2 Text, Symbols, and Commands

The text that is to be the input to a LATEX processing run is written to a source file with a name ending in .tex, the file name extension. This file is prepared with a text editor, either one that handles straightforward plain text or one that is configured to assist the writing and processing of LATEX files. In either case, the contents of this file are plain ASCII characters only, with no special symbols, no accented letters, preferably displayed in a fixed-width typewriter font, with no frills like bold or italics, all in one size. All these aspects of true typesetting are produced afterwards by the TEX processing program with the help of markup commands inserted visibly into the actual text. It is therefore ...

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