

It offers a straightforward LaTeX compiler and editor, with nothing to install, and it works pretty intuitively. Use a cloud-based system, of which the most commonly used is now OverleafĪlthough there are pros and cons to all these choices, there is a lot to be said for beginners in using a cloud-based approach in terms of your criteria.(Linux users would probably want TeXlive, and may need to be warned about the tendency for distribution packages to be considerably out of date.) For that the obvious candidates would be MiKTeX, MacTeX, or TeXlive, and in terms of ease of installation for most students either MiKTeX (Windows) or MacTeX (OSX). Install a fully functional local TeX system.


My students are in engineering, computer science, and math. I would like to know the (short) list of " best" options, for reasonable interpretations of the word " best". There may also be other modern issues I do not even know about. There are modern issues like " does this produce PDF/A compliant documents" that remain a mystery to me (in fact my own version of LaTeX does not conform to the new and stringent PDF/A compliant standard). I need a general-audience method that includes Mac and non-Mac. The most difficult thing is recommending a way to install LaTeX. I can make a template for them to learn basic math symbols. I would like to encourage my students to use LaTeX for their homework.
