Downloading TeX for Windows

TeX (and LaTeX) are scientific publishing programs which make the production of certain documents easier, especially those documents containing equations, figures, indices, cross-references, and large bibliographies. TeX was designed for the UNIX operating system, but versions of it are available for Windows machines. The information below was compiled by Jade Vinson, former House Committee Treasurer, and Steven Miller, former House Committee Social Chair and CIT Computer Cluster Liaison. The House Committee is not a source for computer information; we provide these pages as a service to our members and regret that we cannot help solve any problems you may encounter.

To download and successfully run TeX, you will need to get 3 different programs: (1) Winedt, (2) Ghostscript/view and (3) MiKTeX.

(1). WinEDT
Click on the above link. Choose 'Downloads and Web Links'. Then choose a server to download winedt32.exe from, and then click it. It will ask where do you want to save it on your hardrive. Save it in a temp folder. Then go to that folder and click on winedt32.exe. It will uncompress it and it will suggest saving this in some temp folder. Once it is done, go to the temp folder, and look a file called 'setup'. It will either be directly available, or you may have subdirectories 'disk 1', 'disk 2' that you have to open, and then under them will be the 'setup' file we want. Click on setup. This will actually install the winedt program, and it will suggest where to install it (under program files, or maybe under windows). After it is successfully installed, you no longer need to keep the temp files, but it's probably not a bad idea to keep them for a few days, just in case you need to reinstall.

(2). Ghostscript/view
Click the above link. This takes you to a page with several options. Click 3. http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/ This takes you to a page where you can download ghostview/script. Choose 'gsv26w32.zip Win32'. Again, save this into a temporary folder. Then click on the file to unzip (If you do not have unzip utilities, why don't you? If you go back a page, to: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ghostscript-on-windows.html you can click on 'http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/ibmpc/unzip.exe'. It is under the first point, 1., and download unzip). Now just go back to your hardrive and click on 'gsv26w32.zip'. It should unzip it and install it into an appropriate directory.

To download, click http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/get550.html Scroll down the page to the section OS/2, MS-DOS & MS-Windows Click on gsv26550.exe. Save the file into a temp directory, click on it & install.

(3). MikTex
Click on the above link. DO NOT click on 'Download Area'. Instead, click 'Getting MiKTeX'. Choose 'complete.exe'. When it asks you which CTAN host to use, choose 'ctan.tug.org (in Massachusetts, USA)'. It will take awhile for it to download. When it is finally finishes, click on 'complete.exe', and it will guide you thru the setup. NOTE: on the same page as 'complete.exe', there are some additional TeX packages available.

If you run into trouble, consult: Guide to installing MiKTEX, GhostView, and WinEdt