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 and documentation:
   • introductions
   • general help
   • basic LaTeX documentation
   • LaTeX tutorials
   • LaTeX templates
   • LaTeX reference information
   • LaTeX for particular fields
   • writing LaTeX packages
   • printed LaTeX books
   • fonts
   • graphics
   • indexing
   • plain TeX
   • (La)TeX advocacy
4. Free TeX implementations
5. TeX engines and extensions
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. If it doesn't help, try the visual FAQ.

Introductions to the TeX world:

• 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.)
• The TeX Catalogue, a comprehensive listing of packages and tools available for TeX users.
• 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). Search/browse texhax archives.
• tex.stackexchange.com, a collaboratively edited question and answer site.
• The #latex chat room on Freenode.

LaTeX documentation:

• LaTeX Documentation Pointers, giving references to documentation for most common LaTeX tasks, by Jim Hefferon.
• LaTeX Cheat Sheet, a two-page quick reference by Winston Chang.
• Very Short Guide to LaTeX, a four-page quick reference by Peter Flynn.
• 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.
• Spoken (video) tutorial on LaTeX, and on XFig with math, from spoken-tutorial.org.
• 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 templates:

All of these collections would welcome additions and corrections.

• latex2e.texi templates for TUGboat, book, beamer.
• howtotex.com/templates.
• LaTeXTemplates.com.
• German templates by Juergen Fenn.
• German templates by Axel Sommer.

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.

Writing new LaTeX packages, classes, and styles:

• How to develop your own document class—our experience, by Niall Mansfield.
• Good things come in little packages: An introduction to writing .ins and .dtx files, by Scott Pakin.
• A model dtx file, by Joseph Wright.
• Rolling your own Document Class: Using LaTeX to keep away from the Dark Side, by Peter Flynn.
• Minutes in less than hours: Using LaTeX resources, by Jim Hefferon.

Books on LaTeX:

• A Guide to LaTeX2e, by Helmut Kopka and Patrick Daly (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-17385-6, fourth edition, 2003).
• Learning LaTeX, by David Griffiths and Desmond Higham (SIAM, ISBN 978-0-898713-83-1, 1997, 84pp). A short example-based book covering core LaTeX and a few packages.
• 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).
• Typesetting Mathematics with LaTeX, by Herbert Voß (UIT Cambridge, ISBN 978-1-906860-17-2, 2010, 304pp). A practical book on typesetting mathematics with LaTeX, covering many packages.
• Typesetting tables with LaTeX, by Herbert Voß (UIT Cambridge, ISBN 978-1-906860-25-7, 2011, 240pp). A practical book on typesetting tables with LaTeX, covering many packages.
• 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).
• Math into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser Boston and Springer Verlag New York, ISBN 0-8176-4131-9 and ISBN 3-7648-4131-9).
• More Math into LaTeX, by George Grätzer (Birkhauser, ISBN 978-0-387-32289-6).
• 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-processor-to-LaTeX converters (and back the other way), maintained by Wilfried Hennings.
• MetaPost.
• Metafont tutorial.
• 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.

Fonts:

• Discussion of available fonts, both free and proprietary.
• A Survey of Free Math Fonts by Stephen Hartke, shows most of the major free text and math families available for use with TeX.
• LaTeX Font Catalogue, by Palle Jørgensen of DK-TUG, has short samples of most fonts available in typical LaTeX installations.
• Essential NFSS users guide by Sebastian Rahtz; see also Font selection in LaTeX by Walter Schmidt, and fontspec, a package by Will Robertson for using OpenType and other fonts in XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX using NFSS.
• Font Installation Guide: Using PostScript fonts to their full potential with LaTeX, by Philipp Lehman (91pp, pdf).
• Fontname, a naming scheme for TeX fonts.
• The STIX web site, a project for getting mathematical characters into Unicode, and creating fonts with them. This article by Barbara Beeton explains some of the background and issues.

