Secret to understanding/using LaTeX is to have at hand two books: Guide to LaTeX by Kopka and Daly, and The LaTeX Companion by Mittelbach and Goossens. That plu

Secret to understanding/using LaTeX is to have at hand two books: Guide to LaTeX by Kopka and Daly, and The LaTeX Companion by Mittelbach and Goossens. That plus a project to publish (similar to have a task you want to program) should be enough to get you going. The real problem with LaTeX seems to be retention over time without continued use--- if you don't use it more or less all the time, you tend to forget a lot of the basics...