Talk:TeX

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TeX was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 16, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
September 14, 2008	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

Computing: Software / Free and open-source software Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles
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	This article is supported by Free and open-source software (assessed as Mid-importance).

Typography High‑importance

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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.

POV

Doesn't this sound a little biased?
"The disappointing galley proofs gave him the final motivation to solve the problem at hand once and for all by designing his own typesetting system."--86.184.71.5 (talk) 08:44, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not to the ears of Knuthers, that ancient people who worship the prophet that defined Pi as the version number of TeX's final incarnation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.168.138.50 (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Um, yeah. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:41, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what that sat for so long. The galley proofs were not disappointing any more than fudge ripple is the best flavor of ice cream. Those are opinions. "Once and for all" is simply bombast. He didn't like the proofs, so he designed his own system. Everything else is noise. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:41, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would benefit from a family tree

The article (and also the List of TeX extensions article) would be substantially enhanced by the presence of a family tree diagram, a bit like this one for Unix. Such a family tree would include major derivatives/extensions/etc of TeX, such as LaTeX, pdfTeX, XeTeX and LuaTeX, and help readers to visualise the ways in which those pieces of software relate to each other in terms of chronology and functionality.

@Cmglee:, might you be interested in taking on that challenge? Please ping me if you reply, in case I am not watching this page. Thanks! Zazpot (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also pinging the apparent authors/editors of the Unix family tree diagram (thank you for your work on it!), in case any of you are interested: Eraserhead1, Infinity0, and Sav vas. Zazpot (talk) 21:40, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'll be happy to illustrate it. I don't have the source info, though. Do you? cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 23:55, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, no, I don't, sorry. Collating that would be part of the challenge, I suppose. If that does not appeal to you then by all means decline it - no hard feelings whatsoever - and if I (or anyone else) eventually collates the information, then I (they) could ping you at that point to see if you are still interested in converting it into an illustration. Thanks! Zazpot (talk) 02:13, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I am too busy these days 🙁. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:07, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

TeX, pdfTeX, XeTeX and LuaTeX are programs. LaTeX (and plain TeX) are formats; they can run on any of these programs. So not sure how you'd draw a family tree. Shreevatsa (talk) 02:35, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Zazpot: (Replying to my own comment over a year later…)

Here's something I came up with: File:TeX_engines,_formats,_and_commands.svg. The DOT source is included so feel free to make whatever changes necessary. I didn't bother to include other engines like LuaHBTeX and LuaMetaTeX (commented out in the source), nor more obscure engines for English-language readers (ptex, uptex, euptex, …), or TeX distributions like TeX Live and MiKTeX, nor mention the correspondences for the "commands" in detail as they're kind of obvious (xelatex = XeTeX engine + LaTeX format, etc). See also https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/13593/the-differences-between-tex-engines and http://tug.org/levels.html and http://milde.users.sourceforge.net/TeXvariants-and-engines.xhtml Hope it helps, Shreevatsa (talk) 03:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Texmf" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Texmf. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 3#Texmf until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 20:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"TeXbook" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect TeXbook. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 5#TeXbook until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 00:03, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes

Why is the current version number have the same digits as pi? I searched for pi in the article using Ctrl+F and didn't find anything. I think it would be good to include an explanation of why the current version is very similiar to pi's decimal expansion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScientistBuilder (talk • contribs) 23:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated to the most recent and broad and most compatible version TeX Live 2024, maybe the idea was to say that there are an "undefined" number of versions for TeX. That could be the case because there are. Although, it is important to have a version described there. BRLibertarian (talk) 16:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The file format infobox shows "application/x-tex", and I couldn't find the Media Type described in the box at the IANA media type list, as my understanding they are responsible for defining this types, discussed and agreed in forums. The Initial release info is redundant, already described in the software infobox.

File extension I do not think it is critical, even on the project website they say that "You can, of course, “just read it”, since it’s a plain text file; the problem is that the markup tags in the document may prove distracting. Most of the time, even TeX experts will typeset a (La)TeX file before attempting to read it. [...] Are you “put off” by all this? — remember that TeX is good at producing PDF: why not ask the person who sent the TeX file to send a PDF copy?" Type format: sure, it is a text file, but can you read it? It's more like html, markup. The LaTex article, software based in TeX, doesn't have this info box. It would be more suitable because it is just a typesetting software. BRLibertarian (talk) 17:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Tau Epsilon Chi" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Tau Epsilon Chi. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 December 6#Tau Epsilon Chi until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Naraht (talk) 06:56, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"mathemathical formulae" sounds too pedantic

"mathematical formulas" would be enough in my opinion. and formulae is no more correct than formulas, according to most dictionaries, people, and regular humans. 176.54.4.163 (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]