For systems other than Windows, you might start with Tex Live. Members of my department may also want to look at how to use TeX on our department's Unix computers. Also, for Macintoshes: you might look at the starting pages by Will Robertson (nice and simple) or Joseph C. Slater (more options for advanced users).

TeX distributions for Windows

Several other free distributions are also available --- but Sbtex, Emtex, 4tex have not been updated for several years, and I'm not familiar with Tetex, NTS tex, xemtex, etc.

At the time of this writing, Miktex is available in

After you install Miktex, familiarize yourself with some of its features. Here are a few.

If you go through Windows "Start" "Programs" "Miktex," you'll see these offerings:

• Help
• Browse packages -- clicking here starts up the Package Manager, which you can use to look for more packages (try the keyword search!), find out about packages, and download and install packages of your choosing. Use the "properties" button to see the locations on your computer of all of a package's files; this helps you find the documentation files so that you can learn to use the package.
• Miktex on the web
• Previewer -- this starts up YAP ("Yet Another Previewer,") the Miktex program for viewing DVI files. It is preferable to most other DVI viewers, because of its inverse search feature: It can be configured so that if you click on some part of the displayed document, you're automatically taken to the corresponding location in the source document in your editor. See discussion of this feature.
• Settings -- probably the default settings will suffice, so you probably don't need to mess with this
• Update -- this program checks to see whether any of the components in your Miktex installation (the basic programs or the packages you've added) have updates available. If updates are available, this program also will download them and install them, if you so desire. RUN THE UPDATE AT LEAST ONCE, RIGHT AFTER YOU'VE DONE YOUR INSTALLATION -- or more than once, if any of the basic files get updated, some files can't be updated until after others are.

Folders. You can get to these through the Windows "My computer" icon.

• The directory C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.6\miktex\bin contains not only latex, but also a variety of other programs, such as amstex, bibtex, dvipdfm, dvips, epstopdf, makeindex, tex, texify. In fact, there are over 250 executables -- I don't know what most of them do, but maybe one of them does something you're looking for.
• Much of the documentation can be found in the folder C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.6\doc, and especially in the subfolder C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.6\doc\latex.

Shells, or GUI front ends, for TeX

name	M A C R O S	C O L O R	S P E L L	Reviews. (These are a bit out of date -- I haven't had time to test any new shells lately.)
TeXnic Center (TxC) [4.43 mb, ver 1b7.01]	y	y	y	My favorite shell. It seems to have nearly everything, and it's free -- in fact, it's open-source. Development on it has nearly stopped, because most of the volunteers have other demands on their time. But the program is already very good, far better than any other free tex shell for Windows that I know of (though it takes a while to learn to use it). It is mostly self-installing (best if you install Miktex first) and mostly self-explanatory. I have begun writing some additional tips on its use. It comes with some help files, which have improved in recent versions; I haven't investigated those thoroughly yet. I also haven't tried the current version of the built-in spellchecker. (It uses the spelling engine of OpenOffice.org, so you can get dictionaries for it at http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/download_dictionary.html.) --- The interactive error-finding is great. This program works well both with single-file documents and with multi-file projects (e.g., one file for each chapter); I may add more documentation about that after a while. --- Beginners may be overwhelmed by all the buttons, but the button bars can be edited easily once you get used to them. For instance, I only use around half of the buttoms, so I've deleted the others from my computer's copy of TexnicCenter to conserve desktop space. (It's not a permanent deletion -- I can get them back if I change my mind later.) Moreover, I have two different customized versions of the "latex" button bar -- one for single-file documents and one for multi-file projcts; I switch one bar off and the other on depending on what kind of document I'm editing.
WinShell	y	y	y	[2.87 mb -- ver 3.21]
LaTeX Editor (LEd)	y	y	y	[4.76 mb, ver 0.51 beta] This is a new program that I haven't tried yet. It supposedly works not only with Latex but also HTML and other languages. Some features include forward and inverse search; code-folding (i.e., temporarily hide parts of your file that you're not currently editing); coloring of parentheses to show their nesting depth. On the CD, I'm including some add-on files: the US dictionary, math dictionary, and thesaurus.
Texmaker	?	?	y	[4.76 mb, ver 1.6] Questionmarks because I haven't tried yet. Regarding the spellchecker, the web page says: To use the spell checker, the "aspell" program and the dictionnary corresponding to your language must be installed on your system. These files can be downloaded here : http://aspell.net/win32/ (you must install first the "Full installer" and then the precompiled dictionary corresponding to your language).
Winedt	y	y	y	[7 mb, ver 5.5] $30 (student) or $40 (educational), for one person. (All other programs in this list are free.) This program can do nearly everything one might want to do with tex, installation is very easy, and the program is largely self-explanatory. But most people I've spoken with, who have tried both, actually like TexnicCenter better than Winedt. (screen shot) This program has a support community, http://www.winedt.org/, with free plugins, addons, macros, etc.
TeXShell	y	y	n	[386 kb, ver 0.71] This program can do far less, but it has the advantage that it is very simple; thus it may be preferable for some beginners. I used this program for a long time, so I've written additional documentation for beginners. (screen shot)