Graphics:

• Strategies for including graphics in LaTeX documents, a tutorial in TUGboat by Klaus Höppner.
• Graphics links on tex.loria.fr, especially Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX 2e by Keith Recksdahl, and Graphics and Colour by Patrick Daly.
• 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:

• MakeIndex: An Index Processor for LaTeX, by Leslie Lamport.
• MakeIndex, from Norm Walsh.
• Xindy, a Unicode-aware index processor designed to replace makeindex.

Plain TeX:

• TeX by Topic, A TeXnician's Reference, by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley, 1992; 307pp). Available under the GFDL.
• TeX for the Impatient, by Paul Abrahams, Kathryn Hargreaves, and Karl Berry (Addison-Wesley, 1990; 357pp). Available under the GFDL.
• A gentle introduction to TeX, by Michael Doob (Greek translation available).
• Reference cards for AMSTeX and Plain TeX, by Joseph Silverman.
• Plain TeX reference, from Norm Walsh.
• 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).

Presentations about TeX:

• LaTeX Beginner's Course, by UK-TUG.
• 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 for newcomers to LaTeX.
• An Introduction to TeX and LaTeX, by Jim Diamond.
• LaTeX Course, by Engelbert Buxbaum (based on Rainer Rupprecht's tex-kurs).

Advocacy:

• LaTeX publicity leaflet by Peter Flynn.
• TeX merchandising to benefit user groups
• 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.
  
• An argument for learning LaTeX: The benefits of typesetting and beyond, by Evan Wessler, discussing the benefits of LaTeX apart from aesthetics.

The TeX Family in 2009 article is available online, originally published in AMS Notices magazine.

See also the list of TeX journals and publications, and the AMS lists of TeX resources and TeX-related publications.

Finally, the TeX category in the Open Directory Project has a large list of links.

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.
• KerTeX, from Thierry Laronde, a TeX kernel system.
• 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. Portable LaTeX (Slackware-based) is similar, specifically constructed for writing (La)TeX documents.

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

If you want to inspect Knuth's own sources for educational or other such purposes, without any of the scaffolding and enhancements that have come to surround them in modern systems, you can get them from Stanford; the material is also mirrored on CTAN.

TeX engines and extensions

• The future of TeX FAQ entry.
• e-TeX (FAQ), extended TeX. Required by current LaTeX, incorporated in all common executables except tex itself (run etex for plain e-TeX). e-TeX manual.
• pdfTeX (FAQ), a TeX extension which can directly produce PDF output as well as DVI. Incorporates e-TeX.
• XeTeX (FAQ), a TeX implementation support for Unicode and system fonts. (TeXgX was its predecessor for MacOS 7.)
• LuaTeX (FAQ), embedding Lua and MetaPost in TeX and opening up the program.
• Aleph (FAQ), essentially Omega + bug fixes + e-TeX; it has replaced Omega, but is no longer actively developed.
• Omega, the first Unicode-based TeX, later replaced by Aleph (see previous item).
• Ant (FAQ), a typesetting system similar to TeX written in Objective Caml.

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, Unicode/OpenType math, conditional processing (modes). paper setup. Dave Walden has also written on ConTeXt: Trying ConTeXt and A bigger experiment.

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

• AUC-TeX for Emacs, a sophisticated TeX environment.
• Kile for KDE/Linux.
• LaTeX Editor (LEd) for Windows.
• LyX for Windows and X, a well-developed front end for TeX.
• SciTe for Windows and X, a free source code editor.
• TeXStudio, cross-platform.
• 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.
• Winshell for Windows, a zero-cost but nonfree editor.
• WineFish for Gnome/Linux.

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)
• IguanaTeX, a free software package for inserting LaTeX equations into PowerPoint.
• texpoint, an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word to enable use of LaTeX.
• TeX4PPT, an alternative package for enabling LaTeX in PowerPoint.
• Aurora, a proprietary add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and more that enables use of LaTeX.

Packages and programs dealing with graphics.

