LATEX(1)

NAME
latex - structured text formatting and typesetting

SYNOPSIS
latex [ first line ]

DESCRIPTION
The LaTeX language is described in the book LaTeX - A Document Preparation System. LaTeX is a TeX macro package, not a modification to the TeX source program, so all the capabilities described in tex(1) are present.

The LaTeX macros encourage writers to think about the content of their documents, rather than the form. The ideal, very difficult to realize, is to have no formatting commands (like ``switch to italic'' or ``skip 2 picas'') in the document at all; instead, everything is done by specific markup instructions: ``emphasize'', ``start a section''.

The primary source of documentation for LaTeX is the LaTeX manual referenced below, and the local guide in the file local-guide.tex or local.tex or some such somewhere in the directory @TEXINPUTDIR@.

SEE ALSO
amslatex(1), amstex(1), slitex(1), tex(1),
Leslie Lamport, LaTeX - A Document Preparation System, Addison-Wesley, 1985, ISBN 0-201-15790-X.