LaTeX facts for kids
The LaTeX Project logo
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| Original author(s) | Leslie Lamport |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1984 |
| Stable release |
November 2024 LaTeX release
 / 1 November 2024 |
| Type | Typesetting |
| License | LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL) |
LaTeX (pronounced "LAH-tek" or "LAY-tek") is a special computer program that helps people create professional-looking documents. It's built on top of another program called TeX. Think of TeX as the engine that handles how everything looks on the page. LaTeX then gives you easier commands to tell TeX what to do.
Instead of you having to worry about every little detail of how your document looks, LaTeX has ready-made commands. These commands help you with things like making chapter titles, adding footnotes, creating lists, and even building bibliographies (lists of sources).
LaTeX was first created in the early 1980s by a person named Leslie Lamport. The version used today is called LaTeX2e, which first came out in 1994. It's been updated many times since then. LaTeX is also "free software," meaning you can use and share it without paying.
Even though LaTeX started as a tool for mathematicians and computer scientists, it's now used by many scholars. They use it to write documents that need complex math equations or special writing systems, like Arabic or Chinese.
Contents
How LaTeX Started
LaTeX was invented by Leslie Lamport in the early 1980s. At the time, he was working at a place called Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He needed to create some special commands for TeX for his own work. He realized that with a bit more effort, he could make these commands useful for everyone.
A book editor named Peter Gordon convinced Leslie to write a manual about LaTeX. This book came out in 1986 and became very popular. Leslie released early versions of his LaTeX commands in 1984 and 1985. Later, in 1989, Leslie Lamport handed over the job of keeping LaTeX updated to Frank Mittelbach. Frank, along with Chris Rowley and Rainer Schöpf, formed a team. In 1994, they released LaTeX2e, which is the main version still used today.
How LaTeX Works
LaTeX is designed to help you focus on what you're writing, not how it looks. This idea is called "separating presentation from content." Imagine you're writing a story. With LaTeX, you just tell it "this is a chapter title" or "this is a picture." LaTeX then figures out the best way to make those things look good on the page.
This is similar to how many word processors let you choose "styles" for your text. Or, if you know about websites, it's like using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to make a webpage look nice.
LaTeX is a "markup language." This means you add special codes (or "markup") to your text to tell LaTeX what to do. You can even create your own special commands if you need something very specific. These custom commands are often grouped into "packages." These packages help with things like making complex math equations or adding graphics.
Creating a Document
To make a document with LaTeX, you first create a text file. You might name it something like `document.tex`. You use a simple text editor, like Notepad, to write your content and add the LaTeX commands.
Then, you give this `document.tex` file to the TeX program. TeX reads your file and creates another file that's ready to be viewed or printed. This process is a bit like how computer programmers write code and then "compile" it to make a program.
Many modern LaTeX editing programs make this process much easier. You can often press just one button to see your document appear on the screen. Some online LaTeX editors even show you a preview of your document as you type!
Saying and Writing "LaTeX"
The letters 'T', 'E', and 'X' in LaTeX come from Greek letters. The name TeX comes from a Greek word meaning "skill" or "art." That's why TeX's creator, Donald Knuth, suggests pronouncing TeX like "tekh" (with a sound like the 'ch' in "loch").
So, for LaTeX, you can say "LAH-tek" or "LAY-tek." Even though "LAY-tecks" might seem logical, it's not the usual way.
When you see LaTeX written in a book or on a website, it often has a special look: LaTeX. If that special look isn't possible, people usually write it as "LaTeX" with a capital L and capital T.
Example of LaTeX Code
Here's a simple example to show you what LaTeX code looks like and what the final document looks like:
| Input (what you type) | Output (what it looks like) |
|---|---|
\documentclass{article} % Tells LaTeX this is an article
\usepackage{amsmath} % Adds a package for math
\title{\LaTeX} % Sets the title
\begin{document} % Starts the main part of the document
\maketitle % Creates the title
\LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for
the \TeX{} typesetting program. It offers
programmable desktop publishing features and
extensive facilities for automating most
aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing,
including numbering and cross-referencing,
tables and figures, page layout,
bibliographies, and much more. \LaTeX{} was
originally written in 1984 by Leslie Lamport
and has become the dominant method for using
\TeX; few people write in plain \TeX{} anymore.
