I know LaTeX and I've heard that LaTeX is a set of macros in TeX.
But what does it exactly mean?
[Tex/LaTex] the difference between TeX and LaTeX
latex-misctex-core
Related Solutions
First, Mike's answer is quite good. I will mostly expand on it and provide more details.
TeX
TeX is a language (a full programming language, actually) for typesetting documents. It originally output to a format called DVI which could then be converted to PostScript, PDF, etc.; more recent versions can output directly to PDF. You write a document with TeX instructions in it, and the TeX system will convert it into printable material.
TeX is used for a wide variety of documents, particularly in science and academia. Most people use it for things that other people would likely use Word for; however, the quality of its results are more on a par with InDesign or other major document layout packages, far superior what word processors generally yield. Designing specialized or ad-hoc document formats such as brochures, however, is probably easier with InDesign or QuarkXPress (although it is not impossible to do so in TeX/LaTeX).
TeX itself is quite low-level.
LaTeX
LaTeX is a macro package written in and for TeX that provides commands and defaults for writing larger documents at a higher level, taking care of things like sectioning, tables of contents, etc. In my experience, most TeX users do not write low-level TeX directly, but rather use LaTeX. LaTeX is not the only such package, though; ConTeXt is another macro package with a different design philosophy, but it sits at a similar level to LaTeX.
Usage
TeX and LaTeX are very widespread in some portions of academia, such as mathematics and computer science, due to its superb support for mathematical formulas. I have also heard that it is popular in some other disciplines as well, such as linguistics.
I think a resume is more typesetting than word processing, so I would not use MS Word or OOo Writer. One could use Indesign or a free layout program.
Often resumes contain text in columns. Text in narrow columns is hard to wrap--TeX does a good job here. For even better justification use
microtype
with pdfLaTeX. I think with microtype the chance to avoid big gaps or lots of hyphenation is better than with word processors.It's good if the resume matches the covering letter. Since LaTeX is great for letters, for example with the scrlttr2 class, it would naturally be a good choice for the resume.
There are specialized LaTeX classes. Though I prefer a class matching the class for the covering letter, such as scrartcl together with scrlttr2. tabularx does already good work then.
A resume can be used for many years in your working life, it will grow with the time. LaTeX is stable and remains mostly compatible, so you can reuse your resume when you apply for the next job in 10 years. Imagine, you would have used Works or Starwriter many years ago... you would require old software and an old operating system to reuse an old word processing document. With LaTeX it would be much easier.
ConTeXt, which is based on TeX, gives you even more control over typesetting.
On TeX tips, written by John D. Cook, I found a link where Dan McGee shares his experiences:
LaTeX résumé Follow-up including a template and an example pdf
While looking what others say to this question, I found Matthew M. Boedicker's Tips together with links to resume templates and examples on
- LaTeX Resume Examples by Derek Hildreth.
Best Answer
TeX is both a program (which does the typesetting, tex-core) and format (a set of macros that the engine uses, plain-tex). Looked at in either way, TeX gives you the basics only. If you read the source for The TeXBook, you'll see that Knuth wrote more macros to be able to typeset the book, and made a format for that.
LaTeX is a generalised set of macros to let you do many things. Most people don't want to have to program TeX, especially to set up things like sections, title pages, bibliographies and so on. LaTeX provides all of that: these are the 'macros' that it is made up of.