Both approaches should produce a pdf file in the same directory as the. You can copy this code into the text editor that came with your LaTeX distribution and typeset it using the 'Typeset' button or menu option, or alternatively on the command line with the pdflatex filename.tex command from the directory where you saved the code in a. The standard syntax for commands in LaTeX is a backslash (\) followed by the command name and often a curly bracket ( A markup language uses a standard syntax to specify formatting and is written within plain text as commands. Once you're installed the required components, we can create a simple LaTeX document to make sure everything is working as intended.Īs discussed previously, LaTeX uses a markup language to define the document structure and formatting, similar to HTML. For a free open-source PDF viewer try Evince (for Windows and Linux). macOS will open PDFs in Preview by default but both Windows and Linux will require additional software to be installed. LaTeX produces documents in PDF format which means you will need a PDF viewer to view them. If you leave yourself comments throughout your document, this is handy since you will now be able to clearly see them or ignore them. For example, most text editors will color comments a separate color from everything else in the document. Most LaTeX distributions include a text editor with syntax highlighting, which is useful to differentiate your document text from the LaTeX commands you will be using. Since LaTeX documents are written in plain text, a text editor is the only graphical user interface you will be using. It is recommended to download the full versions of these distributions as some of the templates on this website use packages not included with the basic distributions which will slow down initial compilation as they are downloaded on demand. This is not because LaTeX takes a lot of resources to run, but rather because these large distributions include all the packages that you are likely to ever need, and each of these contains documentation, which all adds up. You will need to download a distribution for your operating system, below are recommended distributions for the three major operating systems:ĭepending on the distribution you choose, the installer file sizes can often times be in the hundreds of megabytes or greater. ![]() Distributions include the compiler which interprets your code to produce a PDF document and a multitude of packages which add to the functionality of LaTeX. ![]() ![]() LaTeX (and the TeX backend) is obtained as part of what's called a distribution. If you have decided you would like to learn LaTeX, or at least try it out, there are three things that you will need (two of which you likely already have). The guide on this page is for those wanting to try LaTeX on their own computer. For a no-effort introduction to LaTeX, you might want to try the online LaTeX editor Overleaf.
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