Product Description
A complete tutorial introduction for anyone who needs to learn how to use TeX. Appendices. 10 illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For a Professional Impatient
This book offer you a real cutoof for type your technical documents, andstimulate you to study in depth TeX. No more excuse for type my document with a professional style. . . This a serious book with a good, but notedious, technical support and can be the fastest reference guide ... Read more

Product Description
An essential new guide for TEX usersTEX is a powerful typesetting language and processing environment developed by Professor Donald Knuth at Stanford University in the early 1980s. Its machine-independence has made it a defacto standard for text processing with microcomputers throughout the scientific and engineering communities.While there have been several TEX-based macro packages developed over the years, Modern TEX and its Applications focuses on the original macro package designed by Knuth upon which all other TEX programs are based-Plain TEX. All of the basic topics for understanding the TEX user environment are covered, including fonts and characters, formatting, math mode, macros, terminal and file operations, tables, and foreign language capabilities. A PC-compatible disk containing examples, extra typefaces and even a ready-to-run restricted version of TEX is included with the book.Modern TEX and its Applications is an essential guide for all scientists, engineers, technicians, and support staff who prepare technical text and documents using a version of TEX. ... Read more

Product Description
Literate programming is a programming methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, making programs more robust, more portable, and more easily maintained than programs written only in a high-level language. Computer programmers already know both kinds of languages; they need only learn a few conventions about alternating between languages to create programs that are works of literature. A literate programmer is an essayist who writes programs for humans to understand, instead of primarily writing instructions for machines to follow. When programs are written in the recommended style they can be transformed into documents by a document compiler and into efficient code by an algebraic compiler. This anthology of essays from the inventor of literate programming includes Knuth's early papers on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the Computer Journal article that launched literate programming itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great Book; Easy, expedient Ordering
This is, indeed, a great book.I had read several reviews and decided to pick this one as my into to Literate Programming.I was not dissatisfied.This is a very good book and I love reading Knuth's works.I have all the volumes of his The Art of Programming (the original 3 volumes I got just before I graduated from Graduate School and have, in the intervening 35 years, found them to be a steady, reliable and wonderful reference...a great source of information.Knuth is a very accessible, readable author.This book on Literate Programming (a series of monographs by the author presenting) follows in the tradition and do not disappoint the reader who enjoys Knuth.

One of the things I most like about ordering through Amazon is their teamwork with a wonderful group of 3rd party suppliers.I have not been dissatisfied with any that I have worked through and this one was no excpetion.They supplier was quick and thorough in processing the order and, in my experience, live up to the fine standards that I have always had with Amazon and their partners.I am most pleased with the service and ease of ordring.

A book of historial value
This book is a collection of articles Prof. Knuth
wrote about programming. He promoted a particular
programming methodology called "literate
programming", which weaves comments into codes and
make them more readable and easier to maintain. This
book was published in 1992, but Chapter 4, "Literate
Programming", was originally published in 1984,
which was an idea way ahead of his time (JavaDoc was
first released in 1998, 12 years after the Knuth's
article). Chapter one is Knuth's Turing Award
lecture and still worth reading for his view on why
programming is an art. I was wrongly impressed that
Knuth is a very theoretical people and doesn't do
much programming. As you would discover from these
lecture and other articles in the book, he indeed
did a lot of programming and arguably in a very
clever and beautiful way, "the program of which I
personally am most pleases and proud is a compiler
I once wrote for a primitive minicomputer that had
only 4096 words of memory, 16 bites per word
(pg. 10)." The discussion about the "goto" statement
in Chapter 3 is not relevant in today's programming
and computer environment. The last few chapters are
more like manuals of the WEB and CWEB programs (C
version of WEB), which are the programs generating
documents and source codes. These manuals may not
interest readers unless they are well motivated to
write program "literally." One gem should not be
missed is is Chapter 10, "The Errors of TeX" (and
the accompanying Chapter 11, "The Error Log of
TeX). Seeing how Prof. Knuth meticulously documented
all of his bugs in TeX is just amazing. Overall this
book is more of historical value and for people who
love Knuth and his work on literate programming.

