Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!texsun!digi!kgallagh
From: kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org (Kevin Gallagher)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re:  The Books
Message-ID: <1991Feb22.165234.8830@digi.lonestar.org>
Date: 22 Feb 91 16:52:34 GMT
References: <9102212329.AA18023@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX
Lines: 36

In article <9102212329.AA18023@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu> xiaofei@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU writes:
>For TeX Book ``Be sure to get 17th printing or later (Jan. 1990) or
>later; the earlier printings don't cover the new features of TeX. ''
>quoted from ``TeX for the Impatient''.
> 

It's the 17th printing or later of the SOFT COVER edition of The
TeXbook that applies to TeX 3.0.  If you wish to obtain the HARD COVER
edition of the TeXbook, you want the 9th printing or later.  "TeX for
the Impatient" appears to have assumed that Addison-Wesley kept the
soft cover and hard cover printings in sync.  They did not, because
the soft cover edition out sells the hard cover edition by quite a
bit.  In any case, when your book store orders the new copies of The
TeXbook for you, be sure to tell them that they MUST specify to their
distributor that the earlier printings are NOT acceptable.  There are
still many copies of the older printings in the distribution
pipelines.

The confusion here is caused by the fact that the adding of TeX 3.0
changes to the book appears to have been viewed as "corrections" to
the existing edition, and not worthy of declaring the release of a
second edition of The TeXbook.  Given that the TeX 3.0 additions found
in the soft cover 17th printing do not amount to whole lot, this seems
quite reasonable.  But it does causes problems for those trying to 
locate what they think should be a new edition of the book.

I believe I read somewhere that volumes B, C, and D are being (or have
been) updated for TeX 3.0, but I could be wrong.  I do know that when
I puchased my copy of the hard cover, 9th printing, of The TeXbook,
updated volumes B, C, and D were NOT available.

-- 
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Kevin Gallagher        kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org OR ...!uunet!digi!kgallagh
DSC Communications Corporation   Addr: MS 152, 1000 Coit Rd, Plano, TX 75075
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