Alpha

Multi-purpose text editor.

Some features of its TeX mode: syntax coloring, macros for all standard latex commands and environments; command and environment completion, \ref and \cite completion, automatic indentation and comment handling, shortcuts for paragraph and section navigation; typeset selection, support for compile automatisation and smart error browsing; extensive support for manipulating .bib files. Interacts with all tex implementations and previewers, including raw unix tetex, xdvi, TeXShop, iTeXMac, OzTeX, and CMacTex.

Beginner's comment: the learning curve can be a bit steep for the fancier features, but there is an active Alpha Users' Mailing List where you can ask questions and often get an answer the same day.

Expert's comment: Alpha uses Tcl as extension language (just as emacs uses lisp) --- in fact most of Alpha's functionality is implemented in Tcl. This means it is easy to add new features or modify the existing ones. There is an active Alpha Developers' Mailing List where such issues are discussed.

AlphaTK is the platform independent version that runs on top of TCL/TK.

BBEdit

Very nice Macintosh text editor. BBedit integrates well with OzTeX and CMacTeX.

Enhanced Carbon Emacs

Carbon Emacs is the famous Unix editor compiled to run on MacOS X (it should run on older MacOS). Enhanced Carbon Emacs is a TeX-oriented version of Emacs for the Mac (Enhancements won't work on older MacOS). It's (emacs) possibly the most popular and powerful code editor in the Unix world.

jEdit

I have not used jEdit, but have recently received some very enthusiastic recommendations for it. The following text is directly from the jEdit web site:

jEdit is a cross-platform programmer's text editor being developed by Slava Pestov and others. It is released under the GNU General Public License. jEdit requires Java 2 (or Java 1.1 with Swing 1.1)...jEdit is extremely customizable, and has an extensive feature set.

mi (formerly MMKEdit)

There isn't much documentation with this application, but it has been recommended by a number of people. It includes a mode for TeX. Please contact the author if you want to know more. From the included "README":

mi is a text editor to write HTML source, C language source, and so on. It supports your editing by many features such as keyword colorize feature.

Vim

Vim is the other highly popular Unix editor. Check our Benji's site for info and links. Heck, you already have vi (it's predecessor) from the terminal. You're not a hacker if you don't know vi.

FauxTeX & Computer Modern Fonts

Computer Modern is collection of nine fonts based on the Computer Modern family originally designed by Professor Donald Knuth for his TeX typesetting language. It includes standard Macintosh versions of Computer Modern Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Slant, Caps, and Bold Caps, Sans, and Bold Sans. These fonts contain (essentially) the entire standard Macintosh character set, complete with all the special symbols, accented characters, and ligatures. (There are two exceptions: I have replaced the option-f ``florin'' (f) with a double-f ligature and put the Euro currency symbol at option-shift-k in place of the apple.)

FauxTeX is a collection of three fonts that provide a means for creating simple to moderately complex mathematical expressions. These fonts are also based on the Computer Modern family.

• Cymbol serves as a very attractive substitute for the standard (ugly) Symbol font, containing the complete Greek alphabet as well as all the other symbols found in that font.

• MathMode contains all of the Roman alphabet, italicized for mathematical expressions, as well as much of the Greek alphabet and lots of symbols.(If you use a program such as MathType or the small version of MathType called Equation Editor that comes with Microsoft Word, you can get nice results by defining Cymbol as your font for Greek letters and symbols and MathMode as your font for variables and numbers.)

• KahoeTech is primarily for creating expressions that involve superscripts and subscripts. As an extra benefit, you can also use KahoeTech to create fairly complicated fractional expressions. KahoeTech makes it easy to type beautiful mathematical expressions in even the simplest word processors.

Both PostScript and TrueType versions are available. More information and links for purchasing are available on the Computer Modern and FauxTeX fonts web site.

LOGO and St. Mary's Road Symbol Fonts

Tom Kacvinsky from AMS sent me these Macintosh versions of Taco Hoekwater's Postscript version of the new LOGO fonts (the ones with a P and an S, plus the extra sizes of the slanted variant, and the demibold variant) as well as the Macintosh version of Taco Hoekwater's Postscript version of the St. Mary's Road Symbol font. Both have been tested with Textures, and the St. Mary's Road Symbol font has been tested with OzTeX. He is sure both will work with CMacTeX, but they haven't been tested them with it.

The St. Mary's Road symbol font is a symbol font that logicians and set theorists would find handy, and the newer version of the LOGO fonts contain a P and an S so that one may obtain a logo for META POST that looks like the logo for META-FONT. The St. Mary's Road Symbol font comes with a LaTeX2e .dtx file that will produce the necessary .fd and .sty files for use in LaTeX. The new LOGO fonts are used as always, but if you have a format file which calls on the LOGO fonts, you'll need to regenerate the format files so that the new metrics get loaded into the format file. In addition, you can add \font\sllogonine=logosl9, etc... to gain access to the new variants.

Tom says that I should list him as the contact person for the Macintosh versions of the fonts. Some questions may well be related to the generation of the fonts (he just converted them from their PC version, created the Textures metrics, and the Screen suitcases), and if so, he'll have to bounce those questions to Taco.

• Download LOGO Fonts ( 101k)
• Download St. Mary's Road Symbol Fonts ( 534k)

TeX/Illustrator Fonts

Alberto Arabia has created a set of fonts for use in Illustrator when working with typeset TeX output. These go at least part of the way in fixing the problem that some versions (in particular, 9.0.2) of Illustrator have with Computer Modern fonts. Alberto says:

It seems that for Adobe the family name of a postscript font should be a prefix of the total font name. In case of CM fonts the family name is always 'Computer Modern" and for latex and ams fonts "Latex" and "Euler", but the total font name of a font like CMR10 is just CMR10 and not "Computer Modern CMR10" and the same for latex and ams fonts.

I tried these idea with RESEDIT changing the TotalFontName and it worked, but because there are to many fonts i just redump (with fontlab) the textures postscript fonts changing only the name of the family and it worked again, but now for the hole set of textures postscript fonts.

• Download the TeX/Illustrator Fonts ( 2.8M)