A fundamentally new view of programming.
This book is the only one that I can say has truly changed my view of software development.

The premise of this book matches my experience: technical communication with people is critical, and harder than communicating with the machines. Knuth carries that idea forward by one bold, logical step: in Literate Programming (LP), the main goal is to get technical ideas across to people. Programs are a co-product of the description process. This inverts the premise of JavaDoc and the like, in which human communication is incidental to the code.

A literate program, by the way, reads like a standard human document, whether an essay or an IEEE standard specification. JavaDoc output reads like an HTML dump of a cross-linked tree data structure - which it is. JavaDoc serves a valuable purpose, but does not permit system description in the order required by human reasoning.

My own experience with LP (a custom system) was very happy - I actually reached the "impossible" goal of true requirements traceability. I unified the system requirements, design, multi-language implementation, configuration control, and even tests under one document set. With HTML output, traceability was made real using interactive links. Anywhere else, traceability is mostly wishful thinking shared by the many owners of physically disconnected documents. (Process gurus - I hope you're paying attention.)

LP practice, however, has not caught on. LP, in today's form, does not support programming in the large. What LP does to the compilable form of a program brings C++ name-mangling to mind. I don't know of any WYSIWYG LP systems, so today's window-icon-mouse-pointer (WIMP) programmers will have nothing to do with it. And, ironically, the people who need the most support in communicating with their peers are the ones most resistant to tools for effective communication.

It's a grand vision and an exciting experiment. LP deserves more attention.

Web <> Javadoc
There's a common misconception that Webs are analagous to technologies like Javadoc. The latter is effectively a fancy prettyprinter. The former is that, and more. A well-written web actually presents a program in a way that makes sense to the reader while providing a means to make that program also make sense to the computer. The idea being that you would be able to write code that looks like: for(i=0; i@;} so that you can defer exactly what processing an array element entails until a point where it makes sense. Since these redirections are handled by a preprocessor, there's no cost at run-time for doing that like there would be if the code were written with a function call.

Arguing for an aesthetic appreciation of programming
Writing computer programs is easy, writing programs that are useful is hard and writing programs that are very useful as well as correct sometimes seems impossible. Knuth takes this truism even further and offers up theradical notion that the very best programs are so profound that people willone day read them as one would a piece of classic literature. If the ideaof curling up by the fire with a copy of The World's Greatest Programs andspending the night in a state of rapture seems absurd, you think as I did.However, after reading this book, my mind now concedes the possibility doesexist. After all, most of the great works of literature describe actions,conditions and solutions (algorithms) to problems of human-human andsometimes human-god interactions. Science fiction writers and readers haveknown for a long time that computers are very interesting objects.Buildings, paintings or other works of art are often admired not only fortheir subjective beauty, but also for the talent that it took to createthem. Programming ability can be admired just as easily.
However, anextremely large technical barrier exists, in that programming languages areliteral, terse and lack flair. Knuth works to eliminate this problem bycombining the programming and documentation languages into a structurecalled a WEB. He also adopts the reverse paradigm that a program should bean explanation to humans of what the computer is doing. The result doeswonders for readability and introduces a bit of flair. Certainly, this is agood first step towards Knuth's ideal.
The development of TEX ischronicled in great detail. It is personally comforting to read about someof the errors made in its development. Learning that the great ones makeerrors provides emotional security to all who hack for fun and/or profit.Some classic programming problems are used to demonstrate exactly whatliterate programming is meant to be. Jon Bentley, author of the`Programming Pearls' section of "Communications of the ACM", contributestwo chapters that were co-authored with Donald Knuth. These pearlsdemonstrate the applications of literate programming to common codingproblems. All are presented in a clear, easy-to-understand style.
Abit of clever humor is also used. A WEB program is constructed from twodistinct components. The Weave part explains what the program is doing, andthe Tangle component produces the program. Of course, this suggests theline from Sir Walter Scott's poem Marmion, "O what a tangled web we weave,when first we practice to deceive."
I do not know whether to considerthis book the product of a dreamer or a visionary. The truth, like most ofthe work of pioneers, is no doubt somewhere in between. My opinion is thatit is more vision than dream. And is that not a common theme among thegreatest works of art and literature?

