Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Richard Matthew Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Donald Ervin

Knuth engage in a discussion on whose impact on the
computerized world was the greatest.
Richard Matthew Stallman : GOD told me that I have
programmed the best editor in the world!
Linus Torvalds : Well, GOD told me that I have
programmed the best operating system in the world!
Donald Ervin Knuth : Wait, wait I never said that.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Lecture 1
EX- A Short Introduction

LAT

Chintan Kr Mandal

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Lecture 3 : LATEX- Formatting and Layout

We further elaborate formatting and the layout styles of a document.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Lecture 3 : LATEX- Formatting and Layout

We further elaborate formatting and the layout styles of a document.

Lecture 4 : LATEX- Lists and Tables

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Lecture 3 : LATEX- Formatting and Layout

We further elaborate formatting and the layout styles of a document.

Lecture 4 : LATEX- Lists and Tables

Lecture 5 : LATEX- Boxes and Figures

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Lecture 3 : LATEX- Formatting and Layout

We further elaborate formatting and the layout styles of a document.

Lecture 4 : LATEX- Lists and Tables

Lecture 5 : LATEX- Boxes and Figures
Lecture 6: LATEX- Dealing with Mathematical Equations and
Symbols

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Our Discussion topics for this day !!

Lecture 1 : LATEX- A Short Introduction
We begin with a short introduction to LATEXand a discussion of the differences between LATEXand the
available word processors. We also discuss on the different parts of a document.

Lecture 2 : LATEX- Documentation with article

We discuss the various aspects of creating a document using a article class. We will see how one can
create a document and some basic formatting skills on the text.

Lecture 3 : LATEX- Formatting and Layout

We further elaborate formatting and the layout styles of a document.

Lecture 4 : LATEX- Lists and Tables

Lecture 5 : LATEX- Boxes and Figures
Lecture 6: LATEX- Dealing with Mathematical Equations and
Symbols
Lecture 7:
LATEX- Making Presentations, Citations and Some Leftovers
We discuss making presentations in LATEX, citing articles such that references are done automatically.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

LATEXvs. Word

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Small Documents

Word
The strength of Word is in writing short, relatively simple
documents, since you immediately see how what you wrote looks
like
LATEX
Writing raw LATEXis somewhat slower, because you first write the
contents only and then you generate an output file with layout in a
separate step.
Note: Word can mean Microsoft Word, Open Office, Libre, etc.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Big Documents with Graphics

Word
Word becomes slow when handling either very large texts or texts
with large graphics.
The sporadic (automatic) saves and type setting processes force
writing breaks while you are waiting for the programme to
complete its task.
LATEX
LATEXis faster because you write down only the contents using any
standard editor.
The layout is done by the LATEXcompiler with the help of the style
sheets.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Ease of Use
Word
Basic Word features are very easy to use and everybody can
produce a simple document with reasonable layout.
However, using advanced features like automatic numbering,
links, and citations require a comparable learning time to
LATEX.
p.s. :- Ultimately, you will be faster typing than clicking
through Word icons and menus.
LATEX
One has to initially invest some hours to learn LATEXwithout
being able to immediately produce text.
Depending on how you write LATEX, you may need to learn
some simple commands, like cite{}.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Portability and Compatibility

Word
There can be changes in the document features e.g. the
formatting with change in version Word
LATEX
LATEX2e defines structured files in which the various elements
(title, authors, headings, etc.) are easily identified. This is crucial
for the future, when we may need to migrate tens of thousands of
articles into new formats

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Scientific Features
Word
Word does not include a citation utility.
You will need to purchase additional software to fill the gap.
Bibliography programmes come with their own price, learning
curve, and disadvantages.
Including mathematics in Word requires Equation Editor, a
cumbersome and slow graphical user interface
LATEX
Since LATEXis open source many generations of scientists have
written the extensions they needed.
References are handled by BibTeX.
Including mathematical expressions in LATEXinvolves typing a
few appropriate characters.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages and Disadvantages

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes
Automated numbering of pictures, tables, definitions
Easy referencing to any part / section of the text or pictures /
tables / definitions

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes
Automated numbering of pictures, tables, definitions
Easy referencing to any part / section of the text or pictures /
tables / definitions
Homogeneous layout
Easy footnotes.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes
Automated numbering of pictures, tables, definitions
Easy referencing to any part / section of the text or pictures /
tables / definitions
Homogeneous layout
Easy footnotes.
Active forums ready to help YOU . . . available 24 7 . . .

