Thread: Help a LaTeX Newb Please.

Hi everyone. I feel very stupid for asking this. Ok, I have dowloaded MiKTeX and installed it. Now, do I need to download LaTeX as well? If I want to create documents do I need a tex editor like winEDT? Help! I am lost and very confused

Thanks for any help.

Originally Posted by qspeechc

Hi everyone. I feel very stupid for asking this. Ok, I have dowloaded MiKTeX and installed it. Now, do I need to download LaTeX as well? If I want to create documents do I need a tex editor like winEDT? Help! I am lost and very confused

Thanks for any help.

You don't need to, if you know what you are doing you can use any text editor and the tools provided by MiKTeX, but you don't want to do that, so yes you will need a TeX editor of some kind. It also a good idea to make sure you have Ghostscript and Ghostview installed.

RonL

Thanks for the help. Would WinShell count as a text editor (I have downloaded it)? Would notepad?
And what are Ghostscript and Ghostview, why do I need them, and how do I know if my MiKTeX has it?
Thank you for the help.

Originally Posted by qspeechc

Thanks for the help. Would WinShell count as a text editor (I have downloaded it)? Would notepad?
And what are Ghostscript and Ghostview, why do I need them, and how do I know if my MiKTeX has it?
Thank you for the help.

All the bits are seperate WinShell is a front end for MiKTeX, that is it is an editor and integrates the main MiKTeX tools in its interface.

The attachment shows a screen shot of WinShell, notice the button bar, there are buttons for invoking 7 tools the first compiles to DVI, the second something to do with bibtex, DVI viewer, compile to postscript, postscript viewer, compile to pdf, and finally pdfviewer.

The installation sequence for WinShell is something like MiKTeX, Ghostscript/Ghostview, WinShell (I assume you already have Acrobat reader installed (but its not essential anyway).

RonL