What really happens when you click the "LaTeX" button…

  1. A new file, named equation.tex, is created in a unique temporary directory inside /tmp. This file consists of:
  2. LaTeX is then run on equation.tex,generating the file equation.dvi (among others).
  3. The program dvips is run, converting the DVI file to PostScript.
  4. The program epstopdf is run, converting the PostScript file to PDF.
  5. If all the above occurred without an error, then the PDF file is displayed in the graphic area.
Why all the above? Because: