Installing and using LaTeX

Let's start with the installation of the LaTeX distribution, TeX Live. This distribution is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X (MacTeX), and other Unix-like operating systems. TeX Live is well maintained, and it is actively developed.

Alternative LaTeX distribution

Another excellent and user-friendly LaTeX distribution for Windows is MiKTeX. It's easy to install, like any other Windows application. You can download it from https://miktex.org. Visit https://latexguide.org/distributions for a detailed, up-to-date comparison.

You can install TeX Live for a single user (that's you) or as a shared installation for all users on a computer. The latter is called admin mode. It requires running the installation as an administrator: either log in with an administrator account or right-click on the install program and choose Run as administrator.

It is recommended to install in single-user mode.

First, we will visit the TeX Live homepage...