TeX is used heavily in the academic and scientific world, mostly due to the standardized layout and look of documents (though this can be changed), as well as the fact that TeX renders mathematical formulas extremely well (one of its fortes). His aim with TeX was to create a system so that documents would look the same across all computers and that the look of the documents wouldn't diminish with time. Basically, it is a typesetting language that was designed and developed (mostly) by Donald Knuth, a professor at Stanford University, back in the 1970s. I think it would be prudent to first give you a brief introduction of TeX and why it's so popular within certain circles. This may sound a bit scary, but TeX is a lot simpler to learn than other programming languages and once you've used it for a while you'll soon pick it up really easy.

With TeX, you have to learn the various commands before you can start creating documents. It's not as simple as just opening up a word processor such as Pages or Microsoft Word and tapping away. What scares people away from TeX is its learning curve. This tutorial will show you the basics of TeX – how it works and how you can create a nice, simple document with very little effort.

TeX is a wonderful and very versatile typesetting system that can be used to write almost anything – from reports to letters and even more complicated documents such as books and posters.

Mac os x latex text editor