This text aims to give people interested in getting started with latex a starting point and recommendations for programs and extensions.

• miktex: very good latex implementation. It is recommended to use the 'basic installation', which loads necessary packages from the internet.
  • Download: http://www.miktex.org/Setup.aspx
  • Important: use Programs-Miktex-MikTex Options and install the following packages and add-ons:
    • Documentation-Latex2e Reference. Gives you context sensitive help in Winedt using CTRL-F1
• winedt, works very well with miktex. It is shareware, but well worth the price. Some features that set it apart from other editors:
  • Understands the structure of latex documents and shows a tree of all connectec documents. This also works if you use macros to include files, after you have configure the proper macros for file inclusion.
  • Very good spell checking support
  • Can be set up to work as a portable app.
  • Homepage: http://www.winedt.com/

• Recommended extension for winedt
  • German spelling, even for the new swiss-german spelling.
    • Download http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/win32/winedt/dict/de_ch.zip
    • Installation guide: http://www.winedt.org/Dict/
  • There are some useful plugins for inserting tables and graphics. http://www.winedt.org/
• Open source alternatives
  • Texniccenter: http://www.texniccenter.org/
  • kyle under linux is very good, if it only had support for custom include macros!

The initial learning curve for LaTeX can be steep. Particularly if you want to force LaTeX to format text exactly to you liking, you can loose a lot of time. Once you have useful template, you can concentrate on the content. As a starting point, here is my masterfile. The idea is to copy and customize this, and include your content as separate files. Another approach is a custom document class. However i don't use this any more, because you have to install the class file every time you change machines. I like self-contained document directories better.

• Conventional masterfile, which includes the rest of the text latex_masterfile
• Custom document class: latex_class

• Goossens, Mittelbach: Latex companion. Pearson Studium.

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