This page contains references to core documentation about LaTeX written by the LaTeX team. Articles on specific topics, talks, etc. can be found on the publication page indexed by topic.
In addition pointer to documentation in other languages (usually developed and maintained by user groups) is given. To find documentation that is available elsewhere on the net, visit the links page. Also, there's a whole page dedicated to books on LaTeX and related topics.
Documentation distributed with LaTeX General documentation. A short introduction to LaTeX (with some focus on the differences between the old LaTeX 2.09 and current standard LaTeX2e) is given in the following document: LaTeX2e for authors. This authoritative user's guide and reference manual for the LATEX computer typesetting system has been revised to document features now available in the new standard software release-LATEX2E. These features include additional styles and functions, improved font handling,.
If you know about a good resource of TeX and related documentation not listed here or on the links page, please contact us.
- Distributed LaTeX documentation
- Other non-english documentation resources
Documentation distributed with LaTeX
General documentation
A short introduction to LaTeX (with some focus on the differencesbetween the old LaTeX 2.09 and current standard LaTeX2e) is given inthe following document:
For more extensive introductory documentation take a look at the links tocontributed documentation that have their own page.
More advanced documentation about core LaTeX, which is available via the net includes:
Typesetting complex mathematics
Specifically targeting the typesetting of mathematics is:
Japanese translations
Yukitoshi FUJIMURA kindly translated two of the above documents to the Japanese language. These are
- 著者のための LaTeX 2e (LaTeX2e for authors) [source]
- amsmath パッケージユーザガイド（Version2.1） (User’s Guide for the amsmath Package) [source]
He also provided a translation of “Short Math Guide for LaTeX” distributed and maintainedby the American Mathematical Society (AMS):
- はやわかり LaTeX で数式組版 (Short Math Guide for LaTeX) [source]
Here are his comments on the translation.
Quick summary of changes by release
Changes made to the LaTeX kernel or to core packages maintained by theLaTeX team are discussed in some detail in theLaTeX News Newslettersthat come as part of each release.A summary sorted by release is given in the following document:
Source code documentation
The full documentation of the source code with all commands and theirimplementation can be obtained by processing source2e.texdistributed as part of the LaTeX2e distribution. A compiled versionwith a list of all major changes and an index of all commands andtheir usage within the kernel is
As a companion document Martin Scharrer compiled a useful referencelist with links back into the previous document if both are stored inthe same directory:
For the implementation of the standard classes article, report,and book there also exists a document that contains the complete sourceswith commentary:
In 2015 we introduced a roll-back/roll-forward functionality by whichit becomes possible to reset the kernel code (though not externalpackages at this stage) to the behavior that it had on a particulardate. This can be useful when processing older documents. It isdocumented here:
Other non-english documentation
There is a lot of documentation in languages other than English. Lists of books and other resources in other languages are maintained by TeX user groups in the respective countries. The following are known to us:
German
French
- A collection of french LaTeX documentation maintained by Framasoft
Latex User's Guide And Document Reference Manual Download
LaTeX Books
List of books on LaTeX in English, French, German, and Spanish.
Useful Links
Links to contributed documentation, tutorials, videos, communities, etc.
Getting LaTeX
Latex User's Guide And Document Reference Manual Software
Get LaTeX for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Online.