TEX and LATEX 2

1384 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 49, NUMBER 11 Most mathematicians today use some variant of TEX to write their mathematical papers and books. Created around 1980 by computer scientist Donald E. Knuth, TEX dramatically changed the process of preparing and distributing mathematical literature. In the ensuing two decades various streams of TEX-related development have sprung up, diverged, converged, and sometimes evaporated in the face of newer software, with the associated terminology proliferating in equal measure—as anyone familiar with software evolution would expect. The aim of this article is to explain some of the terminology and clarify certain distinctions of interest for mathematicians. Currently, for authors who intend to publish an article or book with the AMS, writing it with LTEX is particularly recommended because the LTEX document format is 1. oriented towards capturing the inherent logical structure of the document, which is critically important for long-term archiving; 2. capable of serving as a source from which many other formats can be automatically generated (e.g., HTML, PDF); 3. well established and stable (also good for archiving purposes); 4. readily exchangeable with colleagues; 5. both standardized and flexible in a way that seems well suited to mathematical material; 6. easy to feed directly into the AMS production system. There is a significant distinction between the current version of LTEX, known as LTEX 2e, and the preceding version, known as LTEX 2.09, superseded by LTEX 2e in 1994. The AMS definitely recommends LTEX 2e to its authors and advises anyone still using LTEX 2.09 to phase it out of use at the earliest reasonable opportunity, because LTEX 2e is much easier to work with, both for authors and for publishers.