How does LaTeX relate to Plain TeX?

TeX provides a programming language (of sorts), and any document more complex than the trivial “hello world” will need some programming.

LaTeX and Plain TeX are both libraries written for use with TeX; the user commands tex and latex invoke TeX-the-program with a library incorporated. Libraries that may be loaded in this way are known as “formats”; when a user “runs” Plain TeX or LaTeX, they are running TeX (the program) with an appropriate format. The documents are then programmed in Plain TeX or LaTeX language.

Plain TeX and LaTeX exist because writing your documents in “raw” TeX could involve much reinventing of wheels for every document. Both languages serve as convenient aids to make document writing more pleasant: LaTeX provides many more items to support “common” requirements of documents.

As such, LaTeX is close to being a superset of Plain TeX, but some Plain TeX commands don’t work as expected when used in a LaTeX document. Using Plain TeX commands in a LaTeX document is an occasional source of bugs: the output is almost right, but some things are misplaced.

So, Plain TeX and LaTeX are related through a common parent, and are designed for use in similar jobs; programming for one will often not work correctly in the other.

FAQ ID: Q-LaTeXandPlain