tex 2: slightly more concrete ramblings

But I didn’t tell you where to get it or how to install it and actually produce documents, did I? Nope.

First, go to the site of CTAN (The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network). It is everything TeX, and if it’s your first visit, you will need some direction.

- Click on “Look through,” which will take you to the root directory.
- Scroll down to “systems” and click. Amiga? Atari? Yes, no one is left out. Windows users will click on win32, the last entry, and Mac users will stop at, well, mac.

From here on, I can only write with some knowledge about Windows. Five percent of you? Less? Is this where you hit the back button on your browser?

(Yes, it all happened long ago, and under duress. I’ll see you back on the other side before long, however. I know nothing about using TeX/LaTeX on a Mac but this: OzTeX installs very easily and is a breeze to use (on CTAN under systems/mac), and Textures is appealing largely because of its on-the-fly DVI processing. Request the demo.)

So, now that we’re a much smaller group – oh, it’s just you?

- Click on win32, then click on miktex, which is, as the caption states, “a free [and very complete] TeX distribution for MS-Windows32.” This has evolved over the years into an amazing package. Christian Schenk should get some kind of damn big prize for his continual expansion and improvement of it.
- Click on setup. Oh, by the way, are you an instruction-reader? (What is your Myers-Briggs profile?) If so, read install.html or install.pdf; if not, proceed directly to setup.exe and save to disk.
- Select the “Download only” radio button, hit next, and then select “Small.” It ain’t so small, really. Here, small is pretty huge, but the world of TeX has grown so incredibly over the past few years that “Large” is simply freaking incomprehensible.
- Proceed onward and pick a country. Yes, your own. Finally, pick a folder to which you will download.
- Let the setupwiz application take you where it will.

At this point, you are good to go – that is, if you are content to use Wordpad or Notepad as a text editor. If you want something more – something with a customizable interface that is tailored to TeX – you may wish to try WinEdt. It’s a shareware program; if you like it and want to keep using it, you pay $30–$70 after the 31-day trial period has elapsed. The “customizable” part has a steep learning curve, but I view the application as indispensable. You may download here or from CTAN under /systems/winedt.

Delay no longer; set some text. Within miktex/tex/latex/base is a file called sample2e.tex. Process it using LaTeX, and then view the result using YAP (or, if using WinEdt, hit the DVI or PDFLaTeX buttons). You’re well on your way.

Finally, you’ll need a book. The one to which I invariably return is Lamport’s LaTeX: A Document Preparation System (2nd ed.). Slim but dense; doesn’t include all of the latest refinements, but serves as an excellent base. If you want to use PostScript fonts right away, seek out Alan Hoenig’s TeX Unbound or The LaTeX Graphics Companion, by Goosens, Rahtz, and Mittelbach.

22-October 2002