Why TeX?
Compared to word processors most people have used a word processor, so a comparison may be helpful.
With a word processors your text is placed while you type it, referred to as "what you see is what you get." In contrast, TeX is a formatter: it separates the steps of entering the material and placing it on the page.
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Beginners like word processing but when they graduate to complex jobs the appeal fades. Word processing a twenty page technical article is hard; for instance, keeping the vertical space between sections uniform is error-prone, and so is making sure that all of the bibliographic entries follow the required format. In particular, very few people have both the knowledge and the eye to correctly lay out equations — people often say their equations "just don't look right." That is, as a user becomes more experienced and knowledgable the TeX approach of having the typesetting done by the program becomes the better choice. (Some word processors offer as advanced features TeX-like facilities for organizing input text, although few users take advantage of them.)
We'll give you ten good reasons ..
These are the reasons most often cited for using TeX, grouped into four areas: Output Quality, Superior Engineering, Freedom, and Popularity.
1. TeX has the best output.
What you'll end up with is of the highest quality that a
non-professional can produce.
2. TeX knows about typesetting.
As those plain text samples show, TeX's has more sophisticated typographical algorithms such as those for making paragraphs and for hyphenating.
TeX's expertise comes into its own in setting technical material. TeX lets the software handle this task as much as is possible. For instance, it automatically classifies each mathematical symbol as a variable, or a relation, etc., and sets them with appropriate amounts of surrounding space. It also sizes superscripts and subscripts, radicals, brackets, and many other things. The result is that, because your document follows the conventions of professional typesetting, your readers will know exactly what you mean. You almost never have to fret about the formulas. They just come out looking right. 3. TeX is fast.
On today's machines TeX is very fast. It is easy on memory and disk space, too.
4. TeX is stable.
It is in wide use, with a long history. It has been tested by millions of users, on demanding input. It will never eat your document. Never.
But there is more here than just that the program is reliable. TeX's designer has frozen the central engine, the actual tex program. Documents that run today will still run in ten years, or fifty. So "stable" means more than that it actually works. It means that it will continue to work, forever.
5. TeX is stable, but not rigid.
A system locked into 1978's technology would have gaps today. That's why TeX is extendible, so that innovations can be added on.
An example is the LaTeX macro package, which is the most popular way to use TeX today. It extends TeX by adding convenience features such as automatic cross references, sectioning, indexing, a table of contents, automatic numbering of chapters, sections, theorems, etc., in a variety of styles, and a straightforward but powerful way to make tables.
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And, LaTeX itself can be extended. There are thousands of "style files" that do everything from adapting the basics to the needs of the American Math Society, to making cross-references into hyper-references, all the way to allowing you to add epigraphs, the short quotations that sometimes decorate the start or end of a chapter.
6. The input is plain text.
TeX's source files are portable to any computing platform. They are compact; for instance, all of the files for
my 450 page textbook and 125 page answer supplement fit easily on one floppy disk. And, they integrate with other tools such as search programs.
Use of this type of input file stems from TeX's roots in the world of science and engineering where there is a tradition of close cooperation among colleagues. A binary input format, especially a proprietary one, is bad for cooperation: you probably have had to go through the trouble of upgrading a word processor version because coworkers upgraded and you could no longer read their files. With TeX systems that rarely happens — the last time that a LaTeX release lost even a small amount of compatibility was in 1995.
Another advantage of plain text is that the text may be automatically generated, for instance if it is drawn out of a database for a report. Getting a word processor into that work flow is a challenge. But TeX fits right in.
There are even ways to run TeX directly from XML input, which many people think is the standard input format of the future. So, with the TeX engine in the middle the input may be adjusted to meet your needs, and changing times.
7. The output can be anything.
As with inputting, TeX's outputting step is separate from its typesetting. The TeX engine's results can be converted to a printer language such as PostScript or to PDF or HTML, or, probably, to whatever will appear in the future. And, the typesetting — line breaks, etc. — will be the same no matter where your output appears. (Did you know that word processing output depends on the printer's fonts, so that if you email your work to someone with a different printer then for them the line and page breaks are likely to come out differently?)
Many people find that TeX's input language fits with how they think about their material. For instance, a scientist might describe a formula to a colleague over a telephone using TeX constructs. Freedom
Most computer users have heard about Free and Open-Sourced software and know that, as with the GNU programs, Linux, Apache, Perl, etc., this style of development can yield software that is first class. TeX systems fall into this category.
8. TeX is free.
The source of the main tex engine is open; the
Free Software Foundation uses it for their documents. All of the other main components are open, also.
9. TeX runs anywhere.
Whatever platform meets your needs — Windows, Macintosh, a variety of Unix, or almost anything else — you can
get TeX, either freely distributed or in a commercial version.
So although the core of TeX was written some time ago it fits well with today's trends. Popularity
Using the same system as many other people has advantages. For instance, you can get answers to your questions. And, because of this large user base, your system is sure to be around for years.
10. TeX is the standard.
Most scientists, especially academic scientists, know TeX. Research preprints, drafts of textbooks, and conference proceedings, all are regularly produced with TeX. As a result, many publishers of technical material are set up to work with it.
Having to use a bad system simply because it is popular would be sad. But nonetheless, the existence of such a base is itself one argument in favor of a software package.
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