Re: [MiKTeX] LaTeX Input, TeX Output?

[Bi-Info (http://members.home.nl/bi-info) <bi...@ho...>]

Yes. More or less. The format files determine with which package you 
work. In the old days you had to name explicitly the format file you 
use, but these days there is a Menu packaged with the MiKTeX 
distribution and there you can add / remove the format files you want 
use. So it is explicit in MiKTeX. There is a program which does that.

It's not the other way around. LaTeX is a subset of TeX. It's a 
misunderstanding. LaTeX is in a sense a "shell" around TeX, but 
mathematically is just a subset.

If you want to learn TeX the practical way of learning it is first 
learning LaTeX. TeX is impossible to learn in a couple of days. Take a 
generous amount of time for that: TeX. LaTeX is quite easy to learn.

These style files have the function of changing the way the TeX-engine 
format the text or, which is the same actually, they add another feature 
to LaTeX.
(You don't add features to TeX. It does the same thing over and over again.)

You don't need a DOS box for it by the way. There are a good editors 
(there always have been) around which help you to build your LaTeX 
files. I've been told that the LaTeXeditor (LEd) is a good program use: 
it's easy. Or TeXnicCenter (which a lot of people seem to use). It 
guides you through the way of putting the right things on the right place.
Using the DOS box is only needed when you want to do some extra 
processing, like graphics. A program like LaTeXeditor / TeXnicCenter is 
sufficient for most users.

Hope this helps,

Wilfred

(Little joke about the difference between learning TeX and LaTeX. If you 
start seeing the LaTeX command \end{document} you're in. If you start 
seeing \bye, which is a TeX command, you're out. You should stop working 
with TeX because you've grown up. There nothing to learn regardin' 
typesetting.

Who made the joke, I don't know. But I liked it.)

Hope this helps,
>
>Wilfred

Hi Wilfred,

Yes this is very helpful.  I think my picture of the way LaTeX worked must
have been incorrect, although in my defense, I did find a website (dating
back a bunch of years) that referred to compiling LaTeX into TeX.

One small question though if I haven't already caused enough trouble for one
day - you refer to some format files.  I am assuming you are referring to
something other than the class and style files, some files which define the
basic commands of LaTeX.  I ask this because I input the first example from
"A Gentle Introduction to TeX," ran tex.exe on it (from a Dos window), and
it worked just fine.  Then I ran latex.exe on the same file, and it
complained about the lack of a \begin{document} - since I thought TeX was a
subset of a LaTeX (the opposite of what you said), I figured it would work,
but it didn't.  So I guess the formatting files to which you refer are
implicitly delivered to the TeX engine by the latex.exe program, before it
even begins to process the document, and these files are what, for example,
specify that there has to be a \begin{document} command in each document.

Is this a correct picture of how the process works?

Many thanks,

BK

PS:

>hth,
>Alan Isaac

It took me a minute to figure out what "hth" is, but it does :) Thanks.


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