LATEX(1)

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this one's a whole family of commands 🫶

latex, pdflatex, xelatex, lualatex, dvilualatex, cslatex, pdfcslatex, platex, uplatex, lamed — structured text formatting and typesetting. yes, that's ten names, they're all siblings, it's giving big family energy 💅

(yes this is a General Commands Manual page, we love a classic ✨)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

latex [options] [&format]  [ file [ more-input ] | [ \more-input ]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no cap 🔥

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

first things first, and this is important: LaTeX is a TeX macro package (a format), not a modification to the compiled TeX programs. so like, if you're trying to figure out what the command line even does, bestie, that's not this page — go read tex(1) for all the details of the command line invocation. iykyk 💜

now. the philosophy. the LaTeX macros encourage writers to think about the content of their documents rather than the form. the ideal — and it is very difficult to realize, not gonna lie — is to have literally zero formatting commands in your document. like, no switch to italic'' and no skip 2 picas''. none of that. instead you use generic markup instructions: emphasize'', start a section''. that's the dream 🦋

the LaTeX language itself is described in the books and documents mentioned below, among others. and the primary source of documentation for LaTeX is the LaTeX manual referenced below. periodt 📚

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👑 the engine girlies 👑

okay so here's the breakdown of who's who, because there's a lot of them:

• lualatex, pdflatex, pdfcslatex, xelatex — these are LaTeX formats based on the respective engines. they all output PDF by default 🎀
  • the lualatex format is built with the luahbtex engine — that's the LuaTeX variant with HarfBuzz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarfBuzz) supported for glyph shaping. fancy fr 💅
• platex, uplatex — Japanese LaTeX formats based on e-pTeX and e-upTeX (DVI output) 🇯🇵
• lamed — the Aleph-based LaTeX format (DVI output)
• dvilualatex — LuaTeX-based and outputs DVI
• cslatex — csTeX-based (primitives integrated into pdfTeX) and outputs DVI

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🙈 a lil compatibility warning

on some systems, the commands latex209 and slitex may still be available for compatibility with older versions of LaTeX.

bestie. do not use these for new documents. they are giving 1994. we're leaving them in the past where they belong 💀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

the sibling manpages, go say hi:

• amstex(1), luatex(1), pdftex(1), ptex(1), tex(1), xetex(1)

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📖 the reading list (iconic, honestly)

• Leslie Lamport, LaTeX:ADocumentPreparationSystem.
• Frank Mittelbach with Ulrike Fischer, TheLaTeXCompanion, Addison-Wesley, 2024, ISBN 0-13-811578-8 (3rd edition). https://tug.org/l/tlc3

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🔗 links that actually slap

• Package pages on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/latex, https://ctan.org/pkg/latex-base
• LaTeX tutorial topic on CTAN: https://ctan.org/topic/tut-latex
• LaTeX reference topic on CTAN: https://ctan.org/topic/ref-latex
• The LaTeX home page: https://latex-project.org
• Online interactive tutorial: https://learnlatex.org
• Getting started page: https://tug.org/begin

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🐛 found a bug?

please report bugs in LaTeX following the procedure at https://www.latex-project.org/bugs — they wanna hear from you, fr fr 🫶

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💬 wanna chat about it?

public discussion list for all things TeX and LaTeX: https://lists.tug.org/texhax — come through, the vibes are immaculate 💜

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and that's the page, bestie!! this was Web2C 2026, dated 30 November 2025, and honestly? iconic behavior. now go typeset something gorgeous ✨💖🎀