LaTeX Resources

What is LaTeX?

LaTeX is pronounced as either 'lay-tech' or 'lah-tech'. It is used to generate high quality typesetting outputs (reports, articles, theses, research papers etc.) It is most often used for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents but it can be used for almost any form of publishing.

However, LaTeX is not a word processor! It encourages authors not to worry too much about the appearance of their documents and to instead focus on their content. LaTeX offers better formatting with,

• Special unicode characters that works across platforms
• Graphics and Equations
• Bibliography 

Generally, LaTeX is written using an editor specializing in TeX. In order to compile the LaTeX code, a separate compiler is often used. Alternatively, users who wish to generate LaTeX documents but don't want to delve into editors and compilers can use online resources like overleaf that supply their own editor and compilation.

Text Editor

• Used to write the text and the mark-up commands.
• Since LaTeX does not follow What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) like Microsoft Word, a text editor is required to make changes to the content of your document.

Compiler

• Reads the text file, changes it into a format which computer understands and then generates a DIV (Device Independent) file.
• This DIV file could be directly viewed on a screen, printed or used to generate a PDF file.

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION

The Text Editor and Compiler can be downloaded separately or together as a package for different OS(s) as follows,

WINDOWS

Download Text Editor & Compiler separately

• Text Editor - TeXnic Center 

• Text Editor -  TeXstudio 

• Compiler - MikTeX   

Installation Guide

• MikTeX Installation Guide 

MAC

Download Complete Package

• Text Editor + Compiler - MacTeX  

Other Text Editors (Optional)

• TeXnicle   
• Aquamacs  

Installation Guide

• MacTeX Installation Guide

 LINUX

Download Complete Package

• Text Editor + Compiler - TeX Live  

Installation Guide

• TeX Live Installation Guide