TeX and LaTeX Resources

This page is one of those that will probably remain in a permanent state of construction and incompleteness.

Be sure to check out our list of Links. We have some links to TeX/LaTeX information; not updated recently. Look below for information about the change in the version of latex on the UWM Alphas in the first half of 2000.

Here is some quick information for using LaTeX on a Windows PC. This list gives 4 software packages that are commonly used in the UWM Math department. It should not be taken as an endorsement of these products by UWM or the Math department, nor should you assume we have made extensive comparisons with other systems.
With the exception of Winedt, these programs are available at no charge. (This may of course change at any time, and some form of registration may be required even for free software. Be sure to read the license.)

Miktex: A TeX/LaTeX system that includes many extras, such as pdflatex, which takes a latex input file and outputs a PDF file, and Yap, a viewer for DVI files. This program does not contain any tools for creating or editing latex files. As of May, 2000, the current version is 1.20e.
You can find out more at http://www.miktex.de/.
WinEdt: A text editor (ASCII files) with many tools for creating and editing latex files. This is not a latex system, however: you need a program such as Miktex to create DVI output. Some of the niceties of Winedt: (1) a toolbar where you can access Miktex or pdflatex, plus the viewers Yap and Acrobat Reader, and hence latex the file you are editing and view it without leaving Winedt, (2) color coding to highlight spelling errors, missed $ and so on, (3) open multiple files at once, (4) highly configurable.
Winedt is sharewhare, not free. You can try if for a month; after that, you must pay $40 to register it. As of May, 2000, the current version is 5.1.
You can find out more at http://www.winedt.com/.
Ghostscript and GSview: Postscript tools that enable you to view and print Postscript files. As of May, 2000, the current version of Ghostscript is 6.01 and the current version of GSview is 2.9.
You can find out more at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/. Be sure that you download both Ghostscript and GSview.
Adobe Acrobat Reader: Enables you to view and print PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) files. This is useful in many situations, not just in the use of latex. As of May, 2000, the current version is 4.05b.
You can find out more at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.

Conversion to LaTeX 2e

This information was originally placed here by Allen Bell on January 19, 2000. If you have questions, contact me at adbell@uwm.edu or contact the Math Web team at mathweb@uwm.edu.
We will try to keep this page as current as we can.

Update: Sunday, January 23. The conversion has taken place.
AMS-LaTeX is broken and will not run.
If you are using amslatex, you need to either contact I&MT (start with help@uwm.edu) and tell them amslatex is no longer working, or convert your files to LaTeX2e files. The latter alternative is necessary in the long run, but it may not be trivial. See below for more on this.

On Friday, January 21, the version of LaTeX on the UWM alpha computers will be switched to the current version, LaTeX 2e. The old version, LaTeX 2.09, will be available until May 2000, via the command latex209.
This conversion should not affect users of plain TeX and AMS-TeX. Users of LaTeX and AMS-LaTeX will be affected, as described below. At this point, the fate of AMS-LaTeX users seems the most uncertain to me.
If you use LaTeX on a personal computer, it is likely that you are using LaTeX 2e, unless you installed the program quite some time age. If you have LaTeX 2.09 on a personal computer, I reccomend that you upgrade to a current version of your LaTeX software, which should be LaTeX 2e.

What LaTeX and AMS-LaTeX users need to know

The current version of LaTeX worldwide is LaTeX 2e (2 epsilon, actually). Until January 21, 2000, the version on the UWM alpha computers has been 2.09. LaTeX 2e has a LaTeX 2.09 compatibility mode, so that most LaTeX 2.09 documents should be processed with no problem, without any user intervention. (The LaTeX 2e authors say that this compatibility mode can be slow. They also say that compatibility mode does not always work perfectly.)
There is no AMS-LaTeX 2e; instead AMS-LaTeX is now a package run inside of LaTeX -- see below. Thus I don't know what will happen with AMS-LaTeX documents that you try to run using the amslatex command on the alpha computers.

Update: As of January 23, amslatex is no longer working.

The reason compatibility mode works without your being aware of it is that (old) LaTeX 2.09 documents begin differently from LaTeX 2e documents. (This is how you can tell them apart.) LaTeX 2.09 documents begin with lines like

\documentstyle[12pt]{article}

\documentstyle[11pt,amscd]{amsart}

LaTeX 2e documents, on the other hand, begin with lines like

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\documentclass[11pt]{amsart}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amscd,amsthm}

One advantage of LaTeX 2e is the large number of add-on packages available, which can be used via the \usepackage command.
You can convert a LaTeX 2.09 to a LaTeX 2e file by changing the initial lines following the pattern above. Some things have changed though, so you may need to make further modifications to your file. Try changing the initial lines, then run latex (2e) and see what error messages or warnings you get.

I don't know what will happen with AMS-LaTeX files that you run using the amslatex command on the alpha computers.
You can change AMS-LaTeX files to LaTeX 2e files by following the pattern above for LaTeX 2.09 files. Specifically, change \documentstyle to \documentclass and add new lines with \usepackage{amsmath} and whatever other packages you need. You will probably need to make additional modifications to your files.

More details for AMS-LaTeX users. Change \documentstyle to \documentclass, so your first line is \documentclass[Npt]{type} where N is 10,11, or 12 (omit if N=10) and type is the kind of document, probably amsart or article.
Just below this, add the new line(s) \usepackage{amssymb,amsmath,amsthm} and whatever other packages you need.
If you use the Proof environment (\begin{pf} ... \end{pf}), you must change all the occurrences of {pf} to {proof}.
[In vi, do :%s/{pf}/{proof}/g followed by ENTER]
You may still have other problems. For example, the command \cal to enter calligraphic characters must be changed to \mathcal, and the syntax changes from {\cal P} to \mathcal{P}. Similarly the command for blackboard boldface characters (the double-backed R for real numbers, etc.) has changed from {\Bbb R} to \mathbb{R}<\tt>. A number of other font-related commands have changed. Good Luck!

Here's a sample of the start of one of my LaTeX 2e files, just to give you an idea of what you might do. Lines starting with % are not processed by latex: they are regarded as comments. I take out and put in %s to change how the file is processed. %% %%This file is in LaTeX2e with AMS-LaTeX 1.2 %%1999 %% \documentclass[12pt]{amsart} \usepackage[mathscr]{eucal} %special style for script letters \usepackage{amssymb,amsmath} \usepackage{amsthm} %options and styles for theorems, definitions, etc. %\usepackage{amscd} %Commutative Diagrams %\usepackage{makeidx} %Make an index %%Requires other commands in the manuscript and extra steps %\usepackage{enumerate} %Change style of enumerates %% as in \begin{enumerate}[({A})] for (Alpha) %% A=Alpha a=alpha I=Roman i=roman 1=Arabic %\usepackage[htm]{tex4ht} %Use the program tex4t to get html output %% Requires some extra steps, not shown here %\usepackage[pdftex,pdfpagemode={UseOutlines}]{hyperref} %%for PDF output via pdflatex %\pdfoutput=1 %for PDF output via pdflatex %% Next commands set the page margins \setlength{\textheight}{24.5cm} \setlength{\textwidth}{16cm} \setlength{\topmargin}{-1.5cm} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0cm} \setlength{\evensidemargin}{0cm} %\pagestyle{empty} %Don't number pages or put other header/footer %\thispagestyle{empty} %No header/footer for this page %%Sometimes required on the first page of manuscript Send feedback to the Math Web team at mathweb@uwm.edu