Lshort started as a translation and rationalisation of a ground-breaking German-language introduction to LaTeX. It has since taken on a momentum of its own, and has itself been translated into a number of languages. Thus we have introductory text available to a wide proportion of the user community. The archive holds versions in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .

The author is Tobias Oetiker.