Talk:LaTeX

Seeing as we already have a Frontends section, why not add another section for useful packages such as LaTeX-beamer? Liyang 06:52:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

"LaTeX (/ˈlɑːtɛx/ LAH-tekh or /ˈleɪtɛx/ LAY-tekh), stylized within the system as LaTeX, is a software system for document preparation."

The wording here is a bit clunky. How about "stylized within itself as"? Thoughts? Will change unless anyone has objections. CampWood (talk) 00:22, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

INHO, I think "stylized within the system as LaTeX" should be taken out all together, and so the first sentence should read:

"LaTeX (/ˈlɑːtɛx/ LAH-tekh or /ˈleɪtɛx/ LAY-tekh) is a software system for document preparation."

Is there a reason to indicate this "stylization" in the first sentence of the article? Or even anywhere in the article? There is afterall an image of the LaTeX logo in the infobox of the article on right Wickedjargon (talk) 23:09, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

For the pronunciation of the word LaTeX, two options are given: (/ˈlɑːtɛx/ LAH-tekh or /ˈleɪtɛx/ LAY-tekh).

However both incorrectly use x (ch in loch) as the final coda position consonant. The non IPA transcription is also wrong. A more appropriate transcription would be:

(/ˈlɑːtɛks/ LAH-tekhs or /ˈleɪtɛks/ LAY-tekhs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.173.243.57 (talk) 17:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

This is not wrong; it is indeed pronounced with "ch as in loch". I've heard people say "LAH-tek", but "LAH-teks" is wrong and "LAH-tekhs" makes no sense at all. –St.nerol (talk) 19:35, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The footnote should not say (as it currently does) "commonly mispronounced as /ˈlɑːtɛk/ or /ˈleɪtɛk/"; that is inappropriate prescriptivism. If a pronunication is commonly enough used, then it becomes correctly or at least acceptable. See also Pronunciation of GIF. 78.32.131.8 (talk) 02:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Both you and St.nerol are wrong. The Latex Project website as referenced in source 2 says LaTeX is pronounced "to rhyme with «blech» or «Bertolt Brecht»". This is a bit confusing, since the coda of Brecht is /çt/, but the sensible interpretation is that LaTeX is supposed to be pronounced ending in /ç/, since neither /x/ nor /ks/ come close to rhyming with Brecht. Of course /ç/ is not an english phoneme, so how people actually pronounce the word will be different and should be reflected in the article Tasimnal (talk) 10:03, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

This is correct. The current version references a source for the pronunciation, but it's misinterpreted. Bertolt Brecht is not pronounced like "Brekt". The pronunciation currently mentioned as "also pronounced as" is the "official" one, and the others are "also pronounced as"-alternatives. The X in LaTeX is pronounced similarly to the J in the spanish Jesus or Juan. Dynolderbo (talk) 10:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I always had the idea that "LaTeX" was short for "Look-ahead TeX", i.e., because of something to do with its parser.
(I was probably wrong, as I guess LaTeX doesn't differ from TeX when it comes to parsing.)
But I just noticed a mention on this page that it stands for "Lamport's TeX".
In any case, the article should probably say. —scs (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The way this article is written is weirdly breathy and sycophantic. Can this be changed please. 2600:8807:810A:9F80:AA71:899E:5BF9:5027 (talk) 22:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Can you suggest some improvements that you think would help? JBW (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Hey Kinu, I cleaned up the CoCalc LaTeX screenshot. Wikideas1 (talk) 16:26, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Shouldn't the use of the backslash as part of latex code be mentioned explicitly somewhere in the article? ~2025-34917-65 (talk) 12:00, 20 November 2025 (UTC)