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+<head>
+<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label texthings</title>
+</head><body>
+<h3>Things with &ldquo;TeX&rdquo; in the name</h3>
+<p/>New TeX users are often baffled by the myriad terms with &ldquo;TeX&rdquo;
+in the name. The goal of this answer is to clarify some of the more
+common TeX terms.
+<p/><p/><b>TeX itself</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;
+TeX proper is a typesetting system based on a set of low-level
+control sequences that instruct TeX how to lay out text on the
+page. For example, <code>\</code><code>hskip</code> inserts a given amount of horizontal
+space into the document, and <code>\</code><code>font</code> makes a given font available
+to TeX. TeX is fully programmable using an integrated macro
+scripting language that supports variables, scoping, conditional
+execution, control flow, and function (really, macro) definitions.
+See
+<a href="FAQ-whatTeX.html">What is TeX?</a> for some background
+information on TeX and
+<a href="FAQ-ref-doc.html">Reference documents</a> for pointers to
+descriptions of TeX control sequences, data types, and other key
+parts of TeX.
+<p/><p/><b>TeX macro packages (a.k.a. TeX formats)</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;
+TeX&rsquo;s control sequences are tedious to use directly; they are
+intended primarily as building blocks for higher-level&mdash;and therefore
+more user-friendly&mdash;abstractions. For example, there is no way in
+base TeX to specify that a piece of text should be typeset in a
+larger font. Instead, one must keep track of the current size and
+typeface, load a new font with the same typeface but a (specified)
+larger size, and tell TeX to use that new font until instructed
+otherwise. Fortunately, because TeX is programmable, it is
+possible to write a macro that hides this complexity behind a simple,
+new control sequence. For example,
+
+<code>\</code><code>larger{my text}</code> can be defined to typeset &ldquo;my text&rdquo; in
+the next larger font).
+<p/>While some users write their own, perfectly customized set of
+macros&mdash;which they then typically reuse across many documents&mdash;it is
+far more common to rely upon a <em>macro package</em>, a collection of
+TeX macros written by experts. For the user&rsquo;s convenience, these
+macro packages are often combined with the base TeX engine into a
+standalone executable. The following are some of that macro packages
+that you are likely to encounter:
+<dl>
+ <dt>Plain TeX (executable: <i>tex</i>)<dd>
+ See
+ <a href="FAQ-books.html">Books on TeX and its relations</a>,
+ <a href="FAQ-man-tex.html">Online introductions: TeX</a>,
+ <a href="FAQ-plainvltx.html">Should I use Plain TeX or LaTeX?</a> and
+ <a href="FAQ-ol-books.html">Freely available (La)TeX books</a>.
+ Note that the Plain TeX executable is called <i>tex</i>; the
+ base TeX engine is generally provided by a separate executable
+ such as <i>initex</i> or as a <code>-ini</code> flag to
+ <i>tex</i>.
+<p/> <dt>LaTeX (executable: <i>latex</i>)<dd>
+ See
+ <a href="FAQ-books.html">Books on TeX and its relations</a>,
+ <a href="FAQ-tutorialstar.html">(La)TeX Tutorials, etc.</a>,
+ <a href="FAQ-man-latex.html">Online introductions: LaTeX</a>,
+ <a href="FAQ-tutbitslatex.html">Specialized (La)TeX tutorials</a> and
+ <a href="FAQ-doc-dirs.html">Directories of (La)TeX information</a>.
+ Note that there have been two major versions of LaTeX: LaTeX2e
+ refers to the current version of LaTeX while LaTeX 2.09 is the
+ long-since-obsolete (since 1994) version (cf.
+ <a href="FAQ-latex2e.html">What is LaTeX2e?</a> for more information).
+<p/> <dt>ConTeXt (executable: <i>texexec</i>)<dd>
+ See
+ <a href="FAQ-context.html">What is ConTeXt?</a>.
+<p/> <dt>Texinfo (executables: <i>tex</i>, <i>makeinfo</i>)<dd>
+ See
+ <a href="FAQ-texinfo.html">What is Texinfo?</a>. <i>makeinfo</i>
+ converts Texinfo documents to HTML, DocBook, Emacs info,
+ XML, and plain text. <i>Tex</i> (or wrappers such as
+ <i>texi2pdf</i> and <i>texi2pdf</i>) produce one of TeX&rsquo;s
+ usual output formats such as DVI or PDF. Because
+ <i>tex</i> loads the Plain TeX macros, not the Texinfo ones,
+ a Texinfo document must begin with <code>\</code><code>input{texinfo}</code> to
+ explicitly load the Texinfo macro package.
+<p/> <dt>Eplain&mdash;Extended Plain TeX (executable: <i>eplain</i>)<dd>
+ See
+ <a href="FAQ-eplain.html">What is Eplain?</a>.
