TeX and Other Selected Windows Freeware: Introduction, Utilities, TeX, Editors, Internet

  Editors: other math, compilers and programming,
office suites, text editors & word-processors, graphics, other filetypes

Editors

version of 2 Nov 2007.

Mathematics Programs (other than TeX-related)

Of course, every mathematician wants Mathematica and a few other expensive programs. We do have those installed on our department computers. But here I'm going to list some free programs that even an impoverished graduate student can install on his or her computer. Some of them are pretty good; some may suffice for many purposes.

Following are some good places to look for math software (but some of these websites mix together freeware and shareware, unfortunately):

I will list here a few of the programs that look good to me, but I haven't tried most of them; let me know what you think. I'm giving preference to programs that seem to be intended for a general mathematical audience (i.e., I'm omitting programs that suit more specialized needs). Also, I'm giving preference to programs that seem to be easy to install and/or to understand. I'm sorting these programs into a few categories, but there is actually some overlap between categories.

Computer algebra systems (i.e., replacements for Mathematica):

  • Matlab replacements:

  • Miscellaneous programs:

    • Programmers' Tools -- Compilers, Etc.

    I'm not an expert on this material, so feel free to suggest alterations for this section. -- Some of the material described below is included on our CD; in other cases, I'm just including links you can use for downloading from the internet.

    Office Suites

    The standards in the business world are Microsoft Office (including Microsoft Word) and Corel Office (including Wordperfect). I can't offer those here because they're not free.

    Following are some free alternatives:

    Text Editing / Word-Processing

    Though some people use the words a bit differently, I will distinguish between
    word-processors

    such as Word, Wordperfect, Wordpad, or OpenOffice Writer, which can handle boldface, italics, underlining, different type sizes, different fonts, and in some cases color, superscripts, and subscripts; and which generally are WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") -- i.e., what you're editing on the screen looks essentially the same as what the printed output will look like;     		 and 
    text-editors

    such as Emacs, Vi or Notepad, which can only handle plain, unformatted text, with only one font, one size, one color, etc., but are still quite adequate for markup languages (discussed elsewhere in this website), such as Latex or Html. I will further subdivide "text-editors" into several types, below.
    For most mathematical work, text editors are actually preferable to word-processors, because we can describe notation more precisely than we can actually draw it. . We use markup languages such as Latex (for instance, type $\alpha$ to get the lower-case Greek letter alpha, and type {\bf text goes here} to get some text in boldface), so everything can be encoded in plain text. The embedded invisible characters that a word-processor uses to record the beginning or end of boldface (for instance) will just foul up a program like Latex. The advantages of text editors and markup languages are discussed further in Allin Cottrell's rant against word processors. Of related interest is Sam Steingold's rant against proprietary data formats. But your needs may differ.

    WORD-PROCESSORS. Word is the standard in the business world. In the scientific world, Word is also the standard among secretaries, and among some of the people writing grant proposals. In both situations, Wordperfect runs second (despite the fact that it seems to be a considerably better program). Neither of those programs is free, but Writer is a free program that does roughly the same things. It is a component of Open Office, mentioned earlier.

    But if a smaller program will suffice for your needs, you may find that it loads faster and crashes less often. Several are listed below.

    Instead of DOC files, you might consider using RTF files. "Rich text format" is a sort of "poor man's DOC file". It can handle underlining, boldface, italics, different fonts, and different colors of text. It cannot handle some fancier features of Word, such as tables or macros. Also, RTF has the advantage that it is fairly standard; nearly every word-processing program can read an RTF file, and can save files as RTF. If you have Word and your neighbor has Wordperfect and your other neighbor has neither, consider writing to each other with RTF files.

    If you copy some text from a display in the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, and then paste it into some RTF editors, it will preserve the most basic formatting -- boldface, italics, fonts, text color, etc. You can then save it in an RTF file.

    As far as I know, this does not work with any other browser (for instance, it doesn't work with Firefox). It works with some word-processors (for instance, both Jarte and Microsoft Word) but not with others (e.g., it doesn't work with Abiword).

    TEXT-EDITORS. The basic filetype of text files is ".txt". A file with ending ".tex" or ".html" or ".htm" or ".pas" (for Pascal program source code) or ".c" (for C program source code), etc., is really just a "txt" file that has been renamed.

    I will mention several different categories of text-editors, each with its advantages: Notepad and notepad-replacements; ports from Unix; syntax-highlighers; specialized single-purpose text editors. Personally, I use the first and fourth of those categories frequently, and the second and third very seldom, but your taste may differ.

    Notepad and notepad-replacements
    Among programs for Windows, the most basic text editor is Notepad. It comes with the Windows operating system; you can find it under "Start" "Programs" "Accessories". It is rather rudimentary -- it has no button bar and rather few editing tools. Still, it is adequate for any editing you will need for tex, html, etc. It is small and simple, which has at least a couple of advantages: It loads quickly when you want it, it doesn't distract you or intimidate you with overwhelming features, and it doesn't take much memory away from other programs you may have running at the same time.

    Many people like to replace Notepad with some similar program that is still small and quick-loading, but has a few additional features -- e.g., a toolbar with some buttons.

    Some people (including myself) take the term "Notepad replacement" more literally: Find all the folders in your computer that contain files named "Notepad.exe", and rename each copy as "Oldnotepad.exe" (in case you change your mind later), and then copy into that folder your favorite replacement program and t rename it "Notepad.exe".

