# TeX

TeX Users GroupTUGPlain TeXT E Xmathematical modemathematics modePiCTeXPronouncing and writing "TeXTeX markupTeX software
TeX (, see below), stylized within the system as Te X, is a typesetting system (or a "formatting system") which was designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978.wikipedia
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### Donald Knuth

Donald E. KnuthKnuthDon Knuth
TeX (, see below), stylized within the system as Te X, is a typesetting system (or a "formatting system") which was designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. When the first paper volume of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming was published in 1968, it was typeset using hot metal typesetting set by a Monotype machine.
In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.

### LaTeX

LaTeX2HTMLHlineLaTeX2e
It is also used for many other typesetting tasks, especially in the form of LaTeX, ConTeXt, and other macro packages.
A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MikTeX is used to produce an output file (such as PDF or DVI) suitable for printing or digital distribution.

### ConTeXt

PPCHTeX
It is also used for many other typesetting tasks, especially in the form of LaTeX, ConTeXt, and other macro packages.
It is based in part on the TeX typesetting system, and uses a document markup language for manuscript preparation.

### Computer Modern

Latin ModernCMU familyComputer Modern italic
TeX was designed with two main goals in mind: to allow anybody to produce high-quality books with minimal effort, and to provide a system that would give exactly the same results on all computers, at any point in time (together with the Metafont language for font description and the Computer Modern family of typefaces).
Computer Modern is the original family of typefaces used by the typesetting program TeX.

### Metafont

TeX was designed with two main goals in mind: to allow anybody to produce high-quality books with minimal effort, and to provide a system that would give exactly the same results on all computers, at any point in time (together with the Metafont language for font description and the Computer Modern family of typefaces).
Metafont was devised by Donald Knuth as a companion to his TeX typesetting system.

### The Art of Computer Programming

Art of Computer ProgrammingTAOCPKnuth
When the first paper volume of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming was published in 1968, it was typeset using hot metal typesetting set by a Monotype machine.
Eight years later, he returned with T E X, which is currently used for all volumes.

### Omega (TeX)

AlephJohn PlaiceOmega
For example, the Omega project was developed after 1991, primarily to enhance TeX's multilingual typesetting abilities.
Omega is an extension of the TeX typesetting system that uses the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode.

### Typeface

fonttypefacesfonts
TeX was designed with two main goals in mind: to allow anybody to produce high-quality books with minimal effort, and to provide a system that would give exactly the same results on all computers, at any point in time (together with the Metafont language for font description and the Computer Modern family of typefaces).
Common font formats include TrueType, OpenType and PostScript Type 1, while Metafont is still used by TeX and its variants.

### Literate programming

literate programLiterateliterate script
For later versions of TeX, Knuth invented the concept of literate programming, a way of producing compilable source code and cross-linked documentation typeset in TeX from the same original file.
Applicability of the concept to programming on a large scale, that of commercial-grade programs, is proven by an edition of TeX code as a literate program.

### Device independent file format

DVIdvipdfm.dvi
It then produces a DVI file ("DeVice Independent") containing the final locations of all characters.
The device independent file format (DVI) is the output file format of the TeX typesetting program, designed by David R. Fuchs and implemented by Donald E. Knuth in 1982.

### Free software

freefree-softwarefreely
TeX is a free software, which made it accessible to a wide range of users.
Other influential examples include the Emacs text editor; the GIMP raster drawing and image editor; the X Window System graphical-display system; the LibreOffice office suite; and the TeX and LaTeX typesetting systems.

### Unix

UNIX operating systemAT&T UnixUnix-like
It has largely displaced Unix troff, the other favored formatting system, in many Unix installations which use both for different purposes.

### PdfTeX

Hàn Thế ThànhpdfLaTeX
Nowadays, pdfTeX is often used, which bypasses DVI generation altogether.
The computer program pdfTeX is an extension of Knuth's typesetting program TeX, and was originally written and developed into a publicly usable product by Hàn Thế Thành as a part of the work for his PhD thesis at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

### Hyphenation algorithm

hyphenationhyphenation patternshyphenations
Among other changes, the original hyphenation algorithm was replaced by a new algorithm written by Frank Liang.
Among the algorithmic approaches to hyphenation, the one implemented in the TeX typesetting system is widely used.

### Software versioning

versionversion numbermajor release
Since version 3, TeX has used an idiosyncratic version numbering system, where updates have been indicated by adding an extra digit at the end of the decimal, so that the version number asymptotically approaches [[Pi|]].
TeX has an idiosyncratic version numbering system.

### Guy L. Steele Jr.

Guy L. Steele, Jr.Guy SteeleGuy L. Steele
Guy Steele happened to be at Stanford during the summer of 1978, when Knuth was developing his first version of TeX. When Steele returned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that autumn, he rewrote TeX's input/output (I/O) to run under the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) operating system.
Steele also designed the original command set of Emacs and was the first to port TeX (from WAITS to ITS).

### SAIL (programming language)

SAILSAIL programming languageSAIL, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language
The first version of TeX, called TeX78, was written in the SAIL programming language to run on a PDP-10 under Stanford's WAITS operating system.
A number of interesting software systems were coded in SAIL, including some early versions of FTP and TeX, a document formatting system called PUB, and BRIGHT, a clinical database project sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

### De facto standard

de facto'' standardde factode facto'' standards
In several technical fields such as computer science, mathematics, engineering and physics, TeX has become a de facto standard.

### Mathematical notation

notationmathematical formulaealgebraic notation
TeX is a popular means of typesetting complex mathematical formulae; it has been noted as one of the most sophisticated digital typographical systems.
Mathematically oriented markup languages such as TeX, LaTeX and, more recently, MathML are powerful enough to express a wide variety of mathematical notations.

### Typesetting

typesettercompositortypeset
TeX (, see below), stylized within the system as Te X, is a typesetting system (or a "formatting system") which was designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978.
The TeX system, developed by Donald E. Knuth at the end of the 1970s, is another widespread and powerful automated typesetting system that has set high standards, especially for typesetting mathematics.

### WEB

WEAVE
The language used is called WEB and produces programs in DEC PDP-10 Pascal.
WEB consists of two secondary programs: TANGLE, which produces compilable Pascal code from the source texts, and WEAVE, which produces nicely-formatted, printable documentation using TeX.

### Backslash

\(back)slashback slash
TeX commands commonly start with a backslash and are grouped with curly braces.
The backslash is used in the TeX typesetting system and in RTF files to begin markup tags.

### Macro (computer science)

macromacrosmacro language
TeX is a macro- and token-based language: many commands, including most user-defined ones, are expanded on the fly until only unexpandable tokens remain, which are then executed.

### American Mathematical Society

AMSChelsea PublishingNew York Mathematical Society
Another widely used format, AMS-TeX, is produced by the American Mathematical Society and provides many more user-friendly commands, which can be altered by journals to fit with their house style.
The AMS was an early advocate of the typesetting program TeX, requiring that contributions be written in it and producing its own packages AMS-TeX and AMS-LaTeX.

### MiKTeX

(Prior to TeX Live, the teTeX distribution was the de facto standard on UNIX-compatible systems.) On Microsoft Windows, there is the MiKTeX distribution (enhanced by proTeXt) and the Microsoft Windows version of TeX Live.
MiKTeX is a free distribution of the TeX/LaTeX typesetting system for Microsoft Windows (and for Mac and certain Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora).