TeX Resources on the Web

Additions and corrections are always welcome, please email webmaster@tug.org. (In fact, we are seeking a volunteer to do a systematic review and reorganization of this page; please contact us if you are interested. A list of other tasks in TeX community is also available.)

1. CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network): downloads, software, documentation.
2. TeX user groups around the world.
3. FAQ, documentation
4. Free TeX implementations
5. TeX extension projects
6. Packages and programs
7. TeX web projects
8. Commercial/shareware TeX vendors and projects
9. Publisher information
10. Miscellaneous
11. Donald Knuth's home page

Where to find help and documentation

If you have a general question, start with the TeX Frequently Asked Questions. And if it doesn't help, try the visual FAQ.

Overviews of the TeX world:

• Basic explanation of editing, typesetting, word processing, etc., and how TeX fits in the picture. (Courtesy of Gerben Wierda.)
• Pointers to Frequently Asked TeX Questions.
• Levels of TeX: LaTeX vs. MiKTeX.
• The Wikipedia article on TeX.
• What is TeX?, a collection of one-page answers by several authors.

General TeX help:

• TeX Frequently Asked Questions list prepared by the UK TeX Users Group; this is also available in various other formats.
• Pointers to Frequently Asked TeX Questions.
• LaTeX previewer, an online form for quickly entering some LaTeX and seeing the result. (There's also a MetaPost previewer.)
• LaTeX Navigator: A (La)TeX encyclopaedia, with many links on (La)TeX, typography, tools, graphics, bibliographies, and literate programming.
• DE-TeX-FAQ - Fragen und Antworten über TeX und DANTE e.V. for German speakers, from Dante.
• Foire Aux Questions française ; n'oubliez pas le groupe fr.comp.text.tex si vous n'avez pas trouvé de réponse à vos questions.

If you have questions not answered by the above, read on for more documentation links, or the most widely used general help forums for TeX are (no guarantees, this is all done by volunteers):

• the newsgroup comp.text.tex.
  
• The mailing list support@tug.org (aka texhax).
• The #latex chat room on Freenode.

LaTeX manuals:

• LaTeX Cheat Sheet, a two-page quick reference by Winston Chang.
• The not so Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, by Tobias Oetiker (pdf, ps, source in many languages).
• Formatting Information, by Peter Flynn (html or pdf). Includes installation and usage information.
• LaTeX Wikibook, a guide to LaTeX.
• The LaTeX 2e home page, and the LaTeX bugs database, a searchable collection of bugs and fixes.

LaTeX tutorials:

• List of LaTeX tutorials and reference documentation given in the TeX FAQ.
• LaTeX tutorials from Andy Roberts.
• LaTeX tutorials and information from Nicola Talbot.
• LaTeX tutorials from TUGIndia, the Indian TeX Users Group.
• Minimal LaTeX tutorial from installation to common needs in writing.
• A Simplified Introduction to LaTeX by Harvey J. Greenberg (PS file-1.1M).

LaTeX reference:

• LaTeX2e reference manual, an ongoing project to create a reference manual for LaTeX2e (help welcome).
• LaTeX 2e reference pages (from Martin Herbert Dietze).
• LaTeX Comprehensive Symbol List, by Scott Pakin.
• Essential LaTeX ++ by Jon Warbrick et al.
• TeX-related documentation at the University of Cambridge.

LaTeX for particular fields:

• LaTeX for linguists, from the CL/MT group at the University of Essex.
• LaTeX for logicians, by Peter Smith.
• LaTeX for molecular biologists, by Tom Schneider; also includes a large list of general resources.
• Using LaTeX for NIH grant applications, by Bruce Donald.
• Word-processor-to-LaTeX converters (and back the other way), maintained by Wilfried Hennings.

