1. Introduction

Contents of this section

This document covers the things you need to successfully typeset, view, and print documents in Russian.

The description is targeted primarily to the end users. While writing it, I tried to keep the things as simple as possible. On my opinion, it is unfair to overburden the user with the X Window System or TeX implementation details, because she merely wants to type or view the nice texts in Russian. However, I don't describe what the X Window System is and how to typeset the documents with TeX and LaTeX. Consequently, having a guru at hand for the case of potential problems would be an advantage.

There is some conflict between MS-DOG and Un*x Cyrillic codesets. In MS-DOG, the most popular Cyrillic codeset is Alt (so-called alternative codeset). In Un*x, however, the traditional codeset with Russian characters is KOI-8. It is specified in the RFC 1489 ("Registration of a Cyrillic Character Set").

The difference in two codesets is usage is pretty minimal (except the TeX packages). Therefore, we will describe only KOI-8 codeset setup.

I appreciate any comments corrections and suggestions concerning the document. Don't hesitate to contact me at abel@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il.


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