LaTeX editor

LaTeX is a document-processor, just like Microsoft Word that takes away all the graphics interface you see in a common MS Office document like those buttons and such but adds in loads of functionality. There's loads that you can do with LaTeX, which includes formatting documents in awesome cool styles and typing math pretty easily. I've been using LaTeX for quite a number of documents and I really like it. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but not that much. Most of all, it isn't programming. It is simple typing of commands and the command names all make perfect sense so you can catch on pretty easily if you want. If you put away all that preconceived notions and learn it, you'll pick it up easily.

For example, you can get this:

Picture taken from http://amath.colorado.edu/documentation/LaTeX/basics/example.html

First, before you actually start coding in LaTeX to get those cool documents, you need to download a TeX editor. I use MikTeX, though there's a newer version called proTeX that's been built on MikTeX. Or if you're using a Mac, you would download MacTeX. There's also more graphics-based editors like TeXniCenter and all, but I still like MikTeX, simple and sleek.

Full links of obtaining LaTeX are available here.

Install the LaTeX packages and go on to the next post!