The current version is \LaTeXe.
% This is a comment, not shown in final output.
% The following shows typesetting power of LaTeX:
\begin{align}
E_0 &= mc^2 \\
E &= \frac{mc^2}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
\end{align}
\end{document} |
 |
You can see how the special commands like `\documentclass{article}` or `\title{\LaTeX}` tell LaTeX what to do. The math equations are also written in a special way, and LaTeX makes them look perfect.
Other Tools Like LaTeX
LaTeX is a "macro package" for TeX. This means it's a collection of commands that TeX understands. There are other similar collections for TeX, like Plain TeX or ConTeXt.
When TeX processes your document, it goes through a few steps. It takes your LaTeX commands, uses the TeX engine, and then creates a file that can be viewed or printed. Originally, TeX made a file called a DVI file. Now, there are newer versions like pdfTeX that can create PDF files directly. There's also XeTeX, which works well with modern fonts and different languages, and LuaTeX, which lets you use a programming language called Lua.
Sharing and Converting LaTeX Files
LaTeX documents are just plain text files. This means you can open them with any basic text editor. They don't have hidden codes like some other document formats.
You can also convert LaTeX files into many other formats. For example, you can turn them into PDF files using a tool called pdfLaTeX. If your LaTeX file has special characters from different languages (like Unicode text), you can use XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX to make PDFs.
There are also many tools that can convert LaTeX documents to other formats for the web or other programs:
- TeX4ht can turn LaTeX into HTML (for websites) and other web formats.
- HeVeA converts LaTeX documents into HTML5. This is great for putting scientific papers online.
- Pandoc is a very useful tool that can convert LaTeX into many different file types. These include HTML5, ePub ebooks, and even documents for programs like Microsoft Word.
Because LaTeX is so good at handling math, many tools focus on converting LaTeX math expressions.
- MathJax is a JavaScript library that converts LaTeX math into something that can be shown on a webpage. Wikipedia uses a tool based on MathJax to display math.
- KaTeX is another fast JavaScript library for showing LaTeX math on the web.
LaTeX Licenses and Availability
LaTeX is "free software," which means you can use it, share it, and even change it. It's distributed under a special license called the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL). This license makes sure that if someone changes LaTeX, their changes are clearly marked.
Because it's free, LaTeX is available on almost all computer operating systems. This includes Windows, macOS, and many versions of Linux.
LaTeX Versions and Other Programs
LaTeX2e is the main version of LaTeX that has been used since 1994. There was a project called LaTeX3 that started in the 1990s to create a brand new version. While LaTeX3 as a separate version was not fully released, many of its new features have been added directly into LaTeX2e over time. These new features include better ways to separate content from styling, support for links, and access to more fonts.
There are also other programs that work with LaTeX:
- LyX is a free program that looks like a word processor but uses LaTeX behind the scenes to create your document. It's a "What You See Is What You Mean" (WYSIWYM) editor, meaning you focus on the meaning of your text, and LyX handles the look.
- TeXmacs is another free editor that looks like a word processor but has its own way of typesetting documents.
- Scientific Word is a program for Windows and macOS that also lets you edit documents visually while producing LaTeX code.
Who Uses LaTeX?
LaTeX is very popular in schools and universities, especially for writing and publishing scientific papers. This is because it's excellent at handling complex math equations. It's also widely used for documents that need to include text in many different languages, like Arabic or Greek.
LaTeX can be used on its own to create documents, or it can be part of a bigger process. For example, some people use it to convert other document formats into PDFs. LaTeX helps automate many parts of creating a document, like numbering pages, tables, and figures, creating chapter titles, and building indexes and bibliographies.
See also
In Spanish: LaTeX para niños
- BibTeX
- Comparison of TeX editors
- Formula editor
- KaTeX
- List of document markup languages
- List of TeX extensions
- LyX
- MathJax
- xdvi
