1.2 Why use teTEX under Win32

The teTEX distribution is based on Web2C.

Web2C by itself is a translator from the Pascal language to the C language. Donald E. KNUTH has originally written TEX in a dialect of Pascal named Web, so the name Web2C. Web2C has been build upon several authors work, but has been much enhanced recently by Karl Berry and now Olaf Weber. See section 10.

Web2C uses the Kpathsea library for files handling. This library is the main part to configure for TEX to run smoothly. It is very powerful and flexible, but quite complex too.

I began to port Web2C after leaving the Linux world for the NT world. Web2C is the most used TEX distribution in the Unix world, and the one on which many developments are based. Web2C takes you to a high level of TEXnicity : latest versions of TEX, METAFONT, MetaPost, use of the high speed search kpathsea library to name only some of its features. Web2C should satisfy the most demanding users. Moreover, its wide use makes it well tested.

Web2C had already been ported to a wide variety of OS apart from Unixes: VMS, MVS, Amiga, OS/2, DOS. Win32 has everything of a high-tech OS1, so there was no reason for Web2C not to be ported to it. It would make life easier for administrators who have Unix, Windows (and maybe others) TEX distributions to maintain. So, the main goal of the port was compatibility with the reference platforms (Unixes): administration of TeX sites should be similar. For further details on the Win32 adaptation, take look at Section 7.