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We also 0016 gratefully acknowledge additional material appearing in 0017 latex2e-reference by Martin Herbert Dietze. (From these references no 0018 text was directly copied.) 0019 0020 Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 0021 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 Karl Berry. 0022 0023 Copyright 1988, 1994, 2007 Stephen Gilmore. 0024 0025 Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 Torsten Martinsen. 0026 0027 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of 0028 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice 0029 are preserved on all copies. 0030 0031 0032 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this 0033 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire 0034 resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission 0035 notice identical to this one. 0036 0037 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual 0038 into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions. --> 0039 <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.5, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> 0040 <head> 0041 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> 0042 <title>Overview (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))</title> 0043 0044 <meta name="description" content="Overview (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))"> 0045 <meta name="keywords" content="Overview (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))"> 0046 <meta name="resource-type" content="document"> 0047 <meta name="distribution" content="global"> 0048 <meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo"> 0049 <link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top"> 0050 <link href="IndexDocument.html#Index" rel="index" title="Index"> 0051 <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> 0052 <link href="index.html#Top" rel="up" title="Top"> 0053 <link href="Starting-and-ending.html#Starting-and-ending" rel="next" title="Starting and ending"> 0054 <link href="About-this-document.html#About-this-document" rel="prev" title="About this document"> 0055 <style type="text/css"> 0056 <!-- 0057 /* $Id: latex2e.css 690 2018-09-15 15:20:19Z jimhefferon $ 0058 Minor css for latexrefman. Public domain. 0059 Originally written by Jim Hefferon and Karl Berry, 2018. */ 0060 0061 /* So you can style for yourself */ 0062 @import url("/css/latexreflocal.css"); 0063 0064 0065 0066 a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} 0067 blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em} 0068 blockquote.smallindentedblock {margin-right: 0em; font-size: smaller} 0069 blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} 0070 div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} 0071 div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} 0072 div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em} 0073 div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em} 0074 div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em} 0075 div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em} 0076 kbd {font-style: oblique} 0077 pre.display {font-family: inherit} 0078 pre.format {font-family: inherit} 0079 pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} 0080 pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} 0081 pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} 0082 pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} 0083 pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} 0084 pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} 0085 span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap} 0086 span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal} 0087 span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal} 0088 ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} 0089 BODY { 0090 margin-top: 1em; 0091 margin-left: 1em; /* auto results in two-digit <ol> lost off left */ 0092 margin-right: 1em; 0093 margin-bottom: 1em; 0094 /* the idea is to use the whole window, unless it is ridiculously 0095 wide, probably with too-small fonts, too. */ 0096 max-width: 64em; 0097 } 0098 0099 /* Because we want @math{... @code ...} to be upright, not slanted, 0100 and Texinfo won't fix it. */ 0101 code {font-style:normal; font-family:monospace; } 0102 0103 /* We put a link to our own home page at the bottom. */ 0104 div.referenceinfo {font-size:small;} 0105 0106 --> 0107 </style> 0108 0109 0110 </head> 0111 0112 <body lang="en"> 0113 <a name="Overview"></a> 0114 <div class="header"> 0115 <p> 0116 Next: <a href="Document-classes.html#Document-classes" accesskey="n" rel="next">Document classes</a>, Previous: <a href="About-this-document.html#About-this-document" accesskey="p" rel="prev">About this document</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="IndexDocument.html#Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> 0117 </div> 0118 <hr> 0119 <a name="Overview-of-LaTeX"></a> 0120 <h2 class="chapter">2 Overview of LaTeX</h2> 0121 0122 <a name="index-overview-of-LaTeX"></a> 0123 <a name="index-basics-of-LaTeX"></a> 0124 <a name="index-Knuth_002c-Donald-E_002e"></a> 0125 <a name="index-Lamport_002c-Leslie"></a> 0126 <a name="index-LaTeX-overview"></a> 0127 0128 <p>LaTeX is a system for typesetting documents. It was originally 0129 created by Leslie Lamport and is now maintained by a group of volunteers 0130 (<a href="http://latex-project.org">http://latex-project.org</a>). It is widely used, particularly for 0131 complex and technical documents, such as those involving mathematics. 0132 </p> 0133 <a name="index-macro-package_002c-LaTeX-as"></a> 0134 <p>A LaTeX user writes an input file containing text along with 0135 interspersed commands, for instance commands describing how the text 0136 should be formatted. It is implemented as a set of related commands 0137 that interface with Donald E. Knuth’s TeX typesetting program 0138 (the technical term is that LaTeX is a <em>macro package</em> for the 0139 TeX engine). The user produces the output document by giving that 0140 input file to the TeX engine. 0141 </p> 0142 <p>The term LaTeX is also sometimes used to mean the language in which 0143 the document is marked up, that is, to mean the set of commands 0144 available to a LaTeX user. 0145 </p> 0146 <a name="index-Lamport-TeX"></a> 0147 <a name="index-pronunciation"></a> 0148 <p>The name LaTeX is short for “Lamport TeX”. It is pronounced 0149 LAH-teck or LAY-teck, or sometimes LAY-tecks. Inside a document, 0150 produce the logo with <code>\LaTeX</code>. Where use of the logo is not 0151 sensible, such as in plain text, write it as ‘<samp>LaTeX</samp>’. 0152 </p> 0153 <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0"> 0154 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Starting-and-ending.html#Starting-and-ending" accesskey="1">Starting and ending</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">The standard beginning and end of a document. 0155 </td></tr> 0156 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Output-files.html#Output-files" accesskey="2">Output files</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Files produced. 0157 </td></tr> 0158 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="TeX-engines.html#TeX-engines" accesskey="3">TeX engines</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Programs that can compile TeX and LaTeX. 0159 </td></tr> 0160 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="LaTeX-command-syntax.html#LaTeX-command-syntax" accesskey="4">LaTeX command syntax</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">General syntax of LaTeX commands. 0161 </td></tr> 0162 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Environment.html#Environment" accesskey="5">Environment</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Area of the source giving distinct behavior. 0163 </td></tr> 0164 <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="CTAN.html#CTAN" accesskey="6">CTAN</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Our repository. 0165 </td></tr> 0166 </table> 0167 0168 0169 0170 0171 <hr/><div class='referenceinfo'> <a href='https://latexref.xyz/'> <i>Unofficial LaTeX2e reference manual</i></a></div> 0172 </body> 0173 </html>