TeX, LaTeX and Device Independent Format (DVI)

TeX is both a language to typeset documents and a programming language. Originally written to typeset mathematical documents in a professional manner, it is now used in many other areas.

LaTeX is also a typsetting and programming language. It's actually a simplified version of TeX which enables top level instruction manipulation, just as HTML is a simplified version of SGML.

DVI. A TeX or LaTeX source file must be compiled. The result of this compilation is in DVI format, readable on any platform. Most of the time, the result of the compilation will, in turn, be converted to PDF or PS.

TeX User Group (TUG)∞
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