+</dl>
+<p/><p/><b>Modified <i>tex</b>&nbsp;&nbsp; executables</i>
+The original <i>tex</i> executable was produced in the late 1970s
+(cf. <a href="FAQ-whatTeX.html">What is TeX?</a>) and consequently
+lacked some features that users have come to expect from today&rsquo;s
+software. The following programs address these issues by augmenting
+the TeX engine with some additional useful features:
+<p/><dl>
+ <dt>PDFTeX (executable: <i>pdftex</i>)<dd>
+ TeX, which predates the PDF file format by a decade,
+ outputs files in a TeX-specific format called DVI
+ (cf. <a href="FAQ-dvi.html">What is a DVI file?</a>). In
+ contrast, PDFTeX can output both DVI <em>and</em> PDF
+ files. In PDF mode, it lets documents exploit various
+ PDF features such as hyperlinks, bookmarks, and annotations,
+ PDFTeX additionally supports two sophisticated micro-typographic
+ features: character protrusion and font expansion. See
+ <a href="FAQ-whatpdftex.html">What is PDFTeX?</a>.
+<p/> <dt>XeTeX (executable: <i>xetex</i>)<dd>
+ TeX not only predates all major font technologies in use today
+ (e.g., TrueType, OpenType, and PostScript Type 1) but also predates
+ the notion that fonts be included with an operating system.
+ Consequently, TeX uses its own font formats, which are
+ incompatible with anything a user is likely to have preinstalled.
+ XeTeX addresses this issue by enhancing TeX&rsquo;s <code>\</code><code>font</code>
+ control sequence to support all of the fonts made available by the
+ operating system. See
+ <a href="FAQ-xetex.html">What is XeTeX?</a>.
+<p/> <dt>LuaTeX (executable: <i>luatex</i>)<dd>
+ TeX is programmed in its own, integrated, macro-based programming
+ language. Many users have criticized this language for being
+ needlessly difficult to program. LuaTeX addresses that criticism
+ by integrating a modern scripting language, Lua, into the base
+ TeX engine. See
+ <a href="FAQ-luatex.html">What is LuaTeX?</a>.
+<p/> <dt>e-TeX (executable: <i>etex</i>)<dd>
+ e-TeX provides a number of features that are only indirectly
+ useful to end users but that can be immensely useful to package
+ developers. Consequently, there is an increasing number of macro
+ packages that require the use of e-TeX. (Note: Be careful not to
+ confuse e-TeX, which enhances the TeX engine, with Eplain,
+ which enhances the Plain TeX macro package.) See
+ <a href="FAQ-etex.html">What is e-TeX?</a>.
+</dl>
+<p/>Because each of the above modifies only the base TeX engine, it is
+possible to combine any of those with any of the TeX macro packages
+listed earlier to produce executables with both sets of features. For
+example, the <i>pdflatex</i>, <i>xelatex</i> and
+<i>lualatex</i> executables each combine
+LaTeX with an enhanced TeX engine. Some executables combine the
+features of multiple enhanced TeX engine: <i>pdfetex</i>
+combines PDFTeX and e-TeX into a single executable.
+<p/>As combining features is a generally desirable tendency, current
+TeX distributions (see below) incorporate the features of PDFTeX
+and e-TeX into a single executable. This executable may be
+offered with a LaTeX format (as <i>latex</i> or
+<i>pdflatex</i>) or with a Plain TeX format (as
+<i>pdftex</i>). (<i>Tex</i> remains with an unadorned TeX
+executable using Plain TeX, for people such as Knuth himself, who
+want the certainty of the &ldquo;original&rdquo;.)
+<p/><p/><p/><b>TeX distributions</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;
+A <em>TeX distribution</em> is a collection of TeX-related
+software. Generally, a TeX distribution includes a set of core
+TeX executables such as <i>tex</i> and <i>latex</i>;
+various fonts optimized for use with TeX; helper programs such as
+the BibTeX bibliographic-database formatter, editors, integrated
+development environments, file-format-conversion programs; numerous
+LaTeX packages; configuration tools; and any other goodies the
+distributor chooses to include. Commonly encountered TeX
+distributions include TeX Live, MiKTeX and MacTeX; older ones
+include ozTeX, CMacTeX and teTeX. Some TeX
+distributions target a specific operating system and/or processor
+architecture; others run on multiple platforms. Some TeX
+distributions are free; others require payment. See
+<a href="FAQ-TeXsystems.html">(La)TeX for different machines</a> for a
+list of free and shareware TeX distributions and
+<a href="FAQ-commercial.html">Commercial TeX implementations</a> for a
+list of commercial TeX distributions.
+<p/><p/><p/><b>Summary</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;
+If your document begins with <code>\</code><code>documentclass</code>, you&rsquo;re using some
+form of the LaTeX macro package. Even if hidden behind a button in
+a TeX-aware GUI, this document is getting compiled by a TeX
+executable&mdash;probably <i>latex</i> or <i>pdflatex</i>&mdash;to
+produce an output file. The executable came bundled as part of a
+TeX distribution such as MiKTeX, which includes various other
+TeX-related components.
+
+<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=texthings">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=texthings</a>
+</body>