==== What is  TeX? ====

$\TeX$ is a typesetting system written by Donald E. Knuth, who says in the Preface to his book on TeX (see books about TeX) that it is //"intended for the creation of beautiful books - and especially for books that contain a lot of mathematics".//

TeX is a macro processor, and offers its users a powerful programming capability. For this reason, TeX on its own is a pretty difficult beast to deal with, so Knuth provided a package of macros for use with TeX called Plain TeX; Plain TeX is effectively the minimum set of macros one can usefully employ with TeX, together with some demonstration versions of higher-level commands (the latter are better regarded as models than used as-is). When people say they're "programming in TeX", they usually mean they're programming in Plain TeX.

==== What is LaTeX? ====

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$\LaTeX$ is a $\TeX$ macro package, originally written by Leslie Lamport, that provides a document processing system. LaTeX allows markup to describe the structure of a document, so that the user need not think about presentation. By using document classes and add-on packages, the same document can be produced in a variety of different layouts.

Lamport says that LaTeX "represents a balance between functionality and ease of use". This shows itself as a continual conflict that leads to the need for such things as FAQs: LaTeX can meet most user requirements, but finding out how is often tricky.
 



==== {La}TeX and dokuwiki ====

<latex>
\begin{equation}
\left[
{\bf X} + {\rm a} \ \geq\
\underline{\hat a} \sum_i^N \lim_{x \rightarrow k} \delta C
\right]
\end{equation}
</latex>

<latex>
E=mc^2
</latex>



==== linkxz ====
  * "The beauty of LaTeX" >> http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex
  * TeX/LaTeX tools for the macintosh   http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
  * the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network   http://www.ctan.org/
  * [[Documentation Notes]]
  * a (La)TeX encyclopaedia   http://tex.loria.fr/english/index.html
  * setting up emacs and auctex >>  http://turtle.as.arizona.edu/jdsmith/latex_emacs.php