Customer Reviews

A Guide to Latex: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been using LaTeX for over five years (cut my eyeteeth on TeX, though, thank you very much). I've just signed on to help typeset a calculus textbook, and knew that it was time to get serious about programming. I had a 3 inch stack of documentation from various corners of the internet in my office, but no book that I had paid for--my old LaTeX book from circa 1994 had been stolen.

I was all set to buy two books--Lamport's original and The LaTeX Ccmpanion. After all, you wouldn't read another TeX book but Knuth's, would you? Then I saw this book.

Though certainly not for the advanced programmer (like, on the .cls level), this book is great for the beginning programmer (creating .sty files) and intermediate user (hacking .sty files). The reference bits are very useful--"What's the syntax of that command again?" But the examples in the earlier part of the book are even better for programming-by-plaigiarism. There's even a bit on docstrip so you can be a real LaTeX programmer.

I don't think I'll buy another book on LaTeX for another five years.

Any book that claims to cater for beginners and advanced users alike has quite a task ahead of it and I don't believe this guide to LaTeX does justice to either category of user.

The true nature of this 616 page beast is spelt out in chapter 1, where the reader is advised that the book "is designed for LaTeX users who have little or no experience with computers" and that there exists "considerable repetition in the text". Unless you have a solid week to spare and the memory of a gold fish this book has the potential to be incredibly frustrating. Instead of being immersed in worthwhile examples demonstrating the true power of LaTeX, the reader is forced to trawl through paragraph after paragraph of verbose explanation. Worse still, with minimal imagination employed in presentation, the fact that this book was typeset using LaTeX doesn't inspire confidence - helpful hints supposedly written in a smaller typeface to make them distinct, simply disappear into the sea of sentences.

There are many LaTeX references out there to chose from, but inevitably all books in the market place must be compared with texts by Goossens et al (400 pages, published 1994) and LaTeX developer Lamport (272 pages, published 1994). Other reviewers have correctly pointed out that this book covers more than others combined. The plethora of appendices is dense but in some cases not as useful as would first appear. For instance, one table included contains a complete list of possible PostScript fonts, great you say, until you notice that they're all displayed in the same font! However, combining this unrivalled brevity with the fact that LaTeX is updated on an annual basis and it's not hard to see why you might opt for a book published in 1999, which is larger and relatively priced to both alternative books published in 1994.

With a LaTeX 3 version in the pipeline and with the internet offering a number of compact LaTeX HOWTO's and quick references (most notably "The Not-So-Short Guide to LaTeX"), a wise alternative might be to arm yourself with a downloaded guide and actually learn through trying (inevitably making your fair share of mistakes along the way) and to hold off to see what the next generation of published LaTeX references have to offer.

I use LaTeX on a daily basis and wrote a textbook (Numerical Methods for Physics) using it. With a bookshelf full of LaTeX books, this is always the first one I look at and 98% of the time, the only one I need. Excellent. (Note: Review for Second Edition)

I had to write an extremely formula intensive paper with loads of archane mathematical symbols, and I had no previous knowledge of TeX or LaTeX. Without this book, I'd still be formatting that paper. Almost everything I needed to know about LaTeX, I learned in about an afternoon and a half from this well organized treatment of LaTeX. "A Guide..." is filled with usefull examples, explains the important concepts and features clearly and concisely, and provides an extensive appendix covering most of the features of LaTeX. I chose Kopka's "Guide" over the Lamport book because Kopka seems to provide a more comprehensive coverage of the language and the organization better fit my needs. However, I don't think you can go wrong with either book.

This book is the best LaTeX book I know of. Its breadth and depth of information is superior to any other book I know of and the book is easy to understand.

I first reach for _A Guide to LaTeX_, my second choice is _The LaTeX Companion_, my last choice is _LaTeX: A Document Preparation System_.

My advice: buy this book, if it doesn't answer all your questions buy _The LaTeX Companion_.

This is an updated tutorial and also a very good reference manual.
I have the full set of official LaTeX books
(the Lamport's manual, The LaTeX Companion, The LaTeX Graphics Companion,
and The LaTeX Web Companion),
and also this Kopka-Daly book, and the Hoenig book.
The official LaTeX 'basic' books (the Lamport's manual and the LaTeX
Companion) are a bit outdated, so this is the book to buy now.
If you are a beginner, this is the book for you, because it covers
from the basics to advanced topics.
If you are not a beginner, you will benefit from it, because it's updated,
it's a good trade-off between a too simple basic manual and an advanced one,
and because it has very useful parts, like Error Messages, Programming,
and a very good and unique Command Summary chapter that is truly special.

Back when I started using LaTeX, I bought this book expecting it to be a good guide along the way.

That was two years ago, and now I have to say that it is not only the best tutorial/reference on LaTeX, it is also the most well-worn book in my vast collection of computer literature. Only recently did I stop finding the answers I was looking for in this book, and that is because I have (I believe) matured to an advanced LaTeX user.

This book covers everything you need to know as you're starting out: basic usage of everything, basic font changing, basic graphics, tables, letters, bibliographies, mathematics, and basic programming. If you're starting out and you have a question, the answer is in this book. I've flipped through Leslie Lamport's book, and I found it to be too sparse of an introduction. This book is for the hardcore user, the one who wants to do all his English papers in something more powerful and at the same time faster.

This book showed me that text processing really can replace word processing. After you see the output, you'll be in love. What sets this book apart is that it really is what the title says: for beginning AND advanced users. No one is left out. Definitely pick it over the other introductions, because it will be with you for the long haul.

This latex book is so comprehensible for the simple user with advanced expectations, that you will soon come to understand how difficult to use MS-Word truly is, if you want to do the same advanced typsetting as explained in a simple to follow fashion in this book. And the best: This book guides you as you improve you latex skills and will be a true companion as a reference book.

You can't expect anything more from a book on this subject. It is suitable for a beginner that doesn't know a thing about LaTeX, but also includes details on important advanced features like BibTeX and makeindex. Perhaps most importantly in the long run, the excellent index and detailed appendices make this a valuable reference. I use LaTeX all the time and this book is never far from my side!

See my review below (May 9,2000) where I commented how Word does a lot of things LaTeX does. It has got so many negative votes (3/26) that I decided to update the info. Here goes..

First and foremost, this book is not something you should start learning from. I started learning it in May and became fully comfortable using it for a lot of things by mid-october. So if you plan to write a thesis using it, don't jump in. Consider the following things before starting using it:

a) Does your thesis/dissertation have a lot of formulas and mathematics? This is where Word is weak, but be sure to investigate alternatives like Scientific Word. b) Are you willing to put in a lot of effort learning the package? The rewards are well worth it, but it is also probable that you will be frustrated a lot.

This book proved an invaluable reference for me once I knew the basics. But I can honestly say that I *did not* learn from it. My major source of learning was the internet (for basic info) and the comp.text.tex newsgroup where beginners' questions are answered very promptly by experts.

By the way, I did finish writing my thesis using LaTeX and it looks beautiful.