[Blindmath] LaTeX

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I recently gave some workshops on LaTeX at the ICCHP Summer University 
and I split LaTeX into two different ways in which it can be used.

* Using the LaTeX notation for maths within other software: As others 
have describe LaTeX is a sort of mark up language and many software 
tools allow users to use LaTeX to enter mathematical notation. An 
example of this might be MathType, so you use Microsoft word for the 
main part of your document and enter your equations as LaTeX and 
MathType then will produce normal print output for the equations. Other 
tools like some wikis and blogs also allow LaTeX input for mathematical 
notation. The main advantage to this use is that you only need to learn 
the maths part of the LaTeX language, which is significantly less than 
the full LaTeX language, so you will see the benefit of you learning 
LaTeX much quicker. Another advantage with knowing LaTeX to this level 
is that some websites have the equations as images and the alt-tag is 
set the LaTeX source of the equation (eg. wikipedia I believe does this 
and plastex produces HTML like this).
* Using the full LaTeX system: LaTeX is more than just a language for 
writing mathematics, its a whole typesetting language which allows you 
to create many types of documents which can look very professional. 
While this option can be very good, however there is much more to learn 
as you need to know how to write the whole document in the LaTeX 
language rather than just the maths. Depending on how much maths you 
intend to do the time investment in learning LaTeX may or may not be 
worth it. Should you decide to go down this route you will need to 
download a LaTeX distribution such as MikTeX http://www.miktex.org. As 
for where to learn LaTeX, others have made suggestions but one resource 
I use for reference now I know LaTeX is the LaTeX book on wikibooks. How 
to learn LaTeX probably will come down to personal preference, however I 
would say that you probably will need to actually use LaTeX t o properly 
get used to working in it, so if you decide to learn it really make an 
effort.

Michael Wahpples
On -10/01/37 20:59, Dasha Radford wrote:
> I am curious about the LaTeX computer program. I am about to enter an algebra class where it might be useful. Could someone explain it's use and where to find it? If anyone has any other inexpensive suggestions for math on the computer I would greatly appreciate them.
> Thanks,
>   Daria