[buug] latex (pronounced Lay-tech)

Claude Rubinson cmsclaud at arches.uga.edu
Wed Nov 13 11:37:21 PST 2002


On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 10:51:52AM -0800, Bob Read wrote:
> Anybody used Latex?
> No, not the S&M variety that Claude sells, I'm talking
> about LaTeX: a document preparation system:
> 
> http://www.latex-project.org/
> 
> I'm trying to help out a friend who wants to publish a
> math book (lots of equations I guess) and Latex seems
> like a good choice, what with AMS-LaTeX and
> all...opinions, please?

Actually, I use LaTeX and sell latex :)

I've done a good deal of work in LaTeX (including my Master's thesis),
so if you've got any specific questions, feel free to ask.  If all
you're looking for is a recommendation -- you've got it: I can't
recommend it highly enough.  It's incredibly powerful and flexible,
but the learning curve isn't bad at all.

General resources:

Books: Leslie Lamport's text "LaTeX: A Document Preparation System" is
the classic.  Also, "The LaTeX Companion" by Gossens, et. al.  But for
my money, I like "A Guide to LaTeX (3rd Ed)" by Kopka and Daly.  All
published by Addison-Wesley.  If you're doing serious LaTeX work,
you'll want to pick up all three.

The newsgroup comp.text.tex hosts both TeX and LaTeX discussions
(although most people are talking about LaTeX).  Besides that, the
best resource is your local installations.  Most distributions of
LaTeX provide a ton of additional packages -- the biggest thing is
just figuring out which package does what (and that's what "The LaTeX
Companion" is good for).

Claude



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