Product Description

A completely revised edition of this accessible guide to LATEX document preparation, bringing it up to date with the latest releases and Web and PC based developments. A Guide to LATEX covers the basics as well as advanced LATEX topics and contains numerous practical examples and handy tips for avoiding problems. More information coming soon.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64823 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

From the Back Cover

LaTeX is the text-preparation system of choice for scientists and academics, and is especially useful for typesetting technical materials. This popular book shows you how to begin using LaTeX to create high-quality documents. The book also serves as a handy reference for all LaTeX users. In this completely revised edition, the authors cover the LaTeX2ε standard and offer more details, examples, exercises, tips, and tricks. They go beyond the core installation to describe the key contributed packages that have become essential to LaTeX processing.

Inside, you will find:

• Complete coverage of LaTeX fundamentals, including how to input text, symbols, and mathematics; how to produce lists and tables; how to include graphics and color; and how to organize and customize documents
• Discussion of more advanced concepts such as bibliographical databases and BIBTeX, math extensions with AMS-LaTeX, drawing, slides, and letters
• Helpful appendices on installation, error messages, creating packages, using LaTeX with HTML and XML, and fonts
• An extensive alphabetized listing of commands and their uses

New to this edition:

• More emphasis on LaTeX as a markup language that separates content and form--consistent with the essence of XML
• Detailed discussions of contributed packages alongside relevant standard topics
• In-depth information on PDF output, including extensive coverage of how to use the hyperref package to create links, bookmarks, and active buttons

As did the three best-selling editions that preceded it, Guide to LaTeX, Fourth Edition, will prove indispensable to anyone wishing to gain the benefits of LaTeX.

The accompanying CD-ROM is part of the TeX Live set distributed by TeX Users Groups, containing a full LaTeX installation for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux, as well as many extensions, including those discussed in the book.

0321173856B10162003

About the Author

Helmut Kopka was previously a scientific staff member at the Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie in Germany. He was involved in writing one of the first TeX drivers for HP LaserJet and subsequently introduced TeX and LaTeX into his institute, where it has become the standard text-processing system for scientific publications.

Patrick W. Daly is a scientific staff member at the Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie in Germany. He has written formatting styles for several scientific journals and is the author of the natbib package for flexible bibliographic citations and of the custom-bib system for customizing bibliographic styles for use with BibTeX.

0321173856AB10162003

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A new edition to A Guide to LaTeX begs the fundamental question: Has LaTeX changed so much since the appearance of the third edition in 1999 that a new release of this book is justified?

The simple answer to that question is 'Well,. . . .' In 1994, the LaTeX world was in upheaval with the issue of the new version LaTeX2ε, and the second edition of the Guide came out just then to act as the bridge between the old and new versions. By 1998, the initial teething problems had been worked out and corrected through semiannual releases, and the third edition could describe an established, working system. However, homage was still paid to the older 2.09 version since many users still employed its familiar syntax, although they were most likely to be using it in a LaTeX2ε environment. LaTeX has now reached a degree of stability that since 2000 the regular updates have been reduced to annual events, which often appear months after the nominal date, something that does not worry anyone. The old version 2.09 is obsolete and should no longer play any role in such a book. In this fourth edition, it is reduced to an appendix just to document its syntax and usage.

But if LaTeX itself has not changed substantially since 1999, many of its peripherals have. The rise of programs such as pdfTeX and dvipdfm for PDF output adds new possibilities, which are realized, not in LaTeX directly, but by means of more modern packages to extend the basic features. The distribution of TeX/LaTeX installations has changed, such that most users are given a complete, ready-to-run setup, with all the 'extras' that previously had to be obtained separately. Those extras include user-contributed packages, many of which are now considered indispensable. Today 'the LaTeX system' includes much more than the basic kernel by Leslie Lamport, encompassing the contributions of hundreds of other people. This edition reflects this increase in breadth.

The changes to the fourth edition are mainly those of emphasis.

1. The material has been reorganized into 'Basics' and 'Beyond the Basics' ('advanced' sounds too intimidating) while the appendices contain topics that can be skipped by most everyday users. One exception: Appendix G is an alphabetized command summary that many people find extremely useful (including ourselves).
   
