Brief History of TeX
Index
What are TeX/LaTeX/Omega,etc
- "TeX is a typesetting program designed for high-quality composition
of material that contains a lot of mathematical and technical
expressions"
(http://www.tug.org/docs/html/ptr-faq.html).
- "LATEX is a macro package which enables authors to typeset and print
their
work at the highest typographical quality, using a predefined,
professional
layout" [1].
- AMS-(La)TeX are the macro
collection
developed by AMS (American Mathematical
Society)
to prepare publications that contain large contents of mathematics.
AMS-TeX
are TeX format and AMS-LaTeX works on LaTeX. See more information on http://www.ams.org/tex/.
- TexInfo
is the set of macros developed by GNU
project
to generate printed and online documents ("Info file", HTML, plain text,
etc) using only one source file.The TeX will compile this file using
aprpriate
macro.
- PDF(La)TeX is
the version of (La)TeX that generate PDF document directly from TeX
file.
- e-(La)TeX
is the extended version of (La)TeX with additional functionality.
- omega is
the version of TeX that support the unicode that permit typeset several
encoded
documents, such as arabic, japanese, chinesem etc. The format LaTeX
adjusted
to omega is called Lambda.
- Jade is the tools to
process document writeen in DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and
Specification
Language) that is the ISO standard to format SGML(Standard
Generalized
Markup Language) documents such as DocBook.
The jade convert theses
documents to HTML, PDF, RTF, TeX, etc. The jadeTeX
are the macro for TeX
to process jade output (XML is the subset of SGML. HTML is SGML
simplified
too).
- NTS (new
Typesetting System) is the new typeset sistem, developed to sbstitute
TeX
in the future. Seems that it support plain TeX and LaTeX macro.
- LuaTeX is TeX that support Lua
script language to implement extensions. The project started in
2005 poduced significant beta version in 2007.
- XeTeX is TeX that support
native font (font installed on hoster system).
Brief history of TeX
Donald Kunuth
(pronunces:
"kanuti") of
Stanford Universityis
the specialist in programing art (he is mathematic too). In year 1977, he
had discuting and experimenting the digital document typeset. In this year,
the editor that will publish their seccond volum of
The
art of computer
Programming sended the preprint of book. Deceptioned by their bad
tipographicall
quality, Kunuth decide to concretize their idea: Implementation of efficient
computer sistem for document typesetting, called TeX (pronunce: "tech")
system.
Since the apropriate font for tecnical and cientific documents does not
exist,
he decide to design n fonts and implement the efficient font sistem for TeX.
This font are called Computer Modern and the font system are called meta
Font.
The first TeX system are ended in 1982 and the metafont system in 1984. The
Computer Modern font are ended one year after these, in 1985. The macro
(setup)
used by Kunuth to typeset their book are distributed together the TeX and
called plain TeX..
The TeX system are formed by set of applications to process document in
automatic
and efficient manner, but the knowledge for document layort are required
in way to produce best document. In way to permit to author typeset
profissional
quality document without specific knowledge on document layort, the project
to develop new macro for TeX are started. The head of these group is
matematician
Leslie Lamport of DEC ( Digital Equipment
Corporation), specialist in computer programming (LTA - logic of temporal
actions, used to model cuncurrent and reactive systems). The project are
ended in 1985 and this macro are called "LaTeX" (pronunce: "la-tech").
The LaTeX 3 project headed by Frank Mittelbach made several change on LaTeX
developed by Lamport, making bug fixes and implementing new macros. The
LaTeX
3 team publish LaTeX2e (pronunce: "latech two e") in 1994.
Note:
- The "LaTeX 3" project are
headed by Frank Mittelbach and Chris Rowley. This project continue to
made
bug fix, implementation of new macros, and documenting the LaTeX. Thus,
are
recomended that the LaTeX macro are updated every years.
- The TeX version are converging to "pi". The actual version is 3.14159?
- The Lamport is the research member of MicroSoft,
since 2000.
Resume of events
- 1977: motivated by bad typographical quality of their book,
"The
art of Computer Programming", volum 2, Kunuth decide to implement TeX
system.
- 1978: first prototype of TeX.
- 1978: The MetaFont (format used to TeX's font) project started.
- 1979: Euler project started in way to develop mathematical fonts
(Kunuth
is one of member).
- 1980: first prototype of "Computer Modern" fonts.
- 1980: the TUG (TeX User Group) started.
- 1981: first version of Web system (document typesetting system used
by TeX). After some changes, are denominated Web83.
