## Saturday, 7 September 2013

### LaTeX: Download and Installation

Are you using MS Word for your paper works? And MS PowerPoint for your presentations? Why not try something that is FREE, powerful than those commercial products? Something that is quite challenging but FUN to use. Introducing $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$, a document markup language similar to HTML but outputs in PDF format.

I prefer $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ because it produces beautiful mathematical equations that MS Word cannot. $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ is used by publishers like O'Reilly and Springer for books that involve mathematics and statistics.

Now let me guide you on getting started with $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ on Windows, Mac and Ubuntu.

For Windows users:
• Go to this site, download what is recommended for your system;
• follow the instructions in installation; after that,
• download the TeXMaker here, and install. (TeXMaker is a $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ text-editor with many features including syntax highlighting)
For Mac users:
• Go to this site, download the MacTeX.pkg;
• follow the instructions in installation; after that,
• download the TeXMaker here, and install.
For Ubuntu users:
• Open Ubuntu Software Center, search for TeXMaker, then click Install. (This will install TeXlive as well)

We will start with our first $\mathrm{\LaTeX}$ document in my next post.