   This reorganizing is meant to stress certain aspects over others. For example, the section on graphics inclusion and color was originally treated as an exotic extra, relegated to an appendix on extensions; in the third edition, it was moved up to be included in a front chapter along with the picture environment and floats; now it dominates Chapter 8 all on its own, the floats come in the following Chapter 9, and picture is banished to the later Chapter 16. This is not to say that the picture features are no good, but only that they are very specialized. We add descriptions of additional drawing possibilities there too.


2. It is stressed as much as possible that LaTeX is a markup language, with separation of content and form. Typographical settings should be placed in the preamble, while the body contains only logical markup. This is in keeping with the modern ideas of XML, where form and content are radically segregated.


3. Throughout this edition, contributed packages are explained at the point in the text where they are most relevant. The fancyhdr package comes in the section on page styles, natbib where literature citations are explained. This stresses that these 'extensions' are part of the LaTeX system as a whole. However, to remind users that they must still be explicitly loaded, a marginal note is placed at the start of their descriptions.


4. PDF output is taken for granted throughout the book, in addition to the classical DVI format. This means that the added possibilities of pdfTeX and dvipdfm are explained where they are relevant. A separate Chapter 13 on PostScript and PDF is still necessary, and the hyperref package, the best interface for PDF output with all its bells and whistles, is explained in detail. PDF is also included in Chapter 17 on presentation material.
   
   On the other hand, the other Web output formats, HTML and XML, are only dealt with briefly in Appendix E, since these are large topics treated in other books, most noticeably the LaTeX Web Companion.


5. This book is being distributed with a modified version of one of the CDs from the TeX Live set. It contains a full TeX and LaTeX installation for Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux, plus many of the myriad extensions that exist. We once again express our hope that this Guide will prove more than useful to all those who wish to find their way through the intricate world of LaTeX. And with the addition of the included TeX Live CD, that world is brought even closer to their doorsteps.

Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly
September 2003

0321173856P11132003

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Customer Reviews

If you use LaTeX every day, this is the book to get
There are easier introductions to LaTeX (including many on-line from various university courses) but when it comes to doing difficult things this is the book. I have both the German version (3 volumes) and the 3rd English version of this. Typical German thoroughness -- a very extensive index, lists of commands and symbols, clear and concise explanations. As another reviewer says, it's not for the beginner. You can indeed learn LaTeX from this book (first several chapters are simpler) but it is oriented to the person using LaTeX all the time. Especially nice are the detailed explanations of tables, page layout, math mode (both standard LaTeX and AMSLaTeX). There's no disguising that it takes time and effort to get into LaTeX, but the results are well worth it. When you have a difficult usage question, this book will help you find the answer in minimum time.

The best guide for everyday use
For anyone coming to LaTeX from a background in mathematics many sources of help are available, but it is more difficult for someone coming to it from a feeling of dissatisfaction with the results obtainable with typical WYSIWYG word processors. When you are surrounded by people who think that Word is wonderful and that its equation editor can handle any equations you need, getting to the point with LaTeX where you can use it to advantage may seem more trouble than it is worth. You will probably start with Leslie Lamport's "LaTeX: a document preparation system", but although that is a good and authoritative start it is not really enough, as there is a great deal more to know than can be found in a short book, and in particular you need to know about all that is now available in the form of packages.

Fortunately there are some excellent sources of more detailed information, and two of these stand out: Kopka and Daly's "Guide to LaTeX" and Mittelbach and Goossens's "LaTeX Companion". I acquired both of these about six months ago, but decided to defer posting reviews until I had discovered by experience which of them I actually used more, and the winner is clearly Kopka and Daly, mainly because it is much the easier to find one's way around. It is quite adequate as a complete guide to LaTeX (i.e. you don't really need to start with Lamport, though it's probably a good idea if you do), as the opening chapter on "basics" really is about basics, and the book progresses from there in a reasonably gentle way..

How to find more reviews
This is a great book. I found it much easier to read than the other LaTeX books I looked at, most of which, in my opinion, are very poorly written. I came to rely on it very heavily as I wrote my thesis, and am very glad that I bought it. For more reviews on the book, do a search for "kopka daly latex" in the standard amazon search box. There are 23 reviews for the third edition, which should be relevant to this edition.