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Parts of a Document

Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes
Automated numbering of pictures, tables, definitions
Easy referencing to any part / section of the text or pictures /
tables / definitions
Homogeneous layout
Easy footnotes.
Active forums ready to help YOU . . . available 24 7 . . .
All tag names are named as they are known (except for the
self-defined tags)

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Advantages

Easy placement of the figures according to international

standards with small changes in codes
Automated numbering of pictures, tables, definitions
Easy referencing to any part / section of the text or pictures /
tables / definitions
Homogeneous layout
Easy footnotes.
Active forums ready to help YOU . . . available 24 7 . . .
All tag names are named as they are known (except for the
self-defined tags)
Free !! Free !! Muft !! Muft !!!

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Disadvantages

The learning stage is difficult but when you get the hang of it
. . . . . . You will love it !!

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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History
TEXis a low-level markup and programming language created
by Donald Knuth to typeset documents attractively and
consistently.
Knuth started writing the TEXtypesetting engine in 1977 to
explore the potential of the digital printing equipment that
was beginning to infiltrate the publishing industry at that
time, seeing the deteriorating typographical quality of his own
books and articles.
TeX is a programming language in the sense that it supports
the if-else construct: one can make calculations with it
(that are performed while compiling the document), but one
would find it difficult to do anything else but typesetting
with it.
The version numbers of TeX are converging toward , with a
current version number of 3.1415926

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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1977: Motived by bad typographical quality of the book,

The Art of Computer Programming, volume 2, Donald E.
Knuth decided to implement TeX system.
1978: First prototype of TeX released
1978: The MetaFont (format used for TeXs font) project
started.
1979: Euler project started in way to develop mathematical
fonts (Knuth is one of member).
1980: First prototype of Computer Modern fonts released.
1980: The TUG (TeX User Group) started.
1982: First version of TeX (version 0)
1982: Knuth started the book The TeX Book
1984: The TeX Book by Donald E. Knuth is published.
1984: First version of MetaFont (version 0)
1984: Knuth starts the book MetaFont Book.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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1985: Lamport finishes LATEX(version 2.09)

1986: TeX version 2
1986: The Metafont Book by Donald E. Knuth is published.
1990: TeX version 3 released
1994: LATEX2e is published by LATEX3 team (headed by
Frank Mittelbach)
1994: The book A Document Preparation System (Laslie
Lamport) on LATEX2.09 is published.
1994: The book The LATEXCompanion (M. Goosses, F.
Mittelbach and A. Samarin) over LATEX2e are published.
2000: Young Ryu publishes the complete Post Script font
set, based on Times, called tex fonts. Now, the complete
symbols is available on Times too (till this time, only
Computer Modern had all symbols).
2003: The extended TeX (as eTeX and PDFTeX) becames
recomended.

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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2008: SyncTeX for forwardx/inverse search on PDF (and

other formats, if viewer support it) are ported from MaCOSX
to linux and windows (TeXLive and MikTeX)
The TeXWorks project (cross platform and open source)
started to implement unicode editor+viewer with syncTeX
support. Before these, syncTeX are popular only on MaCOSX,
but now (2010), the Okular (linux) and sumatraPDF
(Windows) has syncTeX support. The embeeded PDF viewer
of TeXMaker (crossplatform, open source), TeXWorks, and
gummu (linux. windows in works) support syncTeX too.
2008: XeTeX (with system font support) ported from
MacOSX to linux and windows (by projetcs TeXLive and
W32TeX).

Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Questions !!

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Why LATEX???

Advantages and Disadvantages

History !!

Thank you !!

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