Introduction

TeXmacs offers high quality converters to and from LaTeX. For simple documents, it suffices to use FileExportLaTeX resp. FileImportLaTeX. However, in order to take fully advantage out of the converts, it is necessary to understand some particularities of LaTeX.

First of all, it should be emphasized that TeX/LaTeX is not a data format. Indeed, TeX is a programming language for which no real standardization process has taken place: valid TeX programs are defined as those which are recognized by the TeX program. In particular, there exists no formal specification of the language and it is not even clear what should be considered to be a valid TeX document. As a consequence of this, a converter from LaTeX to TeXmacs can only be designed to be 100% reliable for a (substantial) subset of the TeX/LaTeX language.

A second important point is that publishers usually impose additional constraints on the kind of LaTeX documents which they accept for submissions. For instance, certain journals provide additional macros for title information, theorems, specific layout features, etc. Other journals forbid for the definition of new macros in the preamble. Since TeXmacs is not a TeX/LaTeX front-end, it is difficult for us to write specific code for each possible journal. Nevertheless, some general principles do hold, and we will describe below how to customize the converter so as to make the conversion process as simple and automatic as possible.

Another point which should be stressed is that TeXmacs aims to provide a strict superset of TeX/LaTeX. This not completely the case yet, but it is already true that many features in TeXmacs admit no direct analogues in TeX/LaTeX or one of its packages. This is for instance the case for computer algebra sessions, folding, actions, graphics and presentations, but also for certain typsetting constructs, like vertical alignment and background filling in tables. When using such additional features, you should be prepared that they will not be converted correctly to LaTeX.

Finally, when preparing journal papers with TeXmacs, please consider submitting them in TeXmacs format. The editors of the journal will probably force you to convert your paper to LaTeX, but repeated submissions in TeXmacs format will put pressure upon them to accept this new format.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".