Published in Mathematics andComputer Education, reprinted with permission. ... Read more

Product Description
TeX. Metafont, Typeface, The Art of Computer Programming, List of document markup languages, Comparison of document markup languages, Texvc, New Typesetting System, LaTeX, MIME, Donald Knuth ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Are these people serious?
$49 for 76 pages of printouts of Wikipedia articles?

Why would anyone pay for this?Save some trees, and your money. Avoid. ... Read more

Product Description
This book introduces device-independent tools for drawing figures and creating macro programs from within TeX and LATeX. Intended for a mid-level audience, the volume explores the concepts behind the creation of macros, offers tutorials on how to use them effectively, and provides all the related source code in handy appendices. ... Read more

Product Description
For all TeX users who want to learn to program complicated macros themselves, TeX By Topic is an invaluable resource. The book is packed with highly original, practical, and useful ideas along with detailed explanations of the mechanisms underlying each TeX macro. Includes a thorough cross reference system. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This book now available online for free.
This book is now available online for free at the author's web site, since it is out of print.Downloads are provided in PDF format. ... Read more

Product Description
TeX is now widely used for computer typesetting in mathematics, science, and engineering. This book is a carefully paced, tutorial introduction for people first learning the system. Special emphasis is given to what can go wrong, and how to fix it when it does. LaTeX notes are provided for use with a set of macros. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An Excellent TeX Reference Book But Not A Complete Tutorial
This has been an excellent reference book while I have been learning TeX. However, this book finds itself wanting in that there should be a complete example of a work TeX file. I had to go looking on the internet for examples of a working file. I would still recommend this book to anyone who is learning TeX as it is chocked full of great information.

The fastest way to get started with TeX
Remember: This is a book about TeX, not LaTeX! If it is TeX you want towork with, this book will get you started at no time at all. This is not atex reference, and it's not the only book on tex you'll need. But it willdo two good things for you:

- It will get you writing high-level texquickly.

- It will get you to do tex the RIGHT way, so that you won'thave to re-write the bulk of your tex later...

And you can write tex theright way -- right away! The right way to write tex is to treat it like amarkup language, and to write plenty of macros for any kind of tagging youneed. Then, later, you can play with your macros to give your document thelook you want. But as long as you use tex macros to markup your document,you don't even need to know HOW to get the formatting effect you want --you can add this later, you can get someone else to help you, etc. Thisbook is so valuable because it will force you to write macros right fromthe start, and use them as markup tags, to give meaning to your document.The fancy formatting will come later, when you've mastered the language.

TeX fo the Beginner
This book is an excellent book for those that wantto learn to use TeX. Although the title of the book is "for the beginner", the book is true to its title, it will take someone who knows nothing about TeX, butthe book does not stop at the beginner level - it shows various tricks thatare not so straight-forward such as, changing fonts, making boxes, tablebuildings, etc.

I have read Paul Abraham's "TeX for theImpatients", as well as Arvind Borde's "Mathematical TeX byExample", but they do not compare with Wynter Snow's book.

I havealso read "the" TexBook by Knuth. Although this is"the" ultimate source book for TeX, it is not a "user'smanual".

Hence, I highly recommend this book for anybody who wantsto use TeX.

A comprehensive tutorial for novices on using TeX.
I confess, I'm biased: I wrote the book.But I still use it myself as a reference!

This book is designed for novices, and explains not only how TeX works, but how programming languages in general work.It is clear, concise, and has lots of silly examples.