Books on LaTeX:

• A Guide to LaTeX2e, by Helmut Kopka and Patrick Daly (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-17385-6, fourth edition, 2003).
• The LaTeX Companion, by Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens, Johannes Braams, David Carlisle, and Chris Rowley (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54199-8, second edition, 2004).
• The LaTeX Web Companion: Integrating TeX, HTML, and XML, by Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, Eitan Gurari, Ross Moore and Robert Sutor (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-43311-7).
• The LaTeX Graphics Companion, by Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, and Frank Mittelbach (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-85469-4).
• Digital Typography Using LaTeX, by Apostolos Syropoulos, Antonis Tsolomitis, and Nick Sofroniou (Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-95217-9).
• First Steps in LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser, ISBN 0-8176-4132-7).
• First Steps in LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser, ISBN 0-8176-4132-7).
• Math into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser Boston and Springer Verlag New York, ISBN 0-8176-4131-9 and ISBN 3-7648-4131-9). Download Part I of the book in Postscript or PDF format.
• More Math into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser, ISBN 978-0-387-32289-6).
• TeXikon, a handbook in German on TeX and LaTeX, by Rudolf Potucek and Stefan Schwarz, published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 3-8931-9690-0).
• Introduktion till LaTeX, in Swedish, by Per Jacobsson (ISBN 9-7891-4403-3143).
• LaTeX Sources, a convenient compendium of the LaTeX2e sources. Download a collected pdf for free or buy a hardcover at cost.

Online references for other TeX-related software:

• Word Hy-phen-a-tion by Com-put-er, Frank Liang's thesis describing TeX's hyphenation algorithm, as implemented via the patgen program.
• tex-refs, reference information on many parts of the TeX system, including LaTeX.
• MetaPost.
• Metafont tutorial.
• Reference cards for AMSTeX and Plain TeX, by Joseph Silverman.

Fonts:

• Discussion of available fonts, both free and commercial.
• Font Installation Guide: Using PostScript fonts to their full potential with LaTeX, by Philipp Lehman (91pp, pdf).
• Installing PostScript fonts in LaTeX, by Peter Flynn.
• Typeface sampler, by Peter Flynn, showing all the Type 1 and Type 3 typefaces which are freely available (pdf, with sources and more samples).
• Using TrueType fonts with (pdf)(La)TeX, by Damir Rakityansky.
• Essential NFSS users guide by Sebastian Rahtz; then see Font selection in LaTeX by Walter Schmidt.
• Fontname, a naming scheme for TeX fonts.
• The STIX web site, a project for getting mathematical characters into Unicode, and creating fonts with them.
• More references to works on typography and printing, and references to TeX, from William Adams.

Graphics:

• Graphics links on tex.loria.fr, especially Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX 2e by Keith Recksdahl, and Graphics and Colour by Patrick Daly.
• Strategies for including graphics in LaTeX documents, a tutorial in TUGboat by Klaus Höppner.
• Graphics for inclusion in electionic documents, by Ian Hutchinson. Real-world problems and discussion of getting images into a form that will import properly in (La)TeX documents.
• Mathematical illustrations: a manual of geometry and PostScript, a book by Bill Casselman.

Indexing:

• LaTeX: Indexes and Glossaries, a quick guide.
• MakeIndex: An Index Processor for LaTeX, by Leslie Lamport.
• MakeIndex, from Norm Walsh.

Help with plain TeX:

• A book on plain TeX: TeX by Topic, A TeXnician's Reference, by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley, 1992; 307pp).
• TeX for the Impatient, by Paul Abrahams, Kathryn Hargreaves, and Karl Berry (Addison-Wesley, 1990; 357pp).
• Plain TeX reference, from Norm Walsh.

Books on plain TeX:

• A Beginner's Book of TeX, by Silvio Levy and Raymond Seroul (Springer Verlag, ISBN 0-387-97562-4).
• TeX for the Beginner, by Wynter Snow (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54799-6).
• To proto vima sto TeX, Greek translation and enhancement of TeX starting from square one, by Dimitrios Filippou (Paratiritis Editions, ISBN 960-374-081-0, 2001).

Overall TeX system:

• TDS, the TeX Directory Structure standard, a recommended layout for TeX systems.
  
• A freely available book on the TeX system: Making TeX Work, by Norman Walsh (O'Reilly, 1994; 15 chapters, 6 appendices).
• Victor Eijkhout's course notes, with a basic intro to LaTeX usage, explanation of font encodings, and a computer science approach to many aspects of TeX.

