A Guide to Latex: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users: Amazon.ca: Books

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22 Reviews

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4.3 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Good both for beginners and for advanced users., Aug 19 2003

By

QUERCIA ANTONIO (napoli Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to LATEX, A: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users (Paperback)

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Companion) are a bit outdated, so this is the book to buy now.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.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not a good advertisement for LaTeX, Jun 26 2003

By

Darren (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to LATEX, A: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users (Paperback)

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.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Ask for Anything More, Jan 20 2003

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Jason (Illinios) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to LATEX, A: Document Preparation for Beginners and Advanced Users (Paperback)

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!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The best LaTeX book
A superb book: everything you really need to know about LaTeX, impeccably organized and clearly expressed. A pleasure to read and to use.

Published on Jan 2 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Good reference but poorly organized.
Kopka and Daly do an excellent job covering the breadth of features found in LaTeX. Unfortunately, they try too hard to satisfy users of both the old and new system. Read more

Published on Aug 21 2002 by Norman Kabir