming plus TeX
typesetting.
stepTeX, porting the famous NeXTStep TeX previewer
TechWriter Pro Used in connection with
EasiWriter, TechWriter provides an equation editor which exports to HTML,
as a TeX file, and has Java support.
LaTeX Generator, for making LaTeX
template documents (in German).
preview-latex,
WYSIWYGish in-line previews right in your Emacs source buffer
texd,
TeX as a daemon with a callable interface, written in Python.
TeXmacs, a WYSIWYG editor for typing technical and mathematical text.
TeXoMaker, free software
for teachers to create and manage exercise sheets in LaTeX.
Xindy,a new index processor designed to replace makeindex
MathType and the Equation Editor in MS Word. MathType is a WYSIWYG equation editor that outputs TeX.
Multi-lingual typesetting in scripts and languages around the world:
- African
typesetting paper (PDF), with discussion of TeX.
- Ekushey
typing system -- Bengali for Microsoft Word. This is a GNU
licenced add-in for Word 97/2000/XP that enables Bengali typing.It
has an export to TeX option, meaning that it can be used either as
a conversion tool or as a WYSIWYG Bengali TeX editor.
- The Chinese TeX Society provides
the major CCT, ctex, and other packages for Chinese typesetting,
including a downloadable
distribution based on MiKTeX. Other CTeX links:
wiki,
forum,
ftp.
- ChiTeX for Chinese
typesetting; Chinese directory
on CTAN. See also this recipe
for getting started with ChiTeX and Emacs.
- CSTeX, LaTeX and
plain TeX support for Czech and Slovak users, including special
fonts.
-
Japanese LaTeX (Platex) and related tools for pdf authoring
by Young Joon Moon, as part of a self-initiated project to guide
Japanese learners and Japanese to master kanji (Japanese/Chinese
characters) with minimal effort.
- Hóng-Zì,
a project to create a Chinese Metafonts. Contributors encouraged.
- Using
GNU/Linux and LaTeX to create Japanese language documents.
- Japanese directory on CTAN.
- sinhala_tex,
Metafont fonts and a preprocessor for writing in the Sinhala script.
BibTeX and bibliographies
Massive
bibliography collection, from Nelson Beebe.
Tame the BeaST: The
B to X of BibTeX, a comprehensive BibTeX manual by Nicolas Markey.
Brief BibTeX
description, from Norm Walsh.
Aigaion, a php-based
bibliography management system based on BibTeX.
gbib, a BibTeX manager for GNU/Linux,
including integration with LyX.
ebib, BibTeX
database manager for Emacs.
JabRef, Java-based GUI for
managing BibTeX databases.
Pybliographer, a
BibTeX tool which can be used for searching, editing, reformatting, etc.
It provides Python classes, has a graphical GNOME
interface, and references can be inserted directly into LyX (version
1.0.x running on the GNOME desktop.
BibDB, a BibTeX
Database Manager (DOS and Windows) by Eyal Doron.
BibEdit, program for editing BibTeX files
under Windows NT and 98.
BibTeXMng, a BibTeX
manager for Windows.
HotReference.com, a community
site for sharing bibliography citations and article reviews, with BibTeX
support.
BibTeX 101, an
introduction to BibTeX by Oren Patashnik.
- Online LaTeX previewer,
by Troy Henderson.
- LaTeX2HTML translator to
create Web pages from LaTeX documents. See also the manual and
introductory
article.
- TeX4ht, TeX and LaTeX for
Hypertext, by Eitan Gurari. It supports LaTeX to HTML and XML,
including MathML, and is included in .
There is a useful guide on how
to set it up with MikTeX.
- tex2page,
Scheme-based TeX-to-HTML conversion for TeX and LaTeX.
- HeVeA.
A LaTeX to HTML translater, written in objective Caml.
- tth, a
TeX to HTML converter.
- Wikipublisher supports
customized typesetting of web pages for print, using
LaTeX.
- Hyperlatex, a set of
macros for writing one document with both printed and HTML output.
- AMRITA is a system for
communicating software-based ideas and information. It operates as a
cross between a document preparation system, a computational engine, and
a programming language.
More web-related projects:
PassiveTeX,
by Sebastian Rahtz, for processing XSL with TeX. (No longer maintained.)
tbookdtd, XML
DTD for LaTeX documents, and HTML generation
HyperTeX,
original conventions for TeX hypertext
Markup Shredder, document
conversion from HTML to PDF using TeX.
