[OS X TeX] From LaTeX to TeX

[Piet van Oostrum]

>>>>> delanoy at igd.univ-lyon1.fr (D) wrote:

D>   Hello all,


D>  could anyone help me on this :
D>  although I'm fairly familiar with LaTeX, I know nothing about "plain TeX"
D> (I learned LaTeX directly), and today this causes me a problem because
D> I have to use MusixTeX for which use of TeX rather than LaTeX is hignly
D> recommended. So I ask myself many questions :

D>  -given a source document originally written in LaTeX, is it easy and fast
D> to convert it to a "plain TeX" file ?

No, it isn't. 

D>  -what are the main differences between the two ?

LaTeX contains many constructions that plain TeX doesn't have. Like
automatic numbering of chapters, section, equations, table of contents,
multiple fonts etc. Doing these in plain TeX would require a lot of macro
writing. It would in fact imply writing a subset of LaTeX yourself.

Of course it is different if you don't use these it is simpler. E.g. if
your document is just a bunch of paragraphs with all fonts in the same size
it is easy.

I think that MusixTeX can be just as well used with LaTeX.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum <piet at cs.uu.nl>
URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP]
Private email: P.van.Oostrum at hccnet.nl
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