- 1982: first version of TeX (version 0)
- 1982: Kunuth start the book "The TeX Book"
- 1983: TeX version 1.
- 1984: "The TeX Book" (Donald Kunuth) is published.
- 1984: first version of MetaFont (version 0)
- 1984: Kunuth start the book "MetaFont Book".
- 1985: The "Computer Modern" font finished.
- 1985: Lamport finished the LaTeX (version 2.09)
- 1986: TeX version 2
- 1986: "The Metafont Book" (Donald Kunuth) is published.
- 1989: Now, TeX support 8 bits character.
- 1990: TeX version 3
- 1994: LaTeX2e are published by "LaTeX 3" team (headed by Frank
Mittelbach)
- 1994: The book "A Document Preparation System" (Laslie Lamport) on
LaTeX
2.09 is published.
- 1994: The book "The LaTeX Companion" (M. Goosses, F. Mittelbach and
A. Samarin) over LaTeX2e are published.
- 1999: Released version 1.0 of LyX.
- 2000:
"Young Ryu" publish the complete Post Script font set, based on Times,
called txfonts. Now, the complete symbols is available on Times
too (at this time, only Computer Modern had all symbols).
- 2004:
In Dezember, 01 of 2003, stabilished the 10-th aniversary version of
LaTeX2e: The
extended TeX (as eTeX and PDFTeX) becames recomended. The pict2e
becames usable (not the virtual package now), utf8 is supported
officially by TeX.
- 2004: The book "The LaTeX Companion, seccond Edition" (M. Goosses, F.
Mittelbach and
A. Samarin) are published.
- 2008:
syncTeX for forwardx/inverse search on PDF (and other formats, if
viewer support it) are ported from MaCOSX to linux and windows (TeXLive
and MikTeX): The TeXWorks
project
(cross platform and open source)
started to implement unicode editor+viewer with syncTeX support. Before
these, syncTeX are popular only on MaCOSX, but now (2010), the Okular (linux) and sumatraPDF
(Windows) has syncTeX support. The embeeded PDF viewer of TeXMaker/TeXStudio (crossplatform, open
source), TeXWorks, and gummu (linux. windows in
works) support syncTeX too.
- 2008: XeTeX (with system
font support) ported from MacOSX to linux and windows (by projetcs TeXLive
and W32TeX)..
- 2010: Fisrt stable version of LuaTeX.
- 2016: LuaTeX 1.0 is released.
The tendence of TeX
Actually, the LaTeX will produce best PDF document, using tools such as
DVIPDFM,
PDFTeX and PDFLaTeX, and there exist several converters to generate document
as HTML and RTF (Rich Text Format acepted by MS Word and compatibles).
Moreover,
there exist seveal convetors of other formats to LaTeX. See the site
http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/
for detail.
There exist other macros than LaTeX such as
ConTeXt
(general purpose macro such as plain TeX) and LaTeX classes such as
KOMA-script
that are distributed by several TeX systems. Moreover, the other typeset
system are developed, with profissional typesetting, such as NTS (New
Typeset
system) and
Jade (to
process
document writeen in DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification
Language)
of
SGML/XML
such
as
DocBook (
SGML
is abreviature
for Standard Generalized Markup Language. XML is the subset of SGML. HTML
follows the SGML/XML specificatin standard too).
In terms to help the (La)TeX document editiong, there exist several GUI
editors
capable to find erros, insert simbols and commands, dvi viewer integrations,
etc.
To person that does not have (La)TeX knowledge or to person that does not
want to editing the source code, there exist the WYSIWYG (what you see is
what you get) editor that process document using LaTeX. Example of these
are
LyX (cross
platform),
TeXEmacs
(free - linux)
e-doc
(free - cross platform, but does not support equation yet), and
Scientific
Word/Work
Place/Notebook (comercial - Windows). Note that there exist several
editor
capable to export LaTeX code. Using WYSIWYG editors as above, will edit
document
easylly as on Office applications and typeset hight quality document due
to LaTeX. Thus, Note that the LaTeX knowledge for
WYSIWYG help to edit more fast because theses editors acept the LaTeX
command
key sequence and will permit insertion of (La)TeX commands diretly into
document.
References
- Oeticker, T. et al., The
(Not
so) Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e (2002), CTAN"
- http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/~fwhw5892/tex/misc/texhist.htm
(japanese)
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TeXdoc/TeXdocs.html
- http://www.tug.org/whatis.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LuaTeX