p3aul

Hi!
I'm tearing my hair out trying to get a system that will work. I need the complete system. Latex itself, an WUSIWYG editor and a viewer, I guess. I tried downloading the Protex system, but when I click on the install file I get an interactive PDF file with links that just give me errors. I tried to download Miktex directly and all I get is a spam site that wants to clean my registry. Sourceforge doesn't have a download link. It does but it just takes you to a page that says the project files are empty.

Can anyone take me by the hand and help me get a working system up and running on Win7?
Thanks,
Paul

MarkFL

I know several people here are happy with:

http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

p3aul

Well I just tried that one, Mark but it just created a gif file. Is that all any Latex system does?

greg1313

No. LaTeX can create .pdf files, amongst other things.

Have you tried this?

MarkFL

I haven't used it, but it was my understanding that it generates the latex code from the expression you generate that you can then copy and paste into your post.

p3aul

I've got Miktex working(I think) it gives me something called a yap viewer which takes dvi files and Texworks which take tex files.. It seems that Texworks will open a tex file and convert it to pdf but it won't let you save it. Is this what you mean?

Protext is the one that just opens up a PDF file with a lot of links to install various packages but they each give me an error.
Thank,
Paul

greg1313

I run Linux, so things are different on my system. I can use various commands to generate .pdf's and .dvi's from a .tex file. These files are saved on my hard drive.

What are the errors? Can you see the URL's of the links and enter them manually? Are you sure the installer didn't do anything else; it seems strange that a 750+ MB install package would only pop up a .pdf.

Edit: Come to think of it, it seems strange that a LaTeX installation would require that much data . . .

mattpi

If you download the latest version of MikTeX (which you seem to have done successfully), it will as you say come with TeXWorks, which will take LaTeX source code and compile it for you into a .pdf file. It definitely can save the source code files - many of these editors save the file automatically when compiling, which may make it appear that you can't save if you've just compiled it.

I actually use TeXnicCenter, which is free and uses the Yap previewer you get with MikTeX.

p3aul

Ah.. I stand corrected! after taking another look at Miktex and opening a tex file in texworks, I see that it automatically opens and save the pdf file. The pdf viewer that opens has no way of saving the file but going back to Texworks I can save it as a pdf or several other types.I suspect that the pdf file will be the most used though as it contains the equations And I don't know how you would put them in a word file, except as images. Hmm I wonder, could they be saved as html or xhtml? I'm going to check out TexnicCenter also. hurray! I have a new toy and a new preoccupation!
Many thanks, Paul

p3aul

Well, well, well. I downloaded and installed TexnicCenter and tried it a few examples I downloaded from the net. It compiles the code alright but when I go to view, Acrobat viewer comes up with the splash screen but doesn't open the pdf file. I can see wherethe program writes the pdf but when I go back to TexnicCenter The program is "Not Responding" for about a minute, then I get this error:
[attachment=0rmfkzg0]error.JPG[/attachmentrmfkzg0]

I can view the file in Acrobat if I use the open command in Acrobat and locate it. so far TexnicCenter has placed it in the source file directory.
Thanks,
Paul

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