Using TeX directly gives you very powerful and flexible control over the layout of your pages.I thoroughly recommend both TeX and this book, and am happy to answer reader questions.

Wyn Snow ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Tex, Troff, Web, Nroff, Device Independent File Format, Xetex, Lucida, Lout, Tex4ht, Latex Project Public License, James Clark, Grapher, Computer Modern, Ams Euler, Noweb, Luatex, New Typesetting System, the Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies, Typset and Runoff, Ctan, Computers and Typesetting, Mike Lesk, Mathtime, Groff, Pic Language, Ams-Latex, Omega, Musixtex, Refer, Xindy, Tbl, Eqn, the Practex Journal, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung Tex, Makeindex, Cork Encoding, Tugboat, Joe Ossanna, Troff Macro, Concrete Roman. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 123. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: TeX (pronounced as in Greek, often in English) is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth. Together with the METAFONT language for font description and the Computer Modern family of typefaces, it was designed with two main goals in mind: to allow anybody to produce high-quality books using a reasonable amount of effort, and to provide a system that would give the exact same results on all computers, now and in the future. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as X. TeX is one popular means by which to typeset complex mathematical formulae; it has been noted as one of the most sophisticated digital typographical systems in the world. TeX is popular in academia, especially in mathematics, computer science, engineering, and physics. It has largely displaced Unix troff, the other favored formatter, in many Unix installations, which use both for different purposes. It is now also being used for many other typesetting tasks, especially in the form of LaTeX and other template packages. The widely-used MIME type for TeX is application/x-tex. TeX is free software. When the first volume of Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming was published ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=30065 ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Tex, Gnu M4, C Preprocessor, M4, Pstricks, Trac, Smx, Sigmac, Arc Macro Language. Excerpt:The ARC Macro Language ( AML ) is a proprietary high-level algorithmic language for generating applications in ArcInfo . It was designed by ESRI in 1986 specifically for their command line -driven ARC/INFO geographical information system . AML's syntax was based on CPL (the shell language of the PRIMOS operating system) because the majority of ARC/INFO installations at that time ran on Prime computers . The macro language features include the ability to create onscreen menus, use and assign variables, control statement execution, and get and use map or page unit coordinates. Although the language is still supported by ESRI in modern ArcInfo Workstation environments, the language has been superseded by the geoprocessing framework , which is part of the ArcGIS suite and allows programming access using ArcObjects through VBA or Python . References (URLs online) Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at The C preprocessor ( cpp ) is the preprocessor for the C programming language . In many C implementations, it is a separate program invoked by the compiler as the first part of translation. The preprocessor handles directives for source file inclusion ( #include), macro definitions ( #define), and conditional inclusion ( #if). The language of preprocessor directives is agnostic to the grammar of C, so the C preprocessor can also be used independently to process other types of files. The transformations it makes on its input form the first four of C's so-called Phases of Translation . Though an implementation may choose to perform some or all phases simultaneously, it must behave as if it performed them one-by-one in order. Phases The following are the first four (of ei... ... Read more

Product Description
A compendium of information on TeX, this four-volume set offers a detailed analysis of all features of TeX and many ready-to-use-macros. TeX users of all levels will find this to be a valuable permanent source of information on one of the world's most powerful typesetting systems. 63 illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An attempt at creating the ultimate TeX reference!
I applaud the author for his work in compiling this vast collection of knowledge and information regarding the TeX typesetting language. It is unfortunate that the publisher, Springer I believe, didn't take more time in doing editorial reviews. I found MANY language and spelling errors, all of which could have been remiedied easily via a little editing. As a TeX user dating back to the mid 1980s, I found the information in this set of volumes useful. In some instances however, I felt that the author got lost in minute details that didn't contribute to the subject matter at hand. Overall, I rank this reference as being fairly good and very detailed. I always felt that everything could have been said with 30% less words than were actually written. Considering the, relatively high, cost of the set, I would recommend this set for purchase ONLY IF YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY ADDICTED TO THE FINE DETAILS OF THIS TYPESETTING LANGUAGE. If you are a user who is looking for a reference to enhance your productivity in/with TeX, I would refer you to other available references which are marketed at a fraction of the cost.

