LaTeX (/ˈlɑːtɛx/ LAH-tekh or /ˈleɪtɛx/ LAY-tekh[1] shortening of Lamport TeX) is a document preparation system and document markup language. It is widely used for the communication and publication of scientific documents in many fields, including mathematics, physics, computer science, statistics, economics, and political science.[2] It also has a prominent role in the preparation and publication of books and articles that contain complex multilingual materials, such as Sanskrit and Arabic, including critical editions.[3] LaTeX uses the TeX typesetting program for formatting its output, and is itself written in the TeX macro language. LaTeX is not the name of a particular editing program, but refers to the encoding or tagging conventions that are used in LaTeX documents.