# Difference between revisions of "LaTeX"

## Background

From the main Project Page:

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.

## LaTeX on Windows

In Windows, it is highly recommended to use a full-featured suite such as TeX Live or MiKTeX. Both of these suites include everything required for end-to-end LaTeX compilation and filetype conversation. Please contact the HelpDesk for assistance with installing or using these on a UMIACS-supported Windows machine.

## LaTeX on Linux/UNIX

As with Windows, there are full-featured suites available to compile and convert filetypes. On our supported RHEL5 and RHEL6 systems, Kile is pre-installed and located at /usr/local/bin/kile. TeX Live is also available for Linux, with OSX support made available in MacTeX

That being said, most of our supported Linux systems should already have the LaTeX command-line utilities installed. Here is a example of using these to receive output as a PDF:

• Create a working directory. Traverse into it, and create a file example.tex with the following contents:
\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, not shown in final output.
% The following shows typesetting power of LaTeX:
\begin{align}
E_0 &= mc^2                              \\
E &= \frac{mc^2}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
\end{align}
\end{document}

• Compile the file using the latex command. Your output should be similar to the following:
[jlent@opensub01 example]$latex example.tex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.3-1.40.12 (TeX Live 2011) [...] [1] (./example.aux) ) Output written on example.dvi (1 page, 1692 bytes). Transcript written on example.log.  • Assuming no errors, this should have created a file example.dvi. Depending your system, there are two ways to convert this file to PDF format: • Using dvips and then ps2pdf: [jlent@opensub01 example]$ dvips example.dvi
' TeX output 2014.07.24:1013' -> example.ps
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf/dvips/base/tex.pro>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf/dvips/base/texps.pro>.
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr6.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmmi8.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmsy10.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmex10.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmmi12.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr8.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr12.pfb>
</opt/local/stow/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr17.pfb>
[1]
[jlent@opensub01 example]$ps2pdf example.ps [jlent@opensub01 example]$

• Using dvipdf:
[jlent@opensub01 example]$dvipdf example.dvi [jlent@opensub01 example]$

• Assuming there are no errors, you should now have a file example.pdf in your working directory.