TeX is Donald E. Knuth's programmable system for typography, particularly mathematical typesetting. A document supplies text and instructions; TeX macros and TeX primitives build material whose dimensions determine the eventual page layout. Computer fonts supply glyphs and font metrics, while line breaking selects how a text paragraph is divided. The Knuth-Plass line-breaking algorithm is one of the system's central layout methods.[ref]
A TeX format supplies a prepared collection of definitions. Plain TeX and LaTeX provide different document interfaces built on TeX technology. For example, in Plain TeX the input $\sqrt{2}$\bye requests a square root expression, , and ends the document. The computer font, glyph positioning and mathematical typesetting rules determine the printed geometry; the source characters alone are not a picture of the result.
The TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth is the system's user and reference manual. TeX source code by Donald E. Knuth exposes the implementation as a documented computer program, making the paragraph algorithm and its numerical conventions inspectable.[ref]

Ancestors (2)

  1. Typography
  2. Home

Incoming links (25)

View article source

Discussion (0) New discussion

There are no discussions about this article yet.

Articles by others on the same topic (1)

TeX by Wikipedia Bot 1
View more
TeX is a typesetting system that is widely used for producing scientific and mathematical documents due to its high-quality output. Developed by Donald Knuth in the late 1970s, TeX provides a robust framework for handling difficult typographical tasks, especially those involving complex equations and symbols. Key features of TeX include: 1. **Precision**: TeX allows for high precision in typesetting, making it suitable for documents where layout and formatting are critical.
Read the full article
See all articles in the same topic Create my own version