What is the current state of latex?

Question

TeX and LaTeX really confuse me. I know that there is no official distribution, and that it is a bit like Linux, since there are many packages and distributions. Many of the distributions that people offer me seem to have lost their maintainers (like TeTex). There are also various options available in these distributions for conversion to pdf, etc.

What is the current consensus, state of affairs, the perfect thing? First, is there consensus?

Which distribution should I use (on Mac, through ports, if that matters)?

What workflow (commands, tools) should be used to convert latex to pdf?

Thanks.

Answer 1

On a Mac, the only distribution that matters is TeX Live , more specifically their Mac version called MacTex .

This distribution is very active and modern.

For additional questions about the differences and benefits of TeX engines and distributions, I suggest asking tex.stackexchange.com .

What workflow (commands, tools) should be used to convert latex to pdf?

In the simplest case, it is enough to call the processor (for example, pdflatex or better luatex or xelatex ) directly. In more complex cases (for example, you have a bibliography or index, or cross-references are used), this will require several passes between other software. For these cases, there are many built-in tools for LaTeX . The simplest thing is to just use latexmk , which comes with TeX Live.

Answer 2

I know that official distribution does not exist

Most people will agree that http://www.tug.org/texlive/ is an official distribution.

Which distribution should I use (on Mac, through ports, if that matters)?

This.

What workflow (commands, tools) should be used to convert latex to pdf?

Press the dial button. Jokes aside. This is just this complex.

Answer 3

While I agree with TeXlive (MacTeX) as the "official" distribution, I do not agree with "just a set of clicks."

LaTeX is a very powerful tool, and it needs some time to learn its subtleties, including compilation. For this task, I recommend the script latexmk -pdf filename.tex , as it does most of the hard work. I also always recommend LaTeX wikibook and the AMS short math guide for learning LaTeX and for quick reference.

Answer 4

On Windows, I feel that MiKTeX is pretty standard as well as free based on my own experience and other people. One of the nice features of MiKTeX that I like is that you can download and install missing packages on the fly, so the cost of installing a minimum package and maximum flexibility in choosing any (officially) available packages that match your document is necessary.

Below is a list of the corresponding latex links that I have collected / copied somewhere (maybe outdated now). Hope this helps:

****** LaTex / Tex compiler ********** MikTex: http://miktex.org/ teTex: http://www.tug.org/tetex/

***** LaTex / Tex Editor ********** Vim: http://www.vim.org/ TexNicCenter: http://www.texniccenter.org/ WinEdt: http: // www .winedt.com / LyX: http://www.lyx.org/ WinShell: http://www.winshell.de/ (X) Emax + AUCTEX: http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/ texmaker: http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/ TeXShop: http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/ LEd: http://www.latexeditor.org/

***** Spell and Grammar Checker ***** queequeg: http://queequeg.sourceforge.net/index-e.html

***** Associated Image Converter / Editer ** IPE: http://tclab.kaist.ac.kr/ipe/ jpeg2ps: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/jpeg2ps/ eps2pdf: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/eps2pdf/ XFig: http://www.xfig.org/ TGIF: http://bourbon.usc.edu/tgif/download.html

**** Bibliography Management ******** JabRef: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jabref/ wbibdb22: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/bibdb/ Database LaTeX Database Styles: http://jo.irisson.free.fr/bstdatabase/

**** Documentation ********* Latex Help 1.4: http://www.emerson.emory.edu/services/latex/latex2e/latex2e_toc.html Not so short LaTeX manual: http: // www .ctan.org / tex-archive / info / lshort / english / lshort.pdf Full list of LaTeX characters: ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/info / symbols / comprehensive / symbols -letter.pdf LaTeX math symbols: http://amath.colorado.edu/documentation/LaTeX/Symbols.pdf Math LaTeX quick start guide: ftp://ftp.ams.org/pub/tex/doc/amsmath/short-math - guide.pdf

*** Integration with other tools ***** Tex4PPT: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/srg/softwaretools/presentation/TeX4PPT/