LaTeX
LaTeX is a computer program used for making articles, books and math formulas look good. LaTeX is well-suited for expressing mathematical formulas on electronic devices in a more human readable format, by showing them in a way similar to how they would be written by hand.
 | |
| Original author(s) | Leslie Lamport |
|---|---|
| Repository | |
| Platform | Cross-platform |
| Type | Typesetting |
| License | LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL) |
| Website | www.latex-project.org |
LaTeX is used for making mathematical formulas for some articles on Wikipedia, in addition to being used within academic circles.
The writer types their article into a plain text document. A plain text document cannot have styled text, like bold or italic. When the writer wants to write styled text, they use special LaTeX commands that start with a backslash (\). For example, the command for bold text is \textbf{This text is bold}.
After the writer is finished writing the article, they tell LaTeX to read the document. After LaTeX is done, LaTeX makes a file that can be printed. The command \textbf{This text is bold} would print as This text is bold.
LaTeX was first made in the early 1980s by Leslie Lamport at SRI International, who published its first manual in 1986.[1] The current version is LaTeX2e (styled 
), which has been active since 1994.[2]
Example
The example below shows the LaTeX input and its corresponding output:
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\title{\LaTeX}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for the \TeX{}
typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing
features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of
typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and
cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies,
and much more. \LaTeX{} was originally written in 1984 by Leslie
Lamport and has become the dominant method for using \TeX; few
people write in plain \TeX{} anymore. The current version is
\LaTeXe.
% This is a comment; it will not be shown in the final output.
% The following shows a little of the typesetting power of LaTeX:
\begin{align}
E &= mc^2 \\
m &= \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
\end{align}
\end{document}
|
 |
Academic contributions to LaTeX
In order to support mathematical typesetting, the American Mathematical Society (AMS) has made the AMS-LaTeX package.[3] AMS also founded MathJax, a Javascript extension to display mathematical formulas on web browsers, with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.[4]
Related pages
- Acaric (Developer of Cloud LaTeX)
- Beamer (LaTeX-based presentation software)
- CTAN (One of the largest LaTeX-related website)
- KaTeX (LaTeX for web browsers)
- SATySFi (A computer program expected to be an alternative to LaTeX)
References
- Leslie Lamport (April 23, 2007). "The Writings of Leslie Lamport: LaTeX: A Document Preparation System". Leslie Lamport's Home Page. Retrieved 2011-08-17.
- "The Definitive, Non-Technical Introduction to LaTeX, Professional Typesetting and Scientific Publishing". Math Vault. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
- Grätzer, G. (2013). Math into LATEX: An introduction to LATEX and AMS-LATEX. Springer Science & Business Media.
- "MathJax: About Us". MathJax. 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
Further reading
- Van Dongen, M. R. (2012). LATEX and Friends. Springer Science & Business Media.
- Grätzer, G. (2014). Practical LaTeX. Springer.
- Datta, D. (2017). LaTeX in 24 Hours: A Practical Guide for Scientific Writing. Springer.