Presentations about TeX:

• TeX and Its World, an introductory slide show by Dave Walden. Aimed at giving a general audience an overview of TeX. Includes full speaking notes along with the slides.
• Making Friends with LaTeX, by Rohit Kumar, intended to introduce newcomers to LaTeX.

Advocacy:

• The beauty of LaTeX, a short comparison of typesetting quality in TeX and Microsoft Word, by Dario Taraborelli.
  
• WYSIWYG Word Processors, Allin Cottrell's entertaining article with a strong bias for LaTeX and against word processors.
  
• GNU TeXmacs: A free, structured, wysiwyg and technical editor, an article by Joris van der Hoeven demonstrating why structured WYSIWYG editing is possible and desirable.
  

Also see the AMS list of TeX resources and TeX-related publications. You may also want to check out Bibliography on TeX & Co from LORIA, Nancy, France.

Finally, the TeX category in the Open Directory Project has a large list of links. (Please also submit new sites there.)

Free TeX implementations

Some notable TeX implementations that are entirely (or least primarily) free software:

• TeX Live is a distribution provided by most TeX user groups which supports many Unix systems, MacOSX, and 32-bit Windows.
• MacTeX, TeX Live with additions and easy installation for MacOSX.
• MiKTeX, an independent distribution for Windows with a flexible package manager.
• proTeXt, MiKTeX with additions and a thorough installation guide for Windows.
• USBTeX, a self-contained live system for Windows that can be run from, e.g., a USB stick with no installation.
• Knoppix, a live GNU/Linux system on a bootable CD that includes TeX.

The AMS also maintains a list of freeware and shareware TeX implementations.

TeX extension projects

• e-TeX, extended TeX (available on CTAN in systems/e-tex).
• LaTeX 3, the successor to LaTeX (one day).
• Omega, Unicode-based TeX (available on CTAN as part of web2c). FAQ entry.
• Aleph, essentially Omega + bug fixes + e-TeX. May be folded back into Omega eventually. FAQ entry.
• pdfTeX, a TeX variant by Hàn Thế Thành which can produce PDF output instead of DVI, including the manual, useful examples, and a FAQ.
• XeTeX, a TeX implementation by Jonathan Kew for MacOS X, with Unicode and native font support. (TeXgX is a predecessor for MacOS 7.)
• Ant, a typesetting system similar to TeX written in Objective Caml, by Achim Blumensath.

Packages and programs

LaTeX, biggest and most widely used TeX macro package.

ConTeXt, Hans Hagen's powerful, modern, TeX macro package; a serious contender for those wanting a production-quality publishing system. Integrated support for XML, MetaPost, and much more. The ConTeXt Garden Wiki is a good place to start. Also, Aditya Mahajan writes regular introductory ConTeXt articles for TUGboat: fonts, tables, tables II, indentations.

Free editors and front-ends (see also vendors below):

• AUC-TeX for Emacs, a sophisticated TeX environment.
• iTeXMac for MacOSX.
• Kile for KDE/Linux.
• LaTeX Editor (LEd) for Windows.
• LyX for Windows and X, a well-developed front end for TeX.
• MonkeyEditor for the web, including collaboration and publication.
• pfe (Programmer's File Editor) for Windows.
• SciTe for Windows and X, a free source code editor.
• Texmaker for Unix, MacOSX and Windows, well-developed and documented front-end for LaTeX.
• TeXnicCenter for Windows, an integrated environment for LaTeX composition.
• TeXShop for MacOSX.
• TeXworks, a cross-platform front-end with an ease-of-use philosophy similar to TeXShop, an integrated PDF viewer, source/output synchronization, and more.
• WineFish for Gnome/Linux.
• Winshell for Windows.

Packages and programs for making slide presentations:

• Comparison of screen presentation systems, mostly (La)TeX-based, by Michael Wiedmann.
• Beamer, by Till Tantau; see also CTAN directory. A nice Beamer by example tutorial is available for getting started.
• Beamer presentation designer program in Python, using Inkscape.
• seminar (slides in LaTeX), notes by Denis Girou (including bug list and FAQ)
• texpoint, a add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word to enable use of LaTeX.
• TeX4PPT, an alternative package for enabling LaTeX in PowerPoint.
• Aurora, another add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and more that enables use of LaTeX.

