latexu

LaTeX, pronounced Lay-tech, is a high-quality typesetting system used for producing scientific and mathematical documents because of its ability to handle complex formatting. The standard name is LaTeX, while LaTeXu is a common misspelling in informal contexts. It is not a word processor; users prepare plain text files containing content and markup commands that describe structure and presentation, and a TeX-based engine renders the final document.

LaTeX was created by Leslie Lamport in the 1980s as a macro package atop Donald Knuth's TeX typesetting system. The current de facto standard is LaTeX2e, while newer engines such as XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX offer improved font and Unicode support. Documents are typically compiled into PDF or DVI via tools like pdflatex, xelatex, or lualatex.

Key features include automatic sectioning, cross-references, numbering of figures and equations, and extensive bibliographic support through BibTeX or Biber. The system uses document classes (article, report, book, beamer) and a vast collection of packages that extend functionality for formatting, graphics, mathematics, fonts, citations, and more.

LaTeX has a large, active community and is supported on major operating systems with distributions such as TeX Live and MiKTeX. It is commonly used in academia for theses, journal articles, conference proceedings, and technical books. While it has a learning curve and is not WYSIWYG, its emphasis on logical markup and typographic quality has made it a standard tool for complex documents.