Anyone know LaTeX?

Can someone give me a clue here? So I have a large (200ish page), completely unfinished, LaTeX document left by my predecessor. At some point I need to figure out how to compile this monstrosity into a form that I can edit freely, or at least pdf. The document is comprised of about 50 .tex files with nonsensical filenames and a hundred or so images.

How do I figure out what is the "index" file? I.e. which file do I feed into the Latex compiler to generate the whole document? What syntax do I use with the compiler to get it to do the whole thing at once? I've so far had no luck even getting a single chapter into a readable format.

Can I compile this into e.g. OpenOffice or does it only go to a "hard" format like ps/pdf?

I'm doing this from the command line under Linux if it makes any difference. I've never used Latex before. It seems like an unholy PITA.

do you need to keep any formatting?

Try LyX. It's a GUI editor that outputs TeX and I believe it will be able to read and parse your index for you. In any case - the googles are your friend. It has been close to 15yrs since I used LaTeX so anything I have to say from memory is probably obsolete.

You will find that if you are doing the kinds of formatting where you use a lot of symbols and so forth (math textbooks, music, chemistry) that it is a fantastic tool with a steep learning curve. Don't think of it as a way to edit - text and formatting are separate. Think of it as typesetting. It outputs to PDF and PS because it is not designed to be a content editor - it holds instructions about pagination, symbols and placement. Ideally, you should find the actual content in a separate file from the actual TeX instructions (because that supports multiple output "types" like HTML, PDF and hardcopy).

I wrote my senior thesis on LaTeX, but I don't remember it a bit. My profs wanted us to use some wysiwyg editor, but I got PO'ed at it and learned the formatting language. Then I never used it again.

What I know about latex doesn't involve documents.

slantvaliant wrote: What I know about latex doesn't involve documents.

And that's is why searching for help on google for this sort of issue is so much fun.

Unfortunately it's been 10-12 years since I've used it, and don't remember enough to help. Sorry.

I wrote my first rsume in La tex. what are you trying to do? Can you share teh file with us? I can probably format it.