Inverse search (also called "reverse search") [1] is a feature of some non-interactive typesetting programs, such as LaTeX and GNU LilyPond. These programs read an abstract, textual, definition of a document as input, and convert this into a graphical format such as DVI or PDF. In a windowing system, this typically means that the source code is entered in one editor window, and the resulting output is viewed in a different output window. Inverse search means that a graphical object in the output window works as a hyperlink, which brings you back to the line and column in the editor, where the clicked object was defined. The inverse search feature is particularly useful during proofreading.
Cygwin is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed.
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools and a debugger. Some IDEs, such as NetBeans and Eclipse, contain the necessary compiler, interpreter, or both; others, such as SharpDevelop and Lazarus, do not.
LaTeX is a software system for document preparation. When writing, the writer uses plain text as opposed to the formatted text found in "What You See Is What You Get" word processors like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer and Apple Pages. The writer uses markup tagging conventions to define the general structure of a document to stylise text throughout a document, and to add citations and cross-references. A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MiKTeX is used to produce an output file suitable for printing or digital distribution.
TeX, stylized within the system as TeX, is a typesetting system which was designed and written by Donald Knuth and first released in 1978. TeX is a popular means of typesetting complex mathematical formulae; it has been noted as one of the most sophisticated digital typographical systems.
gnuplot is a command-line and GUI program that can generate two- and three-dimensional plots of functions, data, and data fits. The program runs on all major computers and operating systems . It is a program with a fairly long history, dating back to 1986. Despite its name, this software is not part of the GNU Project.
In human–computer interaction and user interface design, cut, copy, and paste are related commands that offer an interprocess communication technique for transferring data through a computer's user interface. The cut command removes the selected data from its original position, while the copy command creates a duplicate; in both cases the selected data is kept in temporary storage. The data from the clipboard is later inserted wherever a paste command is issued. The data remains available to any application supporting the feature, thus allowing easy data transfer between applications.
GNU TeXmacs is a scientific word processor and typesetting component of the GNU Project. It was inspired by TeX and GNU Emacs, though it shares no code with those programs. TeXmacs does use TeX fonts. It is written and maintained by Joris van der Hoeven and a group of developers. The program produces structured documents with a WYSIWYG user interface. New document styles can be created by the user. The editor provides high-quality typesetting algorithms and TeX and other fonts for publishing professional looking documents.
LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.
The device independent file format (DVI) is the output file format of the TeX typesetting program, designed by David R. Fuchs and implemented by Donald E. Knuth in 1982. Unlike the TeX markup files used to generate them, DVI files are not intended to be human-readable; they consist of binary data describing the visual layout of a document in a manner not reliant on any specific image format, display hardware or printer. DVI files are typically used as input to a second program which translates DVI files to graphical data. For example, most TeX software packages include a program for previewing DVI files on a user's computer display; this program is a driver. Drivers are also used to convert from DVI to popular page description languages and for printing.
Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form with a single source file. It is implemented by a computer program released as free software of the same name, created and made available by the GNU Project from the Free Software Foundation.
Yet Another Previewer is the name of two different document previewing applications, one for DVI and one for PostScript.
WinEdt is a shareware Unicode (UTF-8) editor and shell for Microsoft Windows. It is primarily used for the creation of TeX documents, but can also be used to edit HTML or any other type of text file. It can be configured to run as a front-end for a variety of TeX systems, including MiKTeX, fpTeX and TeX Live. WinEdt's highlighting schemes can be customized for different modes and its spell checking functionality supports multi-lingual setups, with dictionaries (word-lists) for many languages available for downloading from WinEdt's Community Site. It supports DVI and PDF workflow.
Texmaker is a cross-platform open-source LaTeX editor with an integrated PDF viewer. It is entirely a Qt app. Texmaker supports Linux, macOS and Windows systems and integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX.
In computing, Pic is a domain-specific programming language by Brian Kernighan for specifying line diagrams. The language contains predefined basic linear objects: line, move, arrow, and spline, the planar objects box, circle, ellipse, arc, and definable composite elements. Objects are placed with respect to other objects or absolute coordinates. A liberal interpretation of the input invokes default parameters when objects are incompletely specified. An interpreter translates this description into concrete drawing commands in a variety of possible output formats. Pic is a procedural programming language, with variable assignment, macros, conditionals, and looping. The language is an example of a little language originally intended for the comfort of non-programmers in the Unix environment.
GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman. In common with other varieties of Emacs, GNU Emacs is extensible using a Turing complete programming language. GNU Emacs has been called "the most powerful text editor available today". With proper support from the underlying system, GNU Emacs is able to display files in multiple character sets, and has been able to simultaneously display most human languages since at least 1999. Throughout its history, GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project, and a flagship of the free software movement. GNU Emacs is sometimes abbreviated as GNUMACS, especially to differentiate it from other EMACS variants. The tag line for GNU Emacs is "the extensible self-documenting text editor".
TeXworks is free and open-source application software, available for Windows, Linux and macOS. It is a Qt-based graphical user interface to the TeX typesetting system and its LaTeX, ConTeXt, and XeTeX extensions. TeXworks is targeted at direct generation of PDF output. It has a built-in PDF viewer using the poppler library; the viewer has auto-refresh capability, and also features SyncTeX support.
The following is a comparison of TeX editors.
xdvi is an open-source computer program written by Paul Vojta for displaying TeX-produced .dvi files under the X Window System on Unix, including Linux.
Gregorio is a free and open-source scorewriter computer program especially for Gregorian chant in square notation. Gregorio was adopted by many Abbeys and large projects, the most prominent user is maybe the St. Peters's Abbey of Solesmes.
TexLab is a TeX editor based on parallel programming. Contrary to other TeX editors which use a text file as input, TexLab was designed to process small binary document modules. TexLab typesetting engine is implemented by a thread pool to execute MiKTeX commands, such as: LaTeX, XeTeX or pdfTeX. MiKTeX is the version of LaTeX for Microsoft Windows; it consists of a set of tools to process text. Christian Schenk is the creator of MiKTeX, he studied Computer Science at TU Berlin. When Christian owned his first PC, he began working on a fun project; this project eventually became MiKTeX. TexLab interacts with Windows API's and Win32 through a thin level of abstraction provided by the C++ classes of Wintempla. TexLab interacts with MiKTeX commands through Anonymous pipes which is an interprocess communication (IPC) method.