ASTER
demo (spoken mathematics)
Texpider,
MicroPress' version of TeX that writes HTML directly
Techexplorer,
a Web browser plugin from IBM which renders TeX markup
EquPlus: Science and Math Equations -
Display code for science and math equations in TeX, MathML, and MathType,
including constants, symbols, and SI units.
Supporting (La)TeX equations within HTML, etc.:
GtkMathView for
TeX-quality formatting of MathML, by Luca Padovani.
mimetex.cgi,
equation typesetting for web pages via a cgi script.
EquationService,
equations to pdf.
Formula Freehand Entry System
(FFES), a pen-based equation editor.
Gladtex,
equations to images via batch perl/Ghostscript/LaTeX/dvips.
InftyReader,
OCR for equations with LaTeX output.
mathurl, render LaTeX to an image and
generate a short url for use in email, IM, etc.
webmath, equation
typesetting for web pages via an applet.
If you are interested in math and XML, look info
MathML,
the proposal for math on the Web, and a standard DTD.
Related software:
Commercial and shareware TeX vendors
The AMS TeX pages have a good list of
Commercial
TeX implementations. This list includes many additional shareware
and otherwise nonfree packages and projects.
Applied Symbols,
OpenType Computer Modern and Unimath, an OpenType math font.
Blue Sky Research, sells
Textures for Macintosh.
CMacTeX
for Macintosh, by Tom Kiffe
DiffDoc,
shareware for comparing html, pdf, and other documents.
Easy table, a macro
package for easy table creation by Khanh Ha.
GrindEQ Math Utilities, for
importing/exporting (AMS)(La)TeX documents to/from Microsoft Word.
istorm,
shareware for MacOS X, collaboration tool including dynamic
conversion of math to pdf.
Mackichan Software, Inc. sells
Scientific Word for Windows and Mac, a WYSIWYG program using TeX
in the background.
MicroIMP: WYSIWYG LaTeX that
requires no knowledge of TeX/LaTeX programming.
OS/2 TeX,
setup for OS/2 put together by Juergen Kleinboehl.
OzTeX for
the Macintosh, by Andrew Trevorrow
Personal TeX Inc. sells
and supports a complete TeX product for Windows.
Publicon,
from Wolfram Research, has sophisticated technical publishing, including
export to LaTeX, AMSTeX, REVTeX, XML, and much more.
SciLetter is commercial email
software with equation support based on TeX.
SciWriter
is an XML-based scientific editor for mathematicians and scientists, from
soft4science. (SciLetter and
SciWriter are completely independent products from different vendors.)
tex2html, commercial TeX to HTML
conversion system, which renders math using the Symbol font (and other tricks)
True TeX is a TrueType based
TeX for Windows.
VTeX includes a
TeX IDE, visual tools, HTML, PDF, PS and SVG backends, and
many math and text fonts.
WinEdt, a very powerful
TeX editor and shell for Windows 9X/NT.
word2tex, shareware from Chikrii Softlab for converting
Word documents to LaTeX (and tex2word
for the other direction).
Y&Y was a TeX system for Windows; they're out
of business now, but their web pages are available here.
3B2: made by Advent Publishing Systems,
Ltd., high-end professional publishing with built-in WYSIWYG TeX support
and full SGML conformance. Offices in the UK, Ireland, USA.
See also the excellent pages on Journals Accepting
Manuscripts written using LaTeX by Gabriel Valiente, and
Publishers
who use TeX/LaTeX by Tom Schneider.
A number of publishers provide ready-made style packages.
Scholarly and publishing organization
Museums of typography.
LaTeX
publicity leaflet by Peter Flynn.
TeX
merchandising to benefit user groups
An online forum for technical
questions and answers about typesetting.
The Fine Press Book Association,
an organization of individuals interested in the art of fine printing,
with its journal Parenthesis.
A list of typography,
calligraphy & type-related books, by Delve Withrington.
Typozines,
links to online magazines, e-zines and journals covering typography and
graphic design.
The Free Software
Magazine is produced using TeX, and has occasional articles about
it.
Humanities books
typeset with TeX by Tseng Books.
Project Gutenberg Distributed
Proofreaders - proofread OCR'd text of public domain books a page at
a time, when you have time. All books are distributed freely. Includes
math books, which are entered using TeX.
Rogue's gallery of past TUG presidents.
Nelson Beebe's home page.
Or take a break from all this TeX stuff and admire Sebastian Rahtz's
daughter Matilde visiting the Protestant Cemetery in Rome as a baby circa 2000, and circa 2002,
painted as a Kathakali dancer in India, and circa
2006 with her dad in Istanbul. Sebastian was the original
perpetrator of this page :).
$Date: 2009/06/22 17:40:09 $;
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