I explain here how to run all flavors of TeX on a PUCC PC using the MikTeX package. MikTeX is a free version of TeX for PC's. You can download it at home by going to
Every time you log on to a PUCC PC and want to use some flavor of TeX, you will need to go the the START menu and select
course software -> science -> ma -> Setup MikTeX
This will copy some important files to your account (which will go away when you log off -- that's why you have to do this every time you log on).
After you run the MikTeX startup program (which takes quite a few seconds), a little window will appear that says that MikTeX is ready to run. Click on OK.
To run TeX, you will need to open a DOS box. To do this, go to the START menu and select MS-DOS Prompt.
The first thing you should do in the DOS box that pops up is type
miktex
and then RETURN at the prompt.
This little command will add the MikTeX commands to your PATH. (You can type path at a DOS prompt to see what your PATH is.)
You will probably keep your personal TeX files on drive H: where your career account is. To get there from a DOS box that starts out in drive C:, just type H: at the prompt:
C:> H: H:>
I like to keep my personal TeX files in a subdirectory called tex. To create this, I type
H:> mkdir tex
It is not hard to ftp TeX files from a math.purdue.edu account to a PUCC career account and place them in such a tex directory. (See How to transfer files for a description of how to use ftp.)
Let's say I have a file called mom.tex in my tex subdirectory on the H: drive. To TeX the file using plain TeX, I would type tex mom like this:
H:> cd tex H:\tex> tex mom
(or I could type tex mom.tex if I preferred.)
If I have a file that I want to apply the amstex command to, just the way we do on math, I might run into trouble. There is no amstex command in MikTeX. On math, the amstex command is simply a little script that applies plain tex to a file after loading the macro package amstex.tex. To accomplish the same thing using only plain tex, you'll need to add the line
\input amstex
right at the top of your TeX file and then run the plain tex command to tex the file.
To LaTeX a file called dad.tex using the latex command, I would type this:
H:\tex> latex dad
You can also use the command miktex file.tex when you aren't sure what flavor of TeX the file file.tex is. This command is supposed to figure out which kind of TeX is the right one to use and then use it.
All these various tex commands produce a file with a .dvi extension in the same directory where you run the tex command. To view the TeX output that has been placed in the file mom.dvi just type
H:\tex> yap mom
(or type yap mom.dvi if you prefer).
If you like what you see, you can select PRINT from the file menu to print the file to the default printer in the corner of the PUCC lab.
After you run the MikTeX startup program when you log on to a PUCC PC, you will notice that some MikTeX menu items appear among the programs in your START menu. One of them is an online MikTeX HELP feature that you will probably find useful. Another is the DVI previewer (called yap for Yet Another Previewer) that we used above. The other MikTeX Configuration menu item allows you to add files to your TeX path so that MikTeX can find files that you might add to other tex files via the \input command.
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