Tex-compatible spellcheckers

This section of the web page may grow soon, as I'm now learning more about what is available. Apparently several good spellcheckers are available --- even if we add the requirements that the spellchecker be easy to install and to use. In some cases, ease of installation just requires that I figure out (perhaps not so easily) how to do it and then post some instructions here.

Some of the shell programs mentioned above have built-in spellchecker programs, though you may have to install a dictionary file to make them work. I may say more about that here after I've figured it out.

• Aspell [1.19 mb, ver. 0.50.3] is an open-source, stand-alone program for spellchecking tex files. It isn't the prettiest program in the world -- it doesn't use the Windows GUI -- but it gets the job done, and it's easy enough to figure out how to use. Download not only the main program ("Aspell-0-50-3-3-Setup.exe") but also at least one of the dictionary files, available from the same page. (On our CD, I'm including the English dictionary.; that's the file "Aspell-en-0.50-2-3.exe".) Install the program and then the dictionary.

• Syn Text Editor and Crimson Editor are discussed elsewhere in this website, in the section on syntax color highlighting text editors. Both can be used to spellcheck tex files. These might even be your best bet. But I haven't experimented with them much yet, so no real review here.

• 4spell [about 3 mb, ver 1.2]. I will describe this program in more detail because it's the spellchecker that I'm most familiar with -- it's not necessarily the best, but it's the one I learned to use first. Here is the download page; our thanks to the Dutch TeX User Group.

  4spell does have some nice features -- in particular, it has syntax color highlighting. It can also handle HTML, RTF, and plain old text (ASCII) files; just tell it which filetype you're working on. One nice feature of 4spell is that it checks for doubled words, such as "the the".

  4spell is very configurable, though it's not at all easy to figure out how to configure it. After a long time, I finally figured out how to get 4spell to recognize contractions, such as [ isn't ]. (With some other tex-compatible spellcheckers, I still have not figured any way to do this. That doesn't bother some people, since contractions are seldom used in technical writing.) Here are the steps for 4spell:

  • In 4spell's "Options" tab, uncheck the box that says [ ' is part of a word ].
  • In 4spell's "Advanced" tab, delete the single-right-quote character (') from both the [ Word punctuation marks ] box and the [ Subword punctuation marks ] box.
  • In your Tex files, never use two single-right-quote characters (''); instead use one double-quote character ("). Tex treats either string the same in most places. (One exception I've noticed is in index entries; perhaps there are a few other exceptions that I haven't noticed yet. Watch this space.)
  • If you're using Texniccenter, go into its "Tools" "Options" "General" and make sure that "Automatic replacement - Replace quotation marks" is unchecked.
  • When you're spellchecking with 4spell, whenever it comes to a contraction that it hasn't learned, click on "Add to USER word list", just as you would with any noncontraction word that you want to teach to 4spell.

  Here are a few minor drawbacks to watch out for in 4spell:

  • Installation involves a couple of tricks. First, copy all the installation files into a temporary directory that conforms to old filename rules (for instance, "C:\tempspel") and then click on the "setup.exe" file. (Do not try using your own unzip program to unzip all the zip files.) When you're done with the installation, you can delete the temporary directory.
  • Automating the use of 4Spell is a little tricky -- it doesn't seem to accept as wide a variety of formats in its command as some other programs do. As near as I can figure out, the command for starting 4Spell must include the full pathname and filename of 4Spell.exe, followed by a space, followed by the full pathname and filename of your tex file -- regardless of what directory you're starting from. Here are some automating commands that I've got worked out:

    Called by	configure calling program's button this way:
    Winshell	exe - File: cmd - Line	C:\Program Files\4Spell\4spell.exe   %pc.tex
    TeXnicCenter	Command: Arguments: Initial directory:	C:\Program Files\4Spell\4spell.exe "%pc" "C:\Program Files\4Spell"
    PFE	Command: Directory:	"C:\Program Files\4Spell\4spell.exe" "%p" c:\%d
    Explorer (right-click)	Application used:	"C:\Program Files\4Spell\4spell.exe" "%1"

    
    
  • 4Spell seems to have some sort of size limitation -- it starts malfunctioning after it passes 64 kilobytes. But 64k is already a fairly large article, on the order of 50 pages. If you need to work on something bigger, you can break it down into several smaller files.

