[ILUG] LaTex

[Mel Gorman]

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Karl Carlile wrote:

> What exactly is the function of LATEX. Is it used to polish up text files
> prodcued, by a simple text editor?

Google for a comprehensive answer, but at a very basic (and probably
incorrect) level, it is a markup language for documents. You write in a
plain text file what the content of the document is, and LaTeX decides how
to lay it out.

So, in OpenOffice/Word/WYSIWYG editor, you would start a section by
choosing a larger found, typing the title and going back to a normal font.
In LaTex, you would do something like

\section{This is my new section}

This is text within the section

LaTeX will take this, choose a font for you, format the page and whatever
else is required to make it look good.

In other words, LaTeX lets you focus on what the document is, where as
OpenOffice/Word/Whatever make you focus on what the document looks like as
well as what it is. Frequently, it is stated that LaTeX is generally used
for Maths but I have used it for almost all document writing for the last
5 years without complaint.

-- 
Mel Gorman
Part-time Phd Student                          Java Applications Developer
University of Limerick                         IBM Dublin Software Lab