[OS X TeX] TeX is not for the faint of heart

Thu May 6 01:30:34 CEST 2004

What is needed UP FRONT is just enough to let people get going.

NO MORE than what MS Word requires.

After /that/, yes, ALL you want.

Regards
--schremmer

Rebecca Weber wrote:

> On May 5, 2004, at 2:40 AM, m wrote:
>
>> If I may chime in here...
>>
>> The introductions given on this particular page and on TeXShop's page 
>> as well are still *far* too technical. If one has never ever heard of 
>> TeX before, except for those moments of math-students telling him 
>> that TeX was the coolest thing on earth, these "intros" don't do a 
>> very good job.
>
>
> <snip>
>
>> Programs, support files, macros, commands?
>> Distribution, binaries, scripts, frontends?
>> Device independendet DVI, ASCII TeX source, translated, device, X11, 
>> Windows, Unix core, TeX Live, foundation... some guy named Sebastian 
>> Rahtz... suddenly teTeX, big advantage: teTeX-texfm, then 
>> GhostScript, "run pdfTeX".
>
>
> I've done a lot of explaining of "what TeX is" in the past few years 
> (I'm one of those math students who thinks it's at least close to the 
> coolest thing on earth).  I wrote something this morning that could 
> perhaps be expanded into The Utter Newbie's Explanation.  It needs 
> some work before it can take a complete novice to someone who 
> understands all of the terms in Mahakk's list, but I think it's a 
> first step - it goes from a complete novice to (hopefully) someone 
> who's not *afraid* of the terms in the list above.  Those who are 
> still feeling the sting of their novice time can judge whether this 
> would have been helpful to them.  There would still have to be a 
> "second pass" after this, one that answers questions like "what does a 
> documentclass do?" and "what is this usepackage business?"
>
> A note on what's below: words which are preceded and followed by 
> underscores are meant to be underlined or italicized as vocabulary 
> terms.  Everything else is meant to be read verbatim.  It includes 
> html commands, so if your mail reader is html-enabled you might have 
> some confusion.  The three major lacks in this explanation are a list 
> of reference books, a description of where you can go to get programs, 
> and some small, non-comprehensive sample files (all of which exist 
> elsewhere and could easily be incorporated).  It might also benefit 
> from a glossary (which could include terms not used in the 
> explanation, like most of those in Mahakk's list).
> Just my two cents,
> Rebecca
>
> _________________
>
> What is TeX?
> TeX (here used as a catch-all term for all the various kinds of TeX, 
> such as LaTeX) is a _markup_language_, a system of typesetting where 
> you write plain unformatted text (as you might in TextEdit or 
> Notepad), and that is turned into pretty formatted text (as you might 
> see in Word, only prettier) by a _compiler_.  That is, instead of 
> selecting "italics" from a menu and seeing your text instantly 
> italicized, you type a command that will be interpreted by the 
> compiler as "put this text into italics".  Another markup language you 
> might be familiar with is html; if not, you can see examples by 
> opening a webpage and selecting "view source" from one of the menus in 
> your browser (Netscape, IE, Safari, etc.).  Choose a plain page 
> (without a lot of graphics, forms, or frames) and compare what you see 
> in the original browser to what you see in the source window -- the 
> source file has a lot of text that does not appear in the webpage.  
> The source file has been _rendered_ into the webpage image, using the 
> information from the extra text, or _commands_.  In TeX, we speak of a 
> text file being _compiled_, turned into a pdf, dvi, or ps file.  The 
> first kind you're probably familiar with from web browsing; the other 
> two are just different formats which we can get into later.
>
> Now some examples, comparing to html:
> * To begin and end a webpage, you use the commands <html> and 
> </html>.  To begin and end a TeX document, you use \begin{document} 
> and \end{document}.  TeX has more options than html, though, so you 
> will also have to include some information before the \begin{document} 
> to tell the program which options you're exercising.  In particular, 
> you must include the command \documentclass{classname}, where 
> classname is replaced by the kind of document you want to make: 
> article, book, letter,... the list goes on and is added to regularly.
> * To italicize in html, you enclose the text in <em> and </em>, as so: 
> <em>this text is italicized</em>.  In Tex, it's a single command with 
> the italicized text enclosed in curly braces: \emph{this text is 
> italicized}.
> * To center in html, you enclose the text in <center> and </center>.  
> In TeX, these change to \begin{center} and \end{center}.
>
> If you've looked at some TeX files, your next question might be 
> "what's with all the dollar signs?"  Some commands in TeX only work in 
> _math_mode_, and you tell the program you're entering or leaving math 
> mode via a dollar sign.  This gives TeX the ability to double up on 
> commands - to give one command two meanings, depending on whether it's 
> in math mode or not.  An example is the dash: out of math mode, that 
> is, simply -, it is a short dash.  Inside math mode, $-$, it is a 
> minus sign and so is longer.
>
> That brings us to one other point: some symbols are used specially, 
> like \ and $, and so there are different commands that produce that 
> symbol on the page.  If you type a single \, TeX expects the next 
> thing it reads to be a command.  If you want a backslash to appear on 
> the page, that next command should be \ again: \\ will print a 
> backslash.  To get other special characters, you also precede them 
> with a backslash, as in \$ for a dollar sign.
>
> The best way to learn TeX in the beginning is by looking at other 
> people's files (as is also true for html and most programming 
> languages).  Once the syntax (way of writing it) starts to make more 
> intuitive sense to you, there are a number of excellent reference 
> books from which to learn more commands.  <insert list of books here>
>
> How do I get it?
> To use TeX, you need a "front end" and a "back end" (or 
> "foundation").  The front end is the editor and viewer: where you type 
> your text and where you view the compiled result.  The back end is the 
> program that does the compilation along with all the information it 
> uses to do so.  These pieces are all put together for html in the form 
> of web browsers (well, those with built-in web design programs, like 
> Netscape Composer), but for Tex (if you want it for free) you must 
> download and install them separately.  <insert instructions for 
> installation here - I'm biased toward iInstaller/TeXShop, which was 
> very easy to install and use; mention could also be made of 
> WinEdt/MikTex for any Windows users who might happen by>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
> guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.
>
>
>

-----------------------------------------------------
Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.