How do I make a PDF file from a TeX source file?
This, thankfully, has gotten easier. Sort of. First method: This method is easy if you don’t have any eps pictures in your document. If you do, you have to convert them to little PDFs first. If you just have a document with math symbols, macros, and other non-graphics, you’re in business. If it’s a plain TeX document, type pdftex file.tex If it’s LaTeX, type pdflatex file.tex Sorry, AMSTeX users appear to be out of luck. But AMSLaTeX, since it’s just LaTeX with a package added, works fine with pdflatex. This program outputs the file file.pdf which can be viewed by anyone with a PDF viewer. The output includes Postscript versions of the computer modern fonts, and so the quality is excellent. Second method: This method works for an arbitrary TeX file, including one with graphics in any format, and with amstex. It requires the use of either a PC or Mac with Acrobat Distiller (a commercial product, part of Adobe Acrobat). This product costs about $100 with academic pricing, and is usually
