[Tex/LaTex] best way to mention that a document has been typeset with TeX

best practiceslatex-miscteachingtypography

Is there any common way to mention that a document has been typeset by TeX? So non-TeXnicians (TeXperts) may become a little familiar with the TeX world.

Update: It would be nice if one hero make a package that insert such information in a beauty and concise manner in a given language, so even lazy TeXnicians will credit TeX . For example:

...
\usepackage{colophon}
...
\colophon[language=fa,packages=bibtex,xepersian]
...

Best Answer

TeXies have a good chance of recognizing TeXed documents, especially if Computer Modern (or Latin Modern) is used. But assuming you want to convert Word-users and other heathens, figuratively speaking, you could use a colophon, a "brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book" (Wikipedia). Some of the theses listed at Showcase of beautiful typography done in TeX & friends have such notes:

This thesis was typeset using the LaTeX typesetting system originally developed by Leslie Lamport, based on TeX created by Donald Knuth.

(Eivind Uggedal)

Typeset by the author in Fedra Serif B using LaTeX. Cover design by Sam Ross-Gower.

(Michael Ummels)

And here's a particularly pretty one:

Colophon. This document was created using LaTeX2ε and BibTeX and edited in the Mac-Vim environment with the LaTeX-vim plug-in. The typesettings software used the XeTeX distribution and the fontspec package. The text is set in Hoefler Text and Candara. The source code is set in Consolas. The animal depicted on the cover is a common eland (taurotragus oryx). The original photograph was taken from flickr.com/photos/paulmullett/505797443/ and is used and modified with permission under the Creative Commons “by-nc” license. The author of the original picture is Paul Mullett.

(Konrad Rudolph)

Here's another cool one from The Book of Tea by Okakura Kazuko as typeset by William Adams. Part of this book can be found as an example of TeX typography in the TeX showcase.

Colophon. Typeset in Octavian, by David Kindersley. by Dr. Donald Knuth’s TeX system. Printed on Crane’s Crest paper. with a NeXT Laserprinter. by an ’040 NeXT Cube. Converted to .pdf. by pStill.app.

If you actually want to get people started by your notes (and not just potentially curious), I'd point them to Tobias Oetiker's The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2ε, and – obviously – to tex.sx.