5 Open-source Document Creation Tools I
Isaac Mulolani
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this chapter, the reader will be able to:
- Describe what the LaTeX document typesetting system is and how it can be used
- Identify some relevant packages/elements of LaTeX that can be used to create OER
- Describe the LaTeX installation process on a Windows systems
- Identify an appropriate LaTeX editor from a list of available options
- Describe the basic layout required to create a LaTeX document
The LaTeX Document Preparation System
Donald Knuth of Stanford University began working on a text processing system known as TeX and METAFONT. Knuth wrote in the forward to his book, The TEXbook.[1]
While Knuth was developing TeX in the early 1980s, Leslie Lamport began work on a document preparation system. This new system, called LaTeX, made use of TeX’s typesetting engine and macro system. In this system, high-level LaTeX commands allowed a user to easily compose a range of documents without worrying about typographical issues.
The first release of this system appeared in 1985 and was numbered 2.09. The release was accompanied by the second edition of LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, which led to a rapid spread of TeX-based document processing beyond the community of mathematicians. In the following decade, its use spread very rapidly becoming extremely popular in the scientific and academic communities and extensively used in industry.
Mirror Sites for Access to LaTeX
Since LaTeX has a current global following, it is helpful to describe the mirrors that exist across the globe. There are several different flavours of LaTeX that can be downloaded for installation on different platforms. These will be described in this section. There are three main variants of LaTeX available: MiKTeX, TeXLive and MacTeX. These systems can be used on different operating systems.
TeXLive
TeXLive is designed to be a straight forward way to get up and running with the TeX document preparation system. It provides a comprehensive TeX system with binaries for most flavors of Unix, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and also Windows. It includes all the major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts that are free software, including support for many languages around the world. Many operating systems provide it via their own distributions. Instructions are provided on how to install these on different systems. This flavour can be installed on various Linux distributions and a specific version (MacTeX) has been designed for installation on MacOS personal PC and Intel platforms.
MiKTeX
From the TeX User Group mirrors, one can obtain proTeXt which is a MiKTeX distribution designed for installation on a Windows system. ProTeXt guides[2] the MiKTeX installation via a short pdf document (available in German, English, French and Italian), which provides clickable links to install the various components, along with explanations. For ease of use, ProTeXt also adds TeXstudio, and Sumatra PDF.
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