Very nice reference book for the TeX typesetting language
This book explains in detail the various intricacies of the TeX computer typesetting language.If you found Knuth's TeXbook useful, you will find this book, and its three companions very useful, informative, and worthwhile on your computer science reference shelf. ... Read more

Product Description
Nearly a year after Borde's highly acclaimed introductory book, TeX By Example, arrives Mathematical TeX by Example, featuring indepth discussion of typesetting mathematics. This book covers the features of AmSTeX, LamSTeX, and Plain TeX, and contains a series of examples illustrating the uses of these packages. Borde's WYSIWYG approach is carried throughout the book-- left-hand pages contain TeX input, with occasional notes given below, and right-hand pages contain the corresponding output to allow readers to see what the command should be for specific typesetting issues.This book provides an introduction for scientists who are interested in making a change to AmSTeX.


*
* Examples show how a wide variety of standard pieces of mathematics can be typset--integrals, differential equations, matrices, communative diagrams, and equation alignments of many kinds
* Extensive glossary/index covers all mathematical commands of Plain TeX and AmSTeX, plus many common TeX commands--items can be found by command name or topic
* Provides a useful introduction to new AmSTeX users such as chemists or physicists
* Uses examples from other well-known mathematical works to illustrate specific typesetting techniques and commands
* Examples introduce special packages such as PiCTeX, dvips, and LamSTeX
* Addresses how to handle non-English languages such as German and Russian fonts
* Covers examples of all the main approaches to incorporating graphics with TeX, including Postscript prictures
* Outlines how TeX makes typeface decisions and how users can impose thier own choices
* Covers a large number of available typefaces and provides examples of how to make typeface changes
* Example type faces include AMS Euler/Computer Concrete, Math Time/Times-Roman, and LucidaNew Math/LucidaBright
* Reproduces the commands used to produce the book, focusing on new commands introduced to make mathematical typesetting and book formatting easier
* Provides a reading list for materials cited
... Read more

Product Description
This book is a friendly introduction to TEX, the powerful typesetting system designed by Donald Knuth. It is addressed primarily to beginners, but it contains much information that will be useful to aspiring TEX "wizards". Moreover, the authors kept firmly in mind the diversity of backgrounds that characterizes TEX users: authors in the sciences and in the humanities, secretaries, technical typists... The book contains a careful explanation of all fundamental concepts and commands, but also a wealth of commented examples and "tricks" based on the authors' long experience with TEX. The attentive reader will quickly be able to create a table, or customize the appearance of the page, or code even the most complicated formula. The last third of the book is devoted to a Dictionary/Index, summarizing all the material in the text and going into greater depth in many areas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good companion to other good books on TeX.
This book is praised by among others the TeX master Hans Hagen. I find it a worthy addition to my shelf of TeX books, ranking just below "TeX for the Impatient" and more approachable than "TeX by Topic" which is written for a more experienced audience. It must be emphasized that this book deals with plain Tex, and not the most popular variant LaTeX. But since I work in plain TeX or Context almost exclusively it is fits my needs well.

