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-<head>
-<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label texthings</title>
-</head><body>
-<h3>Things with &#8220;TeX&#8221; in the name</h3>
-<p/>New TeX users are often baffled by the myriad terms with &#8220;TeX&#8221;
-in the name. The goal of this answer is to clarify some of the more
-common TeX terms.
-<p/><p/><b>TeX itself</b>&#160;&#160;
-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>&#160;&#160;
-TeX&#8217;s control sequences are tedious to use directly; they are
-intended primarily as building blocks for higher-level&#8212;and therefore
-more user-friendly&#8212;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 &#8220;my text&#8221; in
-the next larger font).
-<p/>While some users write their own, perfectly customized set of
-macros&#8212;which they then typically reuse across many documents&#8212;it is
-far more common to rely upon a <em>macro package</em>, a collection of
-TeX macros written by experts. For the user&#8217;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>texmfstart</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&#8217;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&#8212;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</i> executables</b>&#160;&#160;
-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&#8217;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&#8217;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 engines: <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 &#8220;original&#8221;.)
-<p/><p/><b>TeX distributions</b>&#160;&#160;
-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/><b>Summary</b>&#160;&#160;
-If your document begins with <code>\</code><code>documentclass</code>, you&#8217;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&#8212;probably <i>latex</i> or <i>pdflatex</i>&#8212;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/>This question is also covered in a page on the TUG site,
-&#8220;<a href="http://tug.org/levels.html">the Levels of TeX</a>&#8221;.
-<p><em>This answer last edited: 2010-12-08</em></p>
-<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>