Graphics editors to use with Tex

The following programs are classified into two main types, which were discussed in the graphics section of the introduction to tex.

Additional programs to help with TeX

• Lyx is a partial WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for latex. I haven't tried out this program much, but the impression I have is that it is too complicated to install, and offers too few advantages for mathematicians -- sure, it can show your boldface and your Greek alphabet, but can it do matrices? And nowadays, computers are so fast and the forward and inverse search capabilities of YAP are so good, that I don't think a WYSIWYG is really all that necessary. Still, investigate it if that sort of thing appeals to you.

  

• Latex Macros [550 kb, ver. 1.09] is a collection of buttons which can be made to work with any Windows text editor. This is useful if you're using PFE or Notepad or some such for your tex shell, or even as an additional set of buttons when you're using a program that already has buttons, such as WinShell.

• Scientific Word is not free. I'm not familiar with it, so I'm not particularly recommending it. Scientific Word does not conform exactly to standard TeX, and so if a colleague sends you a document created using Scientific Word, you may have some trouble reading it. For that purpose, you may find it helpful to use Scientific Viewer (13.1 mb, ver. 5.5), which is free.

• ToX [571kb, ver 1.0] changes the end-of-line markers (carriage returns, linefeeds, etc.) on textfiles, to convert between formats of Unix, Mac, and Windows (DOS). This is helpful if you're trying to run the TeX program on a .tex file that you've downloaded. To use this program after you've installed it, just right-click on any textfile, and then click on "convert".
  

• Pictured at right is TeXaide [931 kb, ver 4.0a]. It is available for free from Design Science, Inc.; it is a small portion of their commercial MathType program. We can't put it on the CD-ROM, because it's not strictly freeware -- Design Science wants to distribute it themselves, and you have to register (free) when you download it. (I've just registered for it, so it's too soon for me to know whether they're going to flood my mailbox with advertisements.) This is not a shell program -- it doesn't have a "TeX" or "Preview" button, and it isn't really designed for working on your entire TeX source file. But it is a valuable tool: it is a WYSIWYG equation editor for TeX. To use it, open the translators menu to select what kind of TeX you're using -- plain TeX, LaTeX, AMS-TeX, or AMS-LaTeX. Then pull down the button menus to type your formula (see upper picture). When you're done with your formula, select the whole formula and use the "copy" command. This will translate the picture you've been working on, into appropriate markup language, and copy it into the Windows clipboard (the region of computer memory used for "copy" and "paste" commands). Now you can use the "paste" command in any ordinary text-editor (see lower part of my picture), or in any of the shell programs listed below.

Converters

Converting from TeX to some other format (e.g., web pages) is reasonable. However, converting from some other format (e.g., Word) to Tex makes no sense to me. You can't possibly get high quality documents that way; you're just going to get all the problems you have with WYSIWYG editors.

Here is a brief overview of the current tex-to-html situation:

For longer documents (e.g., a research article), you probably want to preserve the great formatting that Tex provides.

• Posting your dvi or tex file on the web is not recommended. It might not look the same on your recipient's computer, because the display results from a DVI or TEX file actually depend on fonts that are not included in the file itself.
• You could convert each page of your tex document, separately, to a gif (picture) file. This may be accomplished automatically with a program such as "dvi2gif" or "dvigif". These pictures be viewed on any computer, without any software more specialized than an ordinary web browser. However, they take a while to load, and the size of your pages is probably not going to match well with the size of the computer screen. Also, it is cumbersome to get from one page to another page, or to make a printout of the whole document.
• Posting a postscript file on the web is a bit better. However, postscript is an old technology that was designed just for printing on paper; it doesn't always look good on a computer screen.
• Posting a PDF file is my recommendation. It looks the same on all computers, and it looks good both on computer screen and on paper.

Also deserving mention is RTF, or "Rich Text Format". This is a sort of "poor man's Word" format -- it just includes a few of the most basic features of a formatted word-processor: boldface, italics, underlining, choice of font, choice of font size, etc. For converting between RTF and Latex (preserving some of the formatting, but certainly not all), use rtf2latex2e (2.3 mb, version 1.0fc1).

Recent additions

• BibDB is an old bibliography-management tool; JabRef is a much more recent one.

• LatexCAD drawing tool

• Writer2LaTeX -- converts Open Office documents to Latex documents. (Open Office is a free program similar to Microsoft Word; in fact, it can accept most Word documents.)

• Another list of converters between latex and other formats.

• Word counter for LaTeX and or online.