    Here are a few of my favorite "Notepad replacement" programs:

    Ports from Unix -- new editors for old users
    Older members of academia grew up in an era when personal computers were not yet prevalent; nearly all academic computing was done on X-terminals running off of a Unix server. In those days, the two main text editors on Unix systems were vi and emacs. I can't say which is better; most people were satisfied with the text editor that they learned first (and so they never bothered to learn the other). Each of these programs has grown and split into many different variants, and some of these variants have been ported to Windows. People who already know some version of vi or emacs may feel comfortable with those ports, but I can't recommend them to anyone else, because they lack one of the chief advantages of programs that originated on Windows. Windows programs share a "look and feel," a common user interface -- on any Windows program you know where to look for "File," "Edit," "Help," etc., and so once you've learned one Windows program the others aren't so hard to learn. For that reason, this part of my software collection is decreasing in importance as time goes by, so I'm just going to include a few links, not reviews or the software itself. If you're really interested you can investigate this further on your own.

     

    Syntax-highlighers
    An editor that can parse some programming language or markup language may display different parts of the text in different colors -- e.g., literal text in black, commands in red, variables in green, etc. These colors make the editing easier. The colors are only in the editing display, not in the text file that you actually save and use. One editor may be able to recognize several coding languages -- tex, html, c++, python -- by ending of the filename (.tex, .html, .c, etc.) and interpret the file accordingly.

    I would guess an editor of this sort is most useful for someone who does coding in several different languages, and likes using the same editing techniques in all of them. If you're doing all your coding in one language (e.g., Latex), you're probably better off with a more specialized syntax highlighter that is only designed to work with that one language (e.g.,     TeXnicCenter), since that program will probably have extra features built in for that language. And if you're coding in two languages (e.g., Tex and HTML), you might prefer the advantages of two specialized editors, instead of try to cover everything with one general-purpose editor.

     

    Other tools related to the editing of text

    Graphics

    How can you make screenshot graphics like the ones I've got on this web page? Arrange the screen the way you want it.. Then click on the "Print Screen" key which is near the top of your keyboard. Then open a graphics editor like Irfan View or Wscanner, and use the "Paste" command; the picture of the screen will appear in the editor. Use the "Crop" command to cut the picture down to the size you want. Use the color depth commands to reduce the number of colors to 256 (or 16, if that doesn't look bad), so that the pictures won't take forever to load when someone views your web page. Finally, convert to a GIF file, since that is the format recognized most readily by web browsers. (JPG is more suitable for pictures with more colors -- e.g., photographs.)

    There are dozens of free graphics editors and viewers available on the internet. Following are a few that caught my eye:

    Other filetypes

    PDF files

    Of course, PDF files were made by Adobe, and the best program for viewing them is Acrobat Reader, available for free     from Adobe. At the time of this writing, the current version is version 8.1.1, which is 22.3MB. (But recently Adobe has been doing updates fairly often.) I'm including it on the CD, just in case you don't have an internet connection.

    If you want to edit PDF files, Adobe wants you to buy their program Acrobat (not "Reader"), which is not free. However, you might not need it, for a couple of reasons.

    First, there are some programs available for free that have at least some limited editing capabilities. One of them (which I haven't tried yet) is at http://pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html.

    But second, if you have the document from which the PDF file was created, you may want to simply edit that document and then create a new PDF file from it.

    Some programs include an export-to-PDF feature. For instance, the program Open Office can export to PDF, and Miktex includes PDFLATEX.EXE. Miktex also includes the programs DVIPDFM.EXE and DVIPDFMX.EXE for converting DVI files to PDF files.

    If you want to convert PDF files to some other format, Gsview (next section, below) can do that.

    And any program that can print, can also be made to create PDF files. This can be done using a program such as PDFCreator (version 0.93). The version on the CD is 12.6 megabytes and includes GPL-Ghostscript, a component used by the program. Using this program is a little different from using most programs: It behaves not as an ordinary program, but as a virtual printer. In other words, after installing this program, you'll find it under "Start" "Settings" "Printers and faxes." To use it, use the program that you would ordinarily print the document with. In that program, click on "File" "Print ..." and then look carefully at the Print dialogue box that opens up. The first section of that dialogue box lets you change printers. Instead of using your usual printer, use the "printer" that is named "PDF Creator." This will create the PDF file. It will ask you a few questions during the creation process -- e.g., what do you want to name the PDF file, and do you want to see the PDF file after you make it.

    Postscript (PS and EPS) files

    Some mathematicians send their tex documents to colleagues in PS format, but I do not recommend that filetype. I think they're mainly doing it from force of habit. Many years ago, before PDF files were invented, PS was a good format for sending finished documents; PS files look good when printed on paper. But PDF files look good both on paper and on the computer screen; PS files don't always look so good on the computer screen.

    To read postscript files, you will need to install two programs.
    program latest version comment
    AFPL Ghostscript 9.1 mb, version 8.60 Install this first. This is the core program. Nagware, unfortunately.
    Gsview 1.44 mb, ver 4.8 A user-friendly front-end for Ghostscript. (Install this second.)

    Note that GSView has the capability of converting PS files and PDF files to other formats. Just click on "File" "Convert".

    Also I should mention that any program can be made to "print" to ps files. Just install a printer that uses Postscript. It doesn't have to be a printer you own. Install it with the setting "print to file". I've been using the printer driver for the Apple Color Laser Writer 12/660 for this purpose, but you may prefer some other.

    Mathematica

    For Mathematica (.mma) files, if you don't have Mathematica on your computer, get yourself a free copy of Mathematica Player (81 mb). It will display and print Mathematica notebooks, animate graphics, play sounds, and copy information from notebooks to other documents.

    Audio tools

    These programs aren't really very useful for mathematics, as far as I know, but I couldn't resist mentioning them. They may brighten up your nonmathematical time.