 Hello, and welcome to the first of a series of screencasts on Latech, the scientific document typesetting system. This series will eventually form a self-contained video short course on using Latech. Our primary audience is students learning Latech for use in their coursework, but we hope these are accessible and useful for everyone. So in this screencast, we're going to learn about Latech and how it works, think about its advantages versus a word processor, and then give some places on the web where you can find and download Latech to your computer or use it in a browser. So what is Latech? Latech is a software system that produces professionally typeset documents. It was created by computer scientist Donald Knuth for typesetting technical documents with lots of mathematical notation in them. Typesetting mathematics is still its main strength, but the system is now capable of typesetting all kinds of documents, including research posters, complex graphical objects and even sheet music. Latech is very different from a word processor, which is a single program on your computer where you type in text using formatting styles provided by the program itself. Latech instead is more like a programming language. You type in your content into a text editor and then insert commands into the text that will control the appearance of the output. These documents that contain the source code all end in the file extension .tex. Once the text document is created, you then compile the source code using the Latech system that is separate from the text editor used to edit your content. Once the code is compiled successfully, Latech produces a PDF that contains the finished product. Other file types, such as encapsulated postscript, are also possible for Latech to produce. This three-step system is more complicated than using a single word processor, but in some ways it's actually simpler because the source codes are small since they just contain text and contain no separate formatting. The source codes can be shared and used across multiple platforms with no compatibility issues and because you can create templates for documents which you can reuse over and over again with minimal changes. And one of the big advantages of Latech is that it is absolutely free and variations of it are available for Word, Mac, Linux, and many other operating systems. In the next screencast we'll get started with making your first Latech document, but between now and then you'll need to gain access to Latech and there are several ways to do this. If you're a Windows user, the standard Latech system is called MicTech and can be downloaded and installed from MicTech.org. If you use a Mac, the standard system is called MacTech and can be downloaded and installed from TuG.org that stands for Tech Users Group slash MacTech. The MacTech extras are utilities that you might find useful, such as an equation editor, but they're not necessary for installation. If you're a Linux user, your Linux distribution probably already has Latech installed along with the operating system. Check your package management system in C. If it's not installed already, you can install it from there. There are also some web-based versions of Latech that require no installation at all. The most popular one is ScribTech, which allows you to enter, typeset, and store a limited number of documents online. The upside of ScribTech is that there is no installation necessary and files are stored in the cloud. The downside is that you have to be online to use it. You don't get the flexibility of a local system, and unless you pay a subscription, there are only so many documents you can have at one time. Chances are your professor, a friend, or a Google search can be of help in installing your system if you should run into any roadblocks. So in the next screencast, we'll get started using your Latech system to start making a simple text and math document. See you there.