Formats

TeX formats are large collections of macros, possibly dumped into a `.fmt' file (see section Memory dumps) by initex (see section initex invocation). A number of formats are in reasonably widespread use, and the Web2c Makefile has targets to make the versions current at the time of release. You can change which formats are automatically built by setting the fmts Make variable; by default, only the `plain' and `latex' formats are made.

You can get the latest versions of most of these formats from the CTAN archives in subdirectories of `CTAN:/macros' (for CTAN info, see section `unixtex.ftp' in Kpathsea). The archive `ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/lib.tar.gz' (also available from CTAN) contains most of these formats (although perhaps not the absolute latest version), among other things.

latex

The most widely used format. The current release is named `LaTeX 2e'; new versions are released approximately every six months, with patches issued as needed. The old release was called `LaTeX 2.09', and is no longer maintained or supported. LaTeX attempts to provide generic markup instructions, such as "emphasize", instead of specific typesetting instructions, such as "use the 10pt Computer Modern italic font".

amstex

The official typesetting system of the American Mathematical Society, used to produce nearly all of its publications, e.g., Mathematical Reviews. Like LaTeX, it encourages generic markup commands. The AMS also provides a LaTeX package for authors who prefer LaTeX (see the `amslatex' item below).

texinfo

The documentation system developed and maintained by the Free Software Foundation for their software manuals. It can be automatically converted into plain text, a machine-readable on-line format called `info', HTML, etc.

eplain

The "expanded plain" format provides various common features (e.g., symbolic cross-referencing, tables of contents, indexing, citations using BibTeX), for those authors who prefer to handle their own high-level formatting.

lamstex

Augments AMSTeX with LaTeX-like features.

amslatex

An LaTeX package (see `latex' item above), that augments LaTeX with AMSTeX-like features.

slitex

An obsolete LaTeX 2.09 format for making slides. It is replaced by the `slides' document class.

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