Latex: A Document Preparation System

by Leslie Lamport

Book Overview

This user's guide and reference for the LaTeX computer typesetting system has been revised to document features available in release LaTeX2e. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201529831
• ISBN13: 9780201529838
• Release Date: June 1994
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The LaTeX book

If you are going to use LaTeX, you have to own this book. What more can be said?

The best way to learn LaTeX. Not an exhaustive reference

If you are a LaTeX beginner and need to learn the basics, this is probably the best way to do it. Please disregard the low scores given to this book by other reviewers who were disappinted by the level of detail. (Since I am an author of an introductory book myself, this sort of thoughtless on the part of those reviewers really irritates me. A book isn't a bad book just because you didn't read the book description and you thought it was going to be about something else.) The book has a specific purpose, as an introduction and a reference for the base LaTeX packages. It's only 288 pages (compare to The LaTeX Companion at 1120 pages, or Guide to LaTeX at 624 pages). The reference section it has is a reference for the base LaTeX software, not all of the hundreds of packages that have been written for it since 1994 when the book was published. I give it a five star rating for the purpose it was written. If you want an exhaustive reference to all the packages, try The LaTeX Companion (or dig around on the internet). If you want an excellent introduction to basic LaTeX, the numerous tutorials on the Internet are *not* as good as this book. There is one very important missing piece from this book - there aren't any key-by-key instructions. That's because LaTeX is used on so many different systems. So an absolute beginner might be surprised to find this information missing. Luckily, this is exactly the sort of information that is more easily found on the Internet.

Essential for Use of LaTeX

I started using LaTeX (and TeX) over 15 years ago. I was dissatisfied with the way that Word handled equations (it didn't then) and sought software that would typeset my technical text and mathematics well. A friend and colleague introduced me to LaTeX. I bought a copy of Lamport's book, a PC port of the software, and started using LaTeX to set my work. I've been using LaTeX ever since. I use it for everything I write, with the exception of a few works that require me to use Word, either because my colleagues use it or the research sponsor requires it. Recently, one of my principal research sponsors began accepting PDF format reports, so I may escape one more instance of using Word. That pleases me. But, I digress. LaTeX is a set of macros (programs) that implement a variety of styles in the TeX language. Use of LaTeX is through a number of mark-up commands (in the same fashion that web documents are set with HTML mark-up) that are applied to textual elements of a document. Most of your LaTeX documents comprise your text. A small amount of text will be allocated to LaTeX mark-up. This book provides the necessary instruction for learning to use LaTeX. It is written for technical users, but not computer experts. That is, Lamport expects the users of the software to have a technical background because that's the goal of the software -- to set technical documents. But he doesn't expect the reader to be a computer expert. The book is manageable in length too. It is not so long as to require multiple sittings to work through it. Once familiar with the content, it is fairly easy to find what you are looking for in the text. The index is complete and useful. When using Lamport, I'm reminded of Kernighan and Ritchie (The C Programming Language) -- Lamport has a similar kind of easy flow to the text. While the material is not easy, Lamport's book does a good job of conveying use of a highly technical piece of software in a readable fashion. If you are going to use LaTeX, you will want a copy of this book. You will also want a copy of Mittelbach and others LaTeX Companion (2nd edition) to help use the plethora of add-on packages available for LaTeX. So, download a install of TeX (and LaTeX -- Google the TeX User's Group) for your computer, buy a copy of Lamport (and Mittelbach and others), read through Lamport, and start playing with LaTeX. If you write technical documents that require mathematics, you'll find LaTeX very useful. When you find yourself writing longer documents, the ability to automatically generate tables of contents, lists of figures and tables, bibliographies, and indices will make the software all the more valuable and the time invested learning to use it well-spent. Welcome to the world of LaTeX. Don't forget to join the TeX User's Group and support development of the software!

A canonical classic

Much like K & R's "C Programming Language", economy (and precision) of words characterize this book. There's little fat or fluff in this slim volume but is packed with usable information. And, as one might expect, it is beautifully typeset. Don't let the aging copyright deter you, if you're serious about document processing, this is one book you need to add to your collection. Thanks to Lamport, I have used LaTeX to prepare professional-quality documenation giving little (if any) thought to how it looks so that I can concentrate on clarity and content.

It was Latex, when we had no Word

LATEX, or TEX before, was the main way to create propper looking printed papers at the universities. Many of the LATEX users have since moved to Microsoft Word (with Endnotes). Nevertheless, LATEX makes it possible to create great documents from an ascii editor. There is also a small programm called lyx, now also klyx, which is a wysiwyg editor, which produces LATEX output.This particular LATEX book is by written by the creator of LATEX, which rests, of course, above Knuths TEX. One can learn and look up LATEX in this book very well. It starts from scratch and makes one capable of creating medium complex documents. Still, one needs "The LATEX Companion", as well, which has double the size on goes into all the details needed for profesional work with LATEX.