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<title>Levels of TeX - TeX Users Group</title>
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<h2>LaTeX vs. MiKTeX: The levels of TeX</h2>
<p>A friend once asked us, &ldquo;Should I use LaTeX or MiKTeX?&rdquo;
In various guises, this is a common question, seemingly innocent, but
actually betraying a fundamental confusion about the levels of operation
in the TeX world. As a further confusion, the word &ldquo;TeX&rdquo;
can be used to refer to any of a myriad of items at any level. Starting
at the top:
<ol>
<li><b>Distributions:</b>
<a href="https://miktex.org/">MiKTeX</a>, <a href="/texlive/">TeX
Live</a>, <a href="http://w32tex.org/">W32TeX</a>, &hellip; These are
the large, coherent collections of TeX-related software to be downloaded
and installed. When someone says &ldquo;I need to install TeX on my
machine&rdquo;, they're usually looking for a distribution.
<li><b>Front ends and editors:</b>
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">Emacs</a>,
<a href="http://vim.org/">vim</a>,
<a href="/texworks/">TeXworks</a>,
<a href="http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/">TeXShop</a>,
<a href="http://www.toolscenter.org/">TeXnicCenter</a>,
<a href="/winedt/">WinEdt</a>, &hellip; These editors are what you use
to create a document file. Some (e.g., TeXShop) are devoted specifically
to TeX, others (e.g., Emacs) can be used to edit any sort of file. TeX
documents are independent of any particular editor; the TeX typesetting
program itself does not include an editor.
<li><b>Engines:</b> TeX,
<a href="http://pdftex.org/">pdfTeX</a>, <a
href="http://scripts.sil.org/xetex">XeTeX</a>, <a
href="http://luatex.org/">LuaTeX</a>, &hellip; These are the executable
binaries which implement different TeX variants. In short:
<ul>
<li>pdfTeX implements direct PDF output, along with a variety of
programming and other extensions.
<li>XeTeX does the above, and also supports Unicode natively, OpenType
and TrueType fonts, access to system fonts, &hellip;
<li>LuaTeX does all the above, and provides access to many internals via
the embedded Lua language. Thus it is by far the most programmable engine.
<li>[e][u]pTeX provide full support for Japanese typesetting.
</ul>
There are other engines, but the above are by far the most commonly used
nowadays.
<li><b>Formats:</b>
<a
href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-latex">LaTeX</a>,
<a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/texbytopic">plain TeX</a>, <a
href="https://ctan.org/pkg/optex">OpTeX</a>, &hellip; These are the
TeX-based languages in which one actually writes documents. When someone
says &ldquo;TeX is giving me a mysterious error&rdquo;, they usually
mean a format.
<li><b>Packages:</b>
<a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/geometry">geometry</a>, <a
href="https://ctan.org/pkg/lm">lm</a>, &hellip; These are add-ons to
the basic TeX system, developed independently, providing additional
typesetting features, fonts, documentation, etc. A package might or
might not work with any given format and/or engine; for example, many
are designed specifically for LaTeX, but there are plenty of others,
too. The <a href="https://ctan.org/">CTAN sites</a> provide access
to the vast majority of packages in the TeX world; CTAN is generally the
source used by the distributions.
</ol>
<h3>Output formats</h3>
<p>TeX source files can be typeset into several different output
formats, depending on the engine. Notably, the pdfTeX engine (despite
its name) can output both <a
href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-dvi">DVI</a> and <a
href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-acrobat">PDF</a>
files.
<p>At a high level, the output format that gets used depends on the
program you invoke. If you run <tt>latex</tt> (which implements the
LaTeX format), you will get DVI; if you run <tt>pdflatex</tt> (which
also implements the LaTeX format), you will get PDF.
<p>No TeX engine implements native HTML output, but it is still possible
to get HTML, XML, etc., output:
<ul>
<li>The <a href="/tex4ht/">tex4ht</a> program can be run
(e.g., <tt>htlatex</tt>, <a
href="https://ctan.org/pkg/make4ht">make4ht</a>). TeX4ht uses TeX behind
the scenes, so user macros, etc., are generally recognized. There are
many possible output formats, including Office XML.
<a href="/TUGboat/tb25-1/gurari.pdf">TUGboat article on tex4ht</a>, and
<a href="/TUGboat/tb40-1/tb124hoftich-make4ht.pdf">more recent
article</a>.
<li>The <a
href="https://ctan.org/pkg/lwarp">lwarp</a> LaTeX package causes LaTeX
to output HTML5. It hooks into many packages to create the html.
<a href="/TUGboat/tb38-1/tb118dunn-lwarp.pdf">TUGboat article on lwarp</a>.
<li>The <a
href="https://dlmf.nist.gov/LaTeXML/">LaTeXML</a> Perl program
independently parses LaTeX documents and generates many output formats.
</ul>
<h3>ConTeXt</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.pragma-ade.com/">ConTeXt</a> is a special case,
straddling levels. It contains a format at the level of plain TeX and
LaTeX, but unlike the other formats, it is invoked via a separate
program (e.g., <tt>context</tt>) which then runs a TeX engine. This
makes it possible to support a wide array of advanced features, such as
integrated graphics and XML input, since the control program can
determine the flow of processing.
<h3>References</h3>
<p>Of course, this short web page is only a brief introduction to the
basics. Here are some pointers to further information.
<ul>
<li><a href="/begin.html">Getting started with TeX</a>, the TUG page
giving an introduction to various parts of the TeX world.
<li><a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/components">Components
of TeX</a>, Joachim Schrod's technical article describing many of
the relationships hinted at here in more detail. It was written
many years ago, but the relationships still hold.
<li><a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/latex-doc-ptr">A First Set of LaTeX
Resources</a>, Jim Hefferon's document recommending LaTeX packages
for many common tasks.
<li><a href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-texthings">Things
with &ldquo;TeX&rdquo; in the name</a>, FAQ entry.
<li><a href="/notices/">The TeX Family in 2009</a>, an article published
in AMS&nbsp;Notices by Jim Hefferon and Karl Berry, giving an overview
of the TeX engines, graphics, hypertext, presentations, fonts, etc.
Although now more than a decade old, it still reasonably describes
the current state of things.
</ul>
<hr><small>This file is public domain.
$Date: 2021/11/26 02:09:37 $;</small>
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