LaTeX commands: texi2pdf, latex, dvipdf
 

Hi all,

Just some silly questions:
1) Is there any difference between LaTex and TeTex?
2) texi2pdf will produce pdf excatly the same as the one produced by commands latex and dvipdf. So what makes the difference having 2 ways to make pdf? (same argument applies on ps file)
3) Any good forum on LaTex? (Googled but no luck)

Thanks all.

As it says in the RPM description,

"TeTeX is an implementation of TeX for Linux or UNIX systems."

It includes the LaTeX macros.

AFAIK, texi2pdf is just a wrapper script to call texi2dvi with the pdf option.

You might try the "pdflatex" command. I think it produces better looking PDF for screen display.

As for forums, I found references to the Usenet group comp.text.tex, but that's it.

Thanks, Mike.

Just some wild thought.
I found that there are quite lots of ways to produce pdf/ps with LaTeX, but AFAIK some commands are one of the packages in LaTeX or TeTeX. You can invoke them easily in CLI at your will. It seems so strange to me -- Do we need so much commands. Anyway, I would be grateful if someone could point out the difference on that.

:)

Well, it's like the Perl motto: "There's more than one way to do it." You pick the way you're happy with and use that. I use pdflatex because it was, at least originally, the only way to get proper fonts into a PDF file. Later, I learned to put in thumbnails, use landscape mode for presentations, and put in some dynamic PowerPoint-like features using the TeXpower package. But use the one that's right for you.

On that note, there is a pdfTeX page at TUG , which includes a link to the pdfTeX mailing list and archive . That would be the place to find more information.

:Pengy:

There are many ways to do one thing, sure but in this case the two ways to generate pdf's have many differences.

The first method (tex -> dvi -> pdf) is a two step process and offers the benefits of tex to dvi conversion. This means that many latex packages will work here without problems, no matter what the output (pdf in this case). Though you loose many pdf-specific features and there are some problems with fonts. Images also become blury, so be careful.

The second method (tex -> pdf) uses pdflatex which is a one step process. pdflatex offers pdf-specific features. In addition, fonts look good and can import images directly. Its also considered to generate better pdf's. A note of warning though, many packages don't support pdflatex.

Whatever method you choose to use, make sure your images are saved in multiple formats (when generating .ps one format is used, while .pdf uses the other format).

Oh, if you need latex/tex related help, then try freenode's irc channel #latex.

I generally work with the latex/dvips command until I get things to work, then use pdflatex to put the document into an electronically viewable form. There are several tricks you can use so that the .tex file can be processed by both latex and pdflatex, unfortunately, I left my bag of tricks at the office.:(

There is a site called CTAN ( Comprehensive Tex Archive Network ) www.ctan.org .

There you can download TeTex, but you probably already have it, or for windows MikTex.

It is also a good starting point to locate documentation, and the latest news.

You might want to install the Kile program. It is a Latex IDE environment. I also like Kdvi. If you update a .dvi output, the file is automatically reloaded. With a dual monitor setup, you could edit in a plain text editor, rerun latex, and the results wou
ld be reflected in the other monitor.