.

Back in the introduction we said that was just a big macro package, the result of a marriage of LATEX and AMS-TEX designed to endow the powerful general-purpose LATEX package with the mathematical prowess of AMS-TEX without compromising the LATEX syntax. Most of that is true, except that is really just a document-style option (like 12pt) that can be used within a ``tweaked LATEX''. The most visible part of this tweak is the new font selection scheme of Mittelbach and Schöpf, discussed more fully in the next chapter. Almost every LATEX command and environment survived the transition to , the exceptions being those that were considered redundant or under-used (space is at a premium with such a big package). The tweaked LATEX package is therefore able to deal with practically every existing LATEX document, giving just a few (often pleasant) surprises.

With the amstex style option, one can just start a LATEX document with

0.1

\documentstyle[amstex]{article} % or report, book, etc
to gain access to the TEXnical excellence of the AMS technical staff. It is not necessary to have read The Joy of TEX (the AMS-TEX reference guide) to be able to use the amstex option, for comes with its own reference guide. Even so, The Joy of TeX is still highly recommended reading. The syntax of AMS-TEX has been changed to that of LATEX, but one can perform that transformation as you read ``Joy'' and still learn much of the art of technical typesetting. Nowhere else will you find so comprehensive a coverage of the conventions and pitfalls of mathematical typesetting. In addition, Joy lists all the extra symbols that are available through the amstex option (if you thought LATEX had a fair selection of esoteric symbols, just wait 'til you see those!) and provides in-depth accounts where the documentation is brief.

Just as AMS-TEX comes with the AMS preprint style (amsppt), comes with a specialist style file for preparation of articles with for submission to journals: amsart. The User's Guide is quite short and very terse in its explanations (assuming you to be competent in LATEX), but is supplemented by a large body of examples and a comprehensive sample article that is a showcase of the abilities of the amsart style. You must read both these documents to really learn . The AMS also distributes a guide to authors who wish to submit using , and this is a must-read once you are familiar with some of .