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9 \badness0

10 cuff\/link

TeX works well with ligatures such as ff, fl, ffl or fi by default, i.e., it takes the correct ligature glyph from the font automatically. This is in general welcome of course, however, in some cases, it is frowned upon, such as in compound words. Compare the following two renderings of the word cufflink, the first one proper (ligature broken on the compound word boundary) and the second one improper (ligature crossing the compound word boundary). The first one is achieved by adding \/ in the code in the correct place.

9 \badness0

TeX

TeX was the first language to get its own StackExchange site.

(Note that we will show examples in plain TeX mostly; if any example is to be compiled using LaTeX, it will be clearly stated.)

8 \def\x{}

Simple definition. This defines a macro ("control sequence" in proper words) which does not take an argument and expands to ... well ... nothing :) (Do not be confused: "nothing" is not "relax", they substantially different.)

7 $$a+b$$ or \[a+b\]

Two snippets that somehow produce the same output, it's a displayed equation showing simple

a + b

(just centred of course). The first is the correct thing to do in plain TeX. If only people knew how wrong it is in LaTeX, where the second one should be used!

6 \relax

TeX is one of the languages that have its own "do nothing" action. However, \relax is more than just that, and this is related to the fact that it is an expansion language: All macros are expanded, and in some contexts, executed. The power of \relax is that it is executed to nothing, but it cannot be expanded, i.e., it survives any expansion unmodified. This in turn is one of the strenghts (and threats at the same time, especially for newcomers) of TeX.

5 X\bye

A minimal document that compiles producing an output; we get a page with a 10-point "X" at the top and a centred page number "1" at the bottom. ... "X," said Tom, and added, leaving: "Bye!"

4 \bye

When you say "bye" to TeX, it finishes the document; namely it closes the current paragraph if any is open, ships out the last page, and ends. Without this command, no document can be successfully produced.

3 $a$

Prints the mathematical symbol "a", that can stand for instance for a variable, function or a constant. Without the dollars, it would be the text symbol "a"; it is necessary to distinguish these two!

2 <endline><endline>

Two consecutive ends of line finish a paragraph. (One end of line behaves like a space.)

1 %

The percent sign starts a comment; the comment runs until the end of line, and eats the end of line together with leading whitespace on the next line.

TeX

TeX was the first language to get its own StackExchange site.

(Note that we will show examples in plain TeX mostly; if any example is to be compiled using LaTeX, it will be clearly stated.)

9 \badness0

Yes, in TeX, you can define how "bad" things are :-) Well, actually, badness inserted in a paragraph of text says how bad it is if a linebreak appeared at the specific place. Some things insert their own badnesses; for instance, it is worse to hyphenate words than not to, and the non-breaking space has badness of 10000, which is, in a sense, the infinite badness in TeX's eyes. Here, we set the badness to zero. We also see that assignments in plain TeX are done by concatenating the register (\badness here) and the value; optionally we can place the equals sign in between.

Actually, the concept of penalties (badnesses) is crucial for TeX; it's a typographic system and beauty is one of the goals, and Knuth designed TeX so that only deterministic algorithms are used to break paragraphs into lines and lines into pages, to ensure at least reasonable stability.

8 \def\x{}

Simple definition. This defines a macro ("control sequence" in proper words) which does not take an argument and expands to ... well ... nothing :) (Do not be confused: "nothing" is not "relax", they substantially different.)

7 $$a+b$$ or \[a+b\]

Two snippets that somehow produce the same output, it's a displayed equation showing simple

a + b

(just centred of course). The first is the correct thing to do in plain TeX. If only people knew how wrong it is in LaTeX, where the second one should be used!

6 \relax

TeX is one of the languages that have its own "do nothing" action. However, \relax is more than just that, and this is related to the fact that it is an expansion language: All macros are expanded, and in some contexts, executed. The power of \relax is that it is executed to nothing, but it cannot be expanded, i.e., it survives any expansion unmodified. This in turn is one of the strenghts (and threats at the same time, especially for newcomers) of TeX.

5 X\bye

A minimal document that compiles producing an output; we get a page with a 10-point "X" at the top and a centred page number "1" at the bottom. ... "X," said Tom, and added, leaving: "Bye!"

