What is the best LaTeX application?

[Spanky Deluxe]

I need to start drafting my first academic paper which means that after years of putting it off and resorting to Pages I have to finally start using LaTex. I used a distribution a couple of years ago for my Master's project report but I copy and pasted a fair bit of it from Pages and I think I did my references manually.

So what's the most user friendly LaTeX application? I'll need to add a lot of references easily and as automatically as possible and I'll need to put plenty of equations in there. Is the only one MacTex?

I'd really appreciate some suggestions from people who have experience with these things! I would ask my supervisor but judging by the fact that he only started using a GUI based email client about two months ago, he may not be the best person to ask.

 

[darklyt]

I personally use TexShop, but I haven't tried much else. It has worked very well for me, including paper writing and making presentations for talks. You can also try LyX if you aren't interested in messing around too much with the innards of the code.

 

[crypticlineage]

I installed MacTex. I am a longtime Linux user who adopted osx platform about a month ago. MacTex brought the pdflatex functionality which I was so much used to in Linux.

You can install mactex directly, or it may also be possible to install it through macports.

Let us know how it works out.

Fresh Note: Bibtex will take care of all the references very elegantly. I don't use any fancy text editors to write my latex code, just vim. The mac version of vim is called Macvim and is launched as mvim from a bash prompt.

2nd Fresh Note: I highly recommend you read up "The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX" which is available freely on the net. Also, your journal might have a style file that you will need for writing papers.

 

[MisterMe]

I need to start drafting my first academic paper which means that after years of putting it off and resorting to Pages I have to finally start using LaTex. I used a distribution a couple of years ago for my Master's project report but I copy and pasted a fair bit of it from Pages and I think I did my references manually.

...

There are so many holes in your post, that it is difficult to answer it intelligently. Using TeX is a two-part solution, the teTeX or xeTeX backend and teTeX-compatible applications. As implied by others, installing MacTeX will provide everything that you need to do your work. However, this does not mean that you have the most user-friendly solution. Without question, the TeXShop editor--part of the MacTeX bundle--is great, but there are much friendlier alternatives. The LyX document processor uses the teTeX backend and requires the installation of no additional software. The Texmaker document editor is spectacular. However, it requires the installation of the Qt frameworks. Lest there be any doubt, all software referenced above is free.

 

[brandaopj]

what program should i use to open bibtex and use it on word 2011?