PSTricks home page, a widely-used graphics package, maintained by Herbert Voss.
PSTricks tutorials by TUGIndia.
PGF/TikZ home page, a second widely-used graphics package, by Till Tantau.
TikZ examples. KtikZ, a graphics editor for TikZ.
Xy-pic, a third widely-used graphics package, by Kristoffer Rose and Ross Moore, specialising in commutative diagrams.
xy-pic tutorial in Portuguese, by Carlos Campani. AMS-TeX and AMS-LaTeX , the American Mathematical Society's TeX packages
asymptote, a modern MetaPost replacement with a C++-like syntax and floating-point numerics, by Andy Hammerlindl, John Bowman, and Tom Prince.
EDMAC, Dominik Wujastyk and John Lavagnino's package for typestting critical editions
ePiX, Andy Hwang's C++-based graphics language
Eplain, extended plain format
Eukleides, geometry diagrams with output in pstricks, including graphical frontend
Feynmf, Thorsten Ohl's package for doing Feynman diagrams using LaTeX and Metafont/Metapost
Inkscape, a multi-platform graphics editor based on SVG.
IPE, a multi-platform graphics editor.
LaTeXPiX, Windows program that generates LaTeX pictures.
Math plugin for OpenOffice that allows writing LaTeX formulas in OpenOffice documents.
The REVTeX package
Shyster, James Popple's case-based legal expert system which produces LaTeX output.
TeXCAD, a Windows program for drawing or retouching LaTeX {picture}s; distributed under the GPL.
TpX, a TeX drawing tool for Windows. EMTEXGI, a Windows interface for emTeX

DVI drivers:

• dvips, Tom Rokicki's widely-used dvi to PostScript driver
  
• xdvi, Paul Vojta's widely-used DVI previewer for the X window system.
• xdvik, the Kpathsea variant of xdvi.
• dvipdfmx, extended version of Mark Wicks' original DVI to PDF converter, by Shunsaku Hirata and Jin-Hwan Cho.
• dvisvg, for conversion to the W3C SVG (scalable vector graphics) format.
• dvii, for looking at DVI files and summarizing the contents (fonts, specials, etc.), by Adam H. Lewenberg.
• IDVI a Java DVI viewer.

PDF viewers (concentrating on free software):

• For Unix:
  • xpdf, a standalone implementation.
  • GNU gv, a simple front-end to Ghostscript.
  • Evince, a document viewer for PDF (based on poppler), PostScript, DVI, and more.
  • GGV (Gnome Ghostview), a Ghostscript front-end for the Gnome window manager.
  • Okular, which supports source specials using pdfsync.
  • KGhostView, a Ghostscript front-end for the KDE window manager.
  • Ghostscript itself. Besides viewing, Ghostscript can distill PostScript to PDF (and image formats and bounding boxes and many other things).
• For Windows: Sumatra PDF, free software based on xpdf.
• There is also the proprietary (though zero-cost) Adobe (Acrobat) Reader, but you probably already knew that.

Excalibur, the Mac TeX-aware spell checker
Kdissert, a writing tool to help structure ideas and concepts (for KDE).
designer for LaTeX.
PyTeX, Python programming plus TeX typesetting.
MetaPost, John Hobby's version of Metafont that makes EPS files; see also TUG's MetaPost page.
stepTeX, porting the famous NeXTStep TeX previewer
TechWriter Pro   Used in connection with EasiWriter, TechWriter provides an equation editor which exports to HTML, as a TeX file, and has Java support.
LaTeX Generator, for making LaTeX template documents (in German).
preview-latex, WYSIWYGish in-line previews right in your Emacs source buffer
texd, TeX as a daemon with a callable interface, written in Python.
gsftopk is Paul Vojta's program to make PK bitmaps from Type1 fonts, useful for many TeX previewers
TeXmacsA WYSIWYG editor for typing technical and mathematical text.
TeXpict is a useful drawing package which exports to LaTeX
Xindy,a new index processor designed to replace makeindex
TeXaide, a special free version of Mathtype's Equation Editor, generating TeX markup
MathType and the Equation Editor in MS Word. MathType is a WYSIWYG equation editor that outputs TeX.

