Kile is an integrated L^AT_EX environment for the KDE desktop. Kile gives you the ability to use all the functionalities of L^AT_EX in a graphical interface, giving you easy, immediate, and customised access to all programs for L^AT_EX compiling, postprocessing, debugging, conversion and viewing tools; you also get very handy wizards, a L^AT_EX reference, interfaces with GnuPlot and XFig, and project management.

L^AT_EX is a text-processing system derived from T_EX, a program developed originally in 1977 by Donald Knuth to help authors layout their work professionally, obtaining a work similar to a typesetter's; the typesetter is the professional that styles a document's look according to specifications for the type of document. L^AT_EX was created by Leslie Lamport to give authors an automatic typesetter, especially when it came to the expensive and painstaking typesetting of mathematical formulas and expressions, that by no chance are enclosed in dollar signs in L^AT_EX. Today, word-processing programs let any user be the typesetter; but what you often want is a document that looks good, not one that you spent hours on to make it look good. L^AT_EX takes that burden, and lets you think of the document, not of the layout. And yes, it will look good!

There is a funny traditions of T_EX-related packages to have the strangest pronounciation and typesetting possible. T_EX was supposed to be brought in from the greek τεχ, in latin letters tech. There are a lot of explanations why, but most likely it's because L^AT_EX was originally conceived for technical reports, and indeed its foremost ability was the correct and easy typesetting of mathematical formulae, then an extremely expensive, time-consuming and frustrating business.

The pronounciation is supposed to be as follows: T as you would expect, E as in get, and X as in the German ich. If you don't know what ch sounds like, it is more or less as an hissing cat; the IPA symbol is /ç/. Many people report the different pronounciation of ach (IPA symbol /x/), but I have personally asked some Greeks, and can confirm the first version. You should be aware that a lot of people mispronounce /teks/ or /tek/.

Last, in L^AT_EX the first L^A is pronounced as lay: the idea is that, while raw T_EX is difficult, even a layman can use L^AT_EX macros. A less inspiring, but more realistic explanation is that it stems from the surname of Leslie Lamport, the creator of L^AT_EX. Now you know!