Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!copper!harlan From: harlan@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Pete Harlan) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: How can I get started with TeX? Message-ID: Date: 28 Feb 91 07:30:56 GMT References: <1671@hpwala.wal.hp.com> <21384@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1991Feb14.124926.14189@cs.dal.ca> Sender: news@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Indiana University Lines: 36 naren@cs.UAlberta.CA (Narendra Ravi) writes: >matheson@open.dal.ca (Steven Matheson) writes: >>I just recieved a copy of _LaTeX for Scientists and Engineers_, >>by David. J. Buerger (McGraw-Hill, 1990, ISBN 0-07-008845-4). >>These is the best general introduction to LaTeX I've ever seen. >And the page showing the typesetting layout is really >helpful. Things like that help a lot. A dissenting opinion---I found the above book to be just about worthless. It was my introduction to LaTeX, and even then it seemed to have no content. I then bought the Lamport book, which is up to the standard I had expected after reading Knuth's book. (A simultaneously trivial and terrible flaw of _LaTeX for Scientists and Engineers_ is the fact that the typesetting of the book is *awful*. Besides that, the English of the book lacks the precision of that in Knuth's and Lamport's books.) The three books I have and recommend: Knuth's _The TeXbook_ Lamport's _LaTeX [etc...]_ Abrahams's _TeX for the Impatient_ Basically, you need the first two, and the third is a really nice organization of the first. [This is all just my opinion of course. I learned TeX/LaTeX only in the last month, and have created documents with it on only a handful of occasions. I have read the four books I discuss, but no other books on the subject.] Pete Harlan harlan@copper.ucs.indiana.edu