John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters
[...] ... Read more

Product Description
This concise, straightforward guide provides an all-purpose introduction to writing and preparing papers, reports, articles, and books with TEX. Scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technical staff will discover how easy it is to clearly and quickly perform all the necessary tasks required to prepare equations and text. The first half of the book is devoted to explaining how to typeset equations, while the remainder of the book addresses advanced topics and more general text processing and page formatting topics. A TEX Primer for Scientists will save you time and reduce frustration while increasing the flexibility, quality, and efficiency of your documents. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A reasonably useful book
If you are learning how to use plain TeX, this is a pretty good book. It teaches you the basics quickly and quite well, but it fails as far as more refined uses are concerned. The more difficult commands, especially relatedto vertical and horizontal glueing are not properly explained, and theappendix about LaTeX is altogether pretty useless. Still, sinceexperimentation is the name of the game in TeX, you might as well have thisbook on your shelf rather than some other, especially if you would ratherdispose with cute drawings and other nonsense you do find in other TeX usermanuals. ... Read more

Product Description
TeX is a powerful tool for creating professional quality typeset text and is unsurpassed at typesetting mathematical equations, scientific text, and multiple languages. Many books describe how you use TeX toconstruct sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Until now, no book has described all the software that actually lets you build, run, and use TeX to best advantage on your platform. Because creating a TeX document requires the use of many tools, this lack of information is a serious problem for TeX users.TeX is increasing in popularity, and the need for information is becoming more critical. Many technical journals now request that articles be submitted in TeX. TeX is also playing an increasing rolein the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) environment. TeX'sportability and flexibility--not to mention the fact that it is free-- are also making it the typesetting tool of choice for interchangebetween hardware and software platforms and for international exchange. Yet, despite this growing interest in TeX, TeX users everywhere arehaving to reinvent the wheel by wrestling with TeX's many tools andfiles on their own.Making TeX Work guides you through the maze of tools availablein the TeX system. Beyond the core TeX program there are myriaddrivers, macro packages, previewers, printing programs, onlinedocumentation facilities, graphics programs, and more. This bookdescribes them all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fair book...not for learning TeX though
This book isn't meant for learning TeX from.If you're buying this book, then you should already be familiar with TeX, and are probably looking for ways to improve or add to your current TeX environment.The book covers a great many topics, but doesn't go into any great deal in any of them.Covers some of the more popular macro packages available, and has a good section on fonts and a decent introduction on how to do simple graphics in TeX/LaTeX.Overall, a nice book for the TeX library, but not an essential.A good book for the beginner TeX user, but advanced users probably won't get much out of it. ... Read more

Product Description
LaTeX is the premier software system used for presenting technical information.It is considered the system of choice for writers in mathematics, the sciences, computer science, and engineering who need to present formulas and technical infomation in a clear and elegant manner.It is also increasingly used by nontechnical writers interested in superior printing and document presentation.However, users of this ubiquitous software need to know much more than how to use basic style files or LaTeX commands.They need to know how to integrate TeX--the original version of LaTeX--with other commercially available software and hardware.People also need clear, accurate and brief instructions and solutions to many common problems.This unique book is intended to provide these valuable aids.It also tells how to use LaTeX or TeX with files prepared with everyday office software such as Lotus or Wordperfect, and how to set up software links with Acrobat and hyper-text using LaTeX for internet communication.TeX Unbound will be the reference of choice for every writer wishing to express technical information, ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Outdated
I should have known better, but this book is fairly outdated, being written more that 10 years ago.
You should stick to more popular books on TeX/LaTeX such as the 'Companion' series, Guide to Latex, et alli.

MetaPost fans will *love* Chapter 13!
Alan Hoenig's book is a real tour-de-force when it comes to discussing TeX's arcane font-handling. If you want to learn how to install fonts for use with TeX, this is the book for you. Virtual fonts, PostScript fonts, MetaFont +... they're all covered. Want to mix-and-match new maths typefaces -- you'll find nearly 30 pages of examples (the "Rogues' Gallery").

It is quite apparent, to me anyway, that the author has a love of typography and you'll find lots of examples and hints for good "typographic style".

The book abounds with examples of what is possible -- if you think "TeX = Maths only", think again. As this book shows, TeX is about fine typesetting -- whether mathematical or straight text.

It is, as others have commented, quite an eclectic mix of topics, but, for me, one topic makes the book's price worthwhile -- the coverage of MetaPost (John Hobby's graphics programming language). MetaPost is a little "tricky" to learn, so the fact that the author devoted a whole chapter to it (Chapter 13 -- some MetaFont too), is what made me buy the book.

Personally, I would like to see more MetaPost at the expense, perhaps, of some of the more exotic font material, but that's a personal preference. The MetaPost examples are well chosen, and well explained. If this book comes out in a second edition, I'd ask the author to (at least) double the size of the MetaPost chapter -- good introductory information on MetaPost programming is very hard to find :-(. Publishers, please publish a book about MetaPost!

Overall, this is not the sort of book you'd read in one sitting, but you'll certainly find yourself dipping into it on a regular basis to make use of the wealth of ideas, tips + tricks.

Nice one Professor Hoenig, but more MetaPost, please :-)

Best discussion on TeX/LaTeX and fonts yet
I'll agree that this book is a bit of a hodgepodge of issues on the TeX/LaTeX typesetting systems. One of the various topics covered, however, and as I recall it's also the most extensive part, is a comprehensivediscussion on one of the most arcane of all TeX issues, that of fonts. Evenafter many years of experience as a fairly advanced end user, I realized,while reading that book, that there were, to my shame, countless details Ihad up-to-now failed to _really_ understand. The discussion on the use andinstallation of type-1 fonts alone, to my mind, is well worth theprice.

The discussion on graphics, while interesting, cannot obviously becompared to the definitive work by Goosens, Rahtz et al., but it doesn'ttake anything away from my general appreciation: it's one of the few bookson TeX/LaTeX in recent memeory that made me feel I was actually learningsomething I didn't know. Hoenig makes a point of using a rich, fluent, andextremely acurate prose which further enhances the reading enjoyment.

Is it a beginner's book?Is it an advanced text? I dunno.
I'll admit I'm just a LaTeX junkie who doesn't have a lot of time for plain TeX commands.I picked up this book because it looked as though it had some LaTeX stuff on fonts in it, and I was bored.Once again, I hadrecently skimmed my way through Knuth's "TeX Book" in yet anotherill-fated effort to motivate myself to learn some plain TeX commands.("\hsize" in TeX, "\hspace" in LaTeX--oh, I'll justconfuse myself.) The short Appendix in this book (for which Hoenig is waytoo apologetic) which starts the reader out on TeX was much more fun toread, and I immediately sat down, picked up Knuth's bible to use as areference, and re-coded some of my LaTeX documents into plain TeX, all thewhile muttering, "This isn't too onerous.Hmmmm, maybe in a couple ofweeks I'll write my own TeX style set."The LaTeX Appendix is lesssuccessful as a primer, but that's okay because you aren't really buyingthis book for the appendicies.Or are you?The rest of the work dealswith advanced topics regarding fonts and graphics and is set forth in lucidfashion with a good and concrete discussion of the NFSS.(Why is it thatmost of these TeX/LaTeX books are so vague and nebulous concerning fonts? This book proves that you can concisely write about TeX fonts withoutforcing the reader to read between the lines or piece together nuggets ofwisdom from multiple sources.)

Sure, it's geared toward advanced TeXusers, I think.But LaTeX afficianados should give it a look or at leastbuy it and photocopy that little Appendix to pass around to friends.

A great resource for the font freaks
Alan Hoenig's "TeX Unbound" is a very remarkable book which differs greatly from any other TeX-related book seen so far.This is not a book about using TeX or LaTeX; it is about related topics that are equally important to good typography, namely setting up and making proper use of PostScript fonts, and creating high-quality graphics illustrations with TeX-friendly methods.

The first five chapters provide a brief but comprehensive overview about TeX, LaTeX, METAFONT and METAPOST, with particular emphasis on how it all fits together, how the production cycle works, and what kinds of files are involved.While the material is generally adequate, it might be a little terse at times, and the coverage of recent TeX distributions and Internet resources is not quite as up-to-date as one might have wished.

The second part, comprising chapters 6--10, is one of the greatest strengths of "TeX Unbound" and delves deeply into the topic of fonts.Starting fr! om the basics of setting up a standard font family, it moves on to more and more fancy and extraordinary applications, covering a wealth of material you don't find anywhere else.For example, it explains how to generate special effects fonts, or how to set up a font family containing alternate character sets or symbols. This part is rounded off by a chapter on math fonts, followed by 30 pages of examples showing how various combinations of well-known text typefaces might be used together with the few choices of math fonts currently available.

Finally, the third part of _TeX Unbound_, comprising chapters 11--15, discusses graphics applications, with particular emphasis on TeX-friendly methods such as METAFONT and METAPOST, the PSTricks package, PicTeX, or MFpic.

If there is any other book that covers a similar range of topics as "TeX Unbound", it might be "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" which, however, sets different priorities.

In the area of fonts, &! quot;TeX Unbound" is clearly the winner. While "T! he LaTeX Graphics Companion" has a good coverage of the basics, "TeX Unbound" goes far beyond that, providing the deepest and most comprehensive coverage of the topic ever published so far.

In the area of graphics, both books are about equally good in their coverage of some of the best methods, but "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" covers a wider range of graphics applications, including quite a few methods you don't find in "TeX Unbound". Nevertheless, "TeX Unbound" provides enough to get you started.

In summary, "TeX Unbound" is a great resource if you like playing with fonts (and if you have a sufficient range of typefaces at your disposal).If your primary interest lies in designing graphics illustrations, "TeX Unbound<" does a good job of what it covers, but it is not the most comprehensive reference available. ... Read more

Product Description
The typesetting system TeX, invented by Donald Knuth, is thirty-two years old in 2010. For this anniversary, a commemorative book has been prepared containing example papers by Knuth and the Stanford graduate students who helped develop TeX. These papers all were selected from the TeX Users Group's TUGboat journal archive. ... Read more

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This outstanding introductory primer demystifies and explains TeX, the widely popular typesetting and page make-up system that is especially designed to facilitate scientific and technical publishing. Accessibility written at an introductory level, the book explains how high-quality results can be obtained by someone with only a little TeX background. In a straightforward manner, it details why TeX approaches its subject in the way it does, and provides the context into which it fits. Special emphasis is placed on document structure and practical work. Scientists and researchers preparing their own books and papers, or technical typists used to the conventions and jargon of their field, will find little difficulty in adopting TeX's approach. Students and professionals involved in document preparation or desk-top publishing will also find this an extremely useful volume. 64 illustrations. ... Read more

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TEX is the program for printing high quality mathematicaltext to which all others are compared. It is flexible enoughto be used on many different computer architectures andoperating systems ranging from microcomputers to mainframes.In a relatively short period of time it has becomethestandard tool for mathematical typesetting at practicallyall major universities. The versality of TEX has allowed itto be used in a widevariety of applications; for example,it is used for publishing scholarly journals which adhere tothe highest typesetting standards, and also to publishstudent papers and theses.This book is designed for thecomplete newcomer to TEX. Itstarts by showing how to typeset simple text that mostlyuses the defaults predefined by TEX. By use ofgradedexercises, the situations covered slowly become more complexand include many different types of mathematicalconstructions and tables. In the end it is possible tohandle almost any standard mathematical situation.The different tables presented in this book allow it tobeused as a quick reference. The similar features of TEX aregatheredtogether whenever possible to give an overview thatis a good foundation forbecoming more proficient and fordoing more creative typesetting.Thisbook can be used either as a tool to learn just enoughTEX to write standardmathematical papers of modestcomplexity or as a building block to preparefor moreambitious typesetting projects. ... Read more

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Based on the premise that people learn best by imitation or example, this innovative guide to TeX is written for absolute beginners. The examples in this book illustrate the standard features of TeX--they cover everything that one would need to produce a letter, technical report, or other document. ... Read more