plain TeX

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plain TeX (Engl., ordinary TeX ) is a format for the free typesetting program TeX by Donald Knuth . plain TeX is primarily historically important, as it has now been almost completely replaced by other formats - above all LaTeX .

history

plain TeX was developed by Donald Knuth as an example format together with the TeX program and is documented in the TeXbook (see literature). Knuth originally thought that the authors of a book would develop suitable formats themselves. Instead, most authors initially used plain TeX directly.

Later other formats like AMS-TeX , LaTeX and ConTeXt were built on plain TeX, whereby almost all plain-TeX macros also work in these formats. The influence of plain TeX on the other formats cannot therefore be underestimated.

literature