4 \bye

When you say "bye" to TeX, it finishes the document; namely it closes the current paragraph if any is open, ships out the last page, and ends. Without this command, no document can be successfully produced.

3 $a$

Prints the mathematical symbol "a", that can stand for instance for a variable, function or a constant. Without the dollars, it would be the text symbol "a"; it is necessary to distinguish these two!

2 <endline><endline>

Two consecutive ends of line finish a paragraph. (One end of line behaves like a space.)

1 %

The percent sign starts a comment; the comment runs until the end of line, and eats the end of line together with leading whitespace on the next line.

TeX

TeX was the first language to get its own StackExchange site.

(Note that we will show examples in plain TeX mostly; if any example is to be compiled using LaTeX, it will be clearly stated.)

8 \def\x{}

Simple definition. This defines a macro ("control sequence" in proper words) which does not take an argument and expands to ... well ... nothing :) (Do not be confused: "nothing" is not "relax", they substantially different.)

7 $$a+b$$ or \[a+b\]

Two snippets that somehow produce the same output, it's a displayed equation showing simple

a + b

(just centred of course). The first is the correct thing to do in plain TeX. If only people knew how wrong it is in LaTeX, where the second one should be used!

6 \relax

TeX is one of the languages that have its own "do nothing" action. However, \relax is more than just that, and this is related to the fact that it is an expansion language: All macros are expanded, and in some contexts, executed. The power of \relax is that it is executed to nothing, but it cannot be expanded, i.e., it survives any expansion unmodified. This in turn is one of the strenghts (and treats at the same time, especially for newcomers) of TeX.

5 X\bye

A minimal document that compiles producing an output; we get a page with a 10-point "X" at the top and a centred page number "1" at the bottom. ... "X," said Tom, and added, leaving: "Bye!"

4 \bye

When you say "bye" to TeX, it finishes the document; namely it closes the current paragraph if any is open, ships out the last page, and ends. Without this command, no document can be successfully produced.

3 $a$

Prints the mathematical symbol "a", that can stand for instance for a variable, function or a constant. Without the dollars, it would be the text symbol "a"; it is necessary to distinguish these two!

2 <endline><endline>

Two consecutive ends of line finish a paragraph. (One end of line behaves like a space.)

1 %

The percent sign starts a comment; the comment runs until the end of line, and eats the end of line together with leading whitespace on the next line.

TeX

TeX was the first language to get its own StackExchange site.

(Note that we will show examples in plain TeX mostly; if any example is to be compiled using LaTeX, it will be clearly stated.)

8 \def\x{}

Simple definition. This defines a macro ("control sequence" in proper words) which does not take an argument and expands to ... well ... nothing :) (Do not be confused: "nothing" is not "relax", they substantially different.)

7 $$a+b$$ or \[a+b\]

Two snippets that somehow produce the same output, it's a displayed equation showing simple

a + b

(just centred of course). The first is the correct thing to do in plain TeX. If only people knew how wrong it is in LaTeX, where the second one should be used!

6 \relax

TeX is one of the languages that have its own "do nothing" action. However, \relax is more than just that, and this is related to the fact that it is an expansion language: All macros are expanded, and in some contexts, executed. The power of \relax is that it is executed to nothing, but it cannot be expanded, i.e., it survives any expansion unmodified. This in turn is one of the strenghts (and threats at the same time, especially for newcomers) of TeX.

5 X\bye

A minimal document that compiles producing an output; we get a page with a 10-point "X" at the top and a centred page number "1" at the bottom. ... "X," said Tom, and added, leaving: "Bye!"

4 \bye

When you say "bye" to TeX, it finishes the document; namely it closes the current paragraph if any is open, ships out the last page, and ends. Without this command, no document can be successfully produced.

3 $a$

Prints the mathematical symbol "a", that can stand for instance for a variable, function or a constant. Without the dollars, it would be the text symbol "a"; it is necessary to distinguish these two!

2 <endline><endline>

Two consecutive ends of line finish a paragraph. (One end of line behaves like a space.)

1 %

The percent sign starts a comment; the comment runs until the end of line, and eats the end of line together with leading whitespace on the next line.