SoftONELogic Alliance Network

What is LaTeX?

LaTeX is a typesetting software that can be used to produce documents. It is like the well-known graphical typesetting software such as MS. Words or Open Office Writer. However, the typesetting process in LaTeX is not so straightforward. You need to code it properly to produce high quality documents.

Why LaTeX?

LaTeX loses to MS Words in terms of the user-friendly but it has many advantages such as:

• Documents produced by Latex has higher quality when it is displayed or printed.

• The programmable typesetting ensures that the format consistency can be maintained

• It is simply the best package for documents containing mathematics and graphical plots. To insert mathematics expression or graphical plot of a function can be simply done by typing, leaving the trouble of producing the equations and plots on the other software.

• It is free on virtually every computer in the world and it is platform independent. One may produce a document in Windows but it can still be compiled and run in Linux or MAC.

• It is portable, i.e. stick to the standard commands and everyone can read and exchange documents.

• LaTeX has the reputation of being hard, but in fact it is effectively the same as HTML!

How to run LaTeX in Windows?

To run Latex, we need two things: one is the LaTeX compiler and two is the text-editor. There are many compilers and text-editors available for free. In this document, we show one example that we have tested in Windows Vista and XP. First, we need to install the compiler and the text-editor to proceed.

Compiler (using MiKTeX)

• Download the compiler here. You may opt for either the basic or the complete versions. For the purpose of this article, we use the basic installation.

• Make sure that you get basic-miktex-2.7.3248.exe for the installation.

• Run the installer and follow the standard procedure of installation.

• Once the installation is complete, the MiKTeX is ready for compiling.

Text-editor (using TeXnicCenter)

• Download the installer here. For majority of the users, the option 1 ( TeXnicCenter installer) is sufficient. Please take note some errors that may occur if you use older version of windows and/or the internet explorer.

• Make sure that you get TXCSetup_1StableRC1.exe.

• Run the installer and complete the standard procedure.

• Open the TeXnicCenter application and it will show the configuration window.

• Click Next and specify the MiKTeX installation directory. Let say my installed MiKTeX is in “C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.7\”. Then, point to the directory of “C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.7\miktex\bin” in the configuration window. It should look like this

• Click Next and Finish.

• Congratulations! Now, you can start to use LaTeX for typesetting and produce high quality documents.

• To use it, just simply open the TeXnicCenter for inserting the codes.

To be continued: Producing simple document with LaTeX.

NB: Please report for the broken link!