Multi-lingual typesetting in scripts and languages around the world:

• African typesetting paper (PDF), with discussion of TeX.
• Ekushey typing system -- Bengali for Microsoft Word. This is a GNU licenced add-in for Word 97/2000/XP that enables Bengali typing.It has an export to TeX option, meaning that it can be used either as a conversion tool or as a WYSIWYG Bengali TeX editor.
• The Chinese TeX Society provides the major CCT, ctex, and other packages for Chinese typesetting, including a downloadable distribution based on MiKTeX. Other CTeX links: wiki, forum, ftp.
• ChiTeX for Chinese typesetting; Chinese directory on CTAN. See also this recipe for getting started with ChiTeX and Emacs.
• CSTeX, LaTeX and plain TeX support for Czech and Slovak users, including special fonts.
• Japanese LaTeX (Platex) and related tools for pdf authoring by Young Joon Moon, as part of a self-initiated project to guide Japanese learners and Japanese to master kanji (Japanese/Chinese characters) with minimal effort.
• Hóng-Zì, a project to create a Chinese Metafonts. Contributors encouraged.
• Using GNU/Linux and LaTeX to create Japanese language documents.
• Japanese directory on CTAN.
• sinhala_tex, Metafont fonts and a preprocessor for writing in the Sinhala script.

BibTeX and bibliographies

TeX web projects

• Online LaTeX previewer, by Troy Henderson.
• LaTeX2HTML translator to create Web pages from LaTeX documents. See also the manual and introductory article.
• TeX4ht, TeX and LaTeX for Hypertext, by Eitan Gurari. It supports LaTeX to HTML and XML, including MathML, and is included in . See also an update page talking about MathML. There is a useful guide on how to set it up with MikTeX.
• tex2page, Scheme-based TeX-to-HTML conversion for TeX and LaTeX.
• H^eV^eA. A LaTeX to HTML translater, written in objective Caml.
• tth, a TeX to HTML converter.
  
• Wikipublisher supports customized typesetting of web pages for print, using LaTeX.
  
• Hyperlatex, a set of macros for writing one document with both printed and HTML output.
• AMRITA is a system for communicating software-based ideas and information. It operates as a cross between a document preparation system, a computational engine, and a programming language.

More web-related projects:
PassiveTeX, by Sebastian Rahtz, for processing XSL with TeX. (No longer maintained.)
ltoh, Russel Quong's customizable LaTeX to HTML converter
tbookdtd, XML DTD for LaTeX documents, and HTML generation
HyperTeX, original conventions for TeX hypertext
HTeX A simplified LaTeX interface for Web documents
Markup Shredder, document conversion from HTML to PDF using TeX.
ASTER demo (spoken mathematics)
Texpider, MicroPress' version of TeX that writes HTML directly
Techexplorer, a Web browser plugin from IBM which renders TeX markup
EquPlus: Science and Math Equations - Display code for science and math equations in TeX, MathML, and MathType, including constants, symbols, and SI units.

Supporting (La)TeX equations within HTML, etc.:
GtkMathView for TeX-quality formatting of MathML, by Luca Padovani. mimetex.cgi, equation typesetting for web pages via a cgi script.
EquationService, equations to pdf.
Formula Freehand Entry System (FFES), a pen-based equation editor. Gladtex, equations to images via batch perl/Ghostscript/LaTeX/dvips.
InftyReader, OCR for equations with LaTeX output.
mathurl, render LaTeX to an image and generate a short url for use in email, IM, etc.
webmath, equation typesetting for web pages via an applet.

If you are interested in math and XML, look info MathML, the proposal for math on the Web, and a standard DTD.