• graphics and graphicx, the core LaTeX packages.
• bmpsize, Heiko Oberdiek's package for finding bitmap bounding boxes; supports most bitmap formats.

PSTricks graphics:

• PSTricks home page, a widely-used graphics package, maintained by Herbert Voss.
• PSTricks tutorials by TUGIndia.

PGF/TikZ graphics:

• PGF/TikZ home page, a second widely-used graphics package, by Till Tantau.
  
• Graphics with PGF/TikZ, an article by Andrew Mertz and William Slough using graduated examples.
• TikZ examples.
• KtikZ, a graphics editor for TikZ.
  

Xy-pic graphics:

• Xy-pic, a third widely-used graphics package, by Kristoffer Rose and Ross Moore, specializing in commutative diagrams.
• xy-pic tutorial in Portuguese, by Carlos Campani.

Other programs for creating graphics:

• asymptote, a modern MetaPost replacement with a C++-like syntax and floating-point numerics, by Andy Hammerlindl, John Bowman, and Tom Prince.
• ePiX, Andy Hwang's C++-based graphics language.
• Eukleides, geometry diagrams with output in pstricks, including graphical frontend
• Inkscape, a multi-platform graphics editor based on SVG.
• IPE, a multi-platform graphics editor.
• LaTeXPiX, Windows program that generates LaTeX pictures.
• MetaPost, the derivation of Metafont for technical drawings and PostScript output.
• TeXCAD, a Windows program for drawing or retouching LaTeX {picture}s; distributed under the GPL.
• TpX, a TeX drawing tool for Windows.
• Xfig, a comprehensive drawing tool for Unix with many options for (La)TeX and Metafont/MetaPost.

Formats and large macro packages:
AMS-TeX and AMS-LaTeX , the American Mathematical Society's TeX packages
EDMAC, Dominik Wujastyk and John Lavagnino's package for typestting critical editions in plain TeX
Eplain, extended plain format
LaTeX 3, new work from the LaTeX developers (news).
The REVTeX package
Shyster, James Popple's case-based legal expert system which produces LaTeX output.

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 PDF viewer and companion utilities.
  • Impressive, intended for doing slide presentations with several custom features.
  • 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 and multimedia.
  • KGhostView, a Ghostscript front-end for the KDE window manager.
  • Ghostscript itself. Besides viewing, Ghostscript can distill PostScript to PDF (and to various image formats, 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.

Excalibur, the Mac TeX-aware spell checker
Kdissert, a writing tool to help structure ideas and concepts (for KDE).
designer for LaTeX.
OpenOffice math plugin that allows writing LaTeX formulas in OpenOffice documents.
PerlTeX, Perl programming plus TeX typesetting.
PerlTeX: Defining LaTeX macros using Perl, an article by Scott Pakin, author of PerlTeX.
Programming with PerlTeX, an article by Andrew Mertz and William Slough using graduated examples.
ProofCheck, a system for writing mathematical proofs in a directly (La)TeXable format.
PyTeX, Python programming plus TeX typesetting.
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.
TeXmacs, a WYSIWYG editor for typing technical and mathematical text.
TeXoMaker, free software for teachers to create and manage exercise sheets in LaTeX.
MathType and the Equation Editor in MS Word. MathType is a WYSIWYG equation editor that outputs TeX.
Label & card printing resources with TeX and LaTeX, a discussion of packages to print labels, envelopes, etc.

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

• 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 Chinese TeX distribution based on MiKTeX. Other links: CTeX wiki, CTeX forum, CTeX 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.
• TeX4ht, TeX and LaTeX for Hypertext, originally written by Eitan Gurari. It supports LaTeX to HTML and XML, including MathML, and is included in . Guide to setting up tex4ht with MikTeX.
• LaTeX2HTML translator to create Web pages from LaTeX documents. See also the manual and introductory article.
• tex2page, Scheme-based TeX-to-HTML conversion for TeX and LaTeX.
• Mathapedia, authoring of interactive math textbooks and graphics in real-time. Video tutorial.
• 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.
  

More web-related projects: