Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2 Organization: Penn State University Date: Monday, 20 May 1991 19:16:57 EDT From: Lee Sailer Message-ID: <91140.191657UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction Subject: Re: What is TeX?? References: TeX dates back to the days before most everyone had a high quality graphics video terminal. It is a typesetting/text formatting language. It is usually used in a rather severe (but powerful and flexible!) command language. The formatting occurs just before printing or screen previewing, not wysiwyg. TeX's greatest strength is the quality of its typesetting of mathematics. For example, if you type $$ x\gamma = \integral\from 0\to\infinity{(a\squared - b\cubed)\over \sqrt{(1 - \alpha\beta)} } dx $$ in the middle of a document, you'll get the most beautifully formatted math out at print time. It knows greek, cyrillic, matrices, aligns mu;ltiple equations, etc etc etc. Addison-Wesley uses it for their textbooks, as do some other publishers. TeX is also good for pretty formatting, making paragraphs, smarter-than- average page breaks, and so on. However, it doesn't do "graphic artistic" stuff like curved text spiraling around a yin/yang... For more info, it is likely that your library, computer center, or local math prof has a copy of The TeX Book, by The Donald Knuth (world's smartest person, since Feynman died?) lee