Related software:

• MINSE: a math polymediator
  
• WebEQ a Java Equation viewer
  
• MathView: an interactive math plug-in from Waterloo Maple
  
• Communicating Math with Hypertext
• Including Math Notation in Web Pages
• Mathscape Michael Barnettt's work on symbolic calculation for electronic publishing. (See mcmt.ps for a PostScript file [size about 7700k].)

Commercial and shareware TeX vendors

The AMS TeX pages have a good list of Commercial TeX implementations. This list includes many additional shareware and otherwise nonfree packages and projects.

Applied Symbols, OpenType Computer Modern and Unimath, an OpenType math font.
Blue Sky Research, sells Textures for Macintosh.
CMacTeX for Macintosh, by Tom Kiffe
DiffDoc, shareware for comparing html, pdf, and other documents.
Easy table, a macro package for easy table creation by Khanh Ha.
GrindEQ Math Utilities, for importing/exporting (AMS)(La)TeX documents to/from Microsoft Word.
Ideal Fonts, sells virtual fonts for Textures.
istorm, shareware for MacOS X, collaboration tool including dynamic conversion of math to pdf.
Mackichan Software, Inc. sells Scientific Word for Windows and Mac, a WYSIWYG program using TeX in the background.
MicroIMP: WYSIWYG LaTeX that requires no knowledge of TeX/LaTeX programming.
OS/2 TeX, setup for OS/2 put together by Juergen Kleinboehl.
OzTeX for the Macintosh, by Andrew Trevorrow
Personal TeX Inc. sells and supports a complete TeX product for Windows.
Publicon, from Wolfram Research, has sophisticated technical publishing, including export to LaTeX, AMSTeX, REVTeX, XML, and much more.
SciLetter is commercial email software with equation support based on TeX.
SciWriter is an XML-based scientific editor for mathematicians and scientists, from soft4science. (SciLetter and SciWriter are completely independent products from different vendors.)
tex2html, commercial TeX to HTML conversion system, which renders math using the Symbol font (and other tricks)
True TeX is a TrueType based TeX for Windows.
VTeX includes a TeX IDE, visual tools, HTML, PDF, PS and SVG backends, and many math and text fonts.
WinEdt, a very powerful TeX editor and shell for Windows 9X/NT.
word2tex, shareware from Chikrii Softlab for converting Word documents to LaTeX (and tex2word for the other direction).
Y&Y was a TeX system for Windows; they're out of business now, but their web pages are available here.
3B2: made by Advent Publishing Systems, Ltd., high-end professional publishing with built-in WYSIWYG TeX support and full SGML conformance. Offices in the UK, Ireland, USA.

Publisher-provided TeX and LaTeX styles

See also the excellent pages on Journals Accepting Manuscripts written using LaTeX by Gabriel Valiente, and Publishers who use TeX/LaTeX by Tom Schneider.

A number of publishers provide ready-made style packages.

• AAAI Press publications: How to Obtain AAAI Macros and Templates (LaTeX)
• Academic Press: Preparation and Transmission of Electronic Materials (LaTeX)
• American Mathematical Society Author Packages for Publishing with the AMS (AMS-TeX and AMS-LaTeX).
• Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP - Manuscript preparation: Technical instructions for LaTeX.
• Cambridge University Press: The Journal of Functional Programming (LaTeX)
• Elsevier Science Publishers: Elsevier LaTeX package (LaTeX).
• IEEE Publications: IEEE information for authors (LaTeX).
• Kluwer Academic Publishers: Journal Author Instructions (LaTeX).
• Reviews of Modern Physics: LaTeX Macros for Compuscript Submissions
• SIAM Publications: SIAM TeX resources (TeX, LaTeX and AMS-TeX).
• Springer Verlag: Welcome to Authors (TeX and LaTeX)

Scholarly and publishing organization

• Society for Scholarly Publishing
• American Association of University Professors
• Assoc. of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (European)

Miscellaneous

Or take a break from all this TeX stuff and admire Sebastian Rahtz's daughter Matilde visiting the Protestant Cemetery in Rome as a baby circa 2000, and circa 2002, painted as a Kathakali dancer in India, and circa 2006 with her dad in Istanbul. Sebastian was the original perpetrator of this page :).