Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!gatech!prism!ne201ph
From: ne201ph@prism.gatech.EDU (Halvorson,Peter J)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: How can I get started with tex?
Keywords: texinfo
Message-ID: <21384@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 6 Feb 91 23:01:50 GMT
References: <1671@hpwala.wal.hp.com>
Distribution: comp.text.tex
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 46

My mailer couldn't figure out an address for you ( neither could I).

In article <1671@hpwala.wal.hp.com> humphrys@hpwalk.UUCP (John Humphrys) writes:
>Can anyone help get me started. I want to learn tex but don't know where to
>start. 
>
>1. Where can I ftp the sources?

The best site to get the sources is probably wuarchive.wustl.edu.
Other sites with good supporting files and hacks are ymir.claremont.edu,
sun.soe.clarkson.edu, and labrea.stanford.edu.

>2. Any documentation or good texts?

You can choose to use different brands of TeX, the simplest and most
complete is LaTeX.  The best manual for LaTeX is A Document Preperation
System LaTeX, by Leslie Lamport.  The basic TeX is documented by The
TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth, and TeX for the Impatient ( I don't know the
author).  The TeXbook is the complete reference, but TeX for the Impatient
does a better job of teaching you what you should know.  You can do anything
in TeX, but you will have to do more work putting together a working set 
of functions.  There is also AMSTeX, which is somewhere in between TeX and
LaTeX.  It is produced by the American Mathematical Society, and is 
supposed to be particularly good for math and equations.  I'd choose LaTeX
because it will do a lot, as easily as possible ( equations, tables, figures,
bibliographies, citations, footnotes, section headings, tables of contents, 
figures, and tables, and everything else I've had to do).

>3. I can run it at work on hp9000/300 workstation, but does it run on pcs.
>

There are 3 or 4 pd versions running on PCs.  emTeX is the one I use ( and
think is the best).  emTeX can be anonymous ftp'd from ymir.  The ftp sites
above have most of the options.

>thanks,
>	john

You're welcome.


-- 
              Peter Halvorson   --    Nuclear Engineering Program
          Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
    uucp:    ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ne201ph
Internet: ne201ph@prism.gatech.edu  --   peter@fission.gatech.edu