texillä

Texillä is a Finnish term that denotes the use of the TeX typesetting system. The word comes from TeX with the instrumental suffix -llä/-llä in Finnish, producing texillä for “with TeX.” It is commonly used in Finnish to describe how a document is created or formatted.

TeX is a computer typesetting system created by Donald E. Knuth, aimed at producing high-quality mathematical and technical typography. The core TeX program provides low-level typesetting primitives, while higher-level packages such as LaTeX and ConTeXt add document structure and macros. TeX was released in 1978–1980 and has influenced academic publishing by allowing precise control over line breaks, fonts, spacing, and math formulas.

Modern TeX workflows typically rely on engines such as pdfTeX, XeTeX, or LuaTeX, each supporting different font technologies and Unicode. LaTeX, the most widely used macro package, outlines sections, citations, bibliographies, and formatting rules, making texillä documents easier to produce.

In Finnish usage, texillä appears in discussions of typesetting and document preparation. It signals that TeX-based tools and workflows were used rather than word processors. The term is common among students, researchers, and publishers who value reproducible, programmatic document preparation.