4 ms·
First, anyone who is interested in this should buy the books: https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3rd-edition-9780138166489?ranMID=24808
by WillAdams 1y ago
First, anyone who is interested in this should buy the books:
https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3rd-edition-9780138166489?ranMID=24808 https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3r...
I was certainly glad to, since the binding was breaking on my 2nd edition due to constant usage, and I was glad to have the option of buying hardcovers.
Second, work through a good tutorial, there are many, but I like: https://tug.ctan.org/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf https://tug.ctan.org/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf
Third, learn your way around CTAN, and https://tex.stackexchange.com/ https://tex.stackexchange.com/ --- for pretty much any problem you have, there should be a package or code snippet which addresses it, if not ask on SE or https://old.reddit.com/r/LaTeX/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LaTeX/ after searching (and let folks know what terminology you used in your search), and consider using one of the nice well-documented documentstyles suited to your project --- Koma is good for Europeans, I like Memoir and not just because the first author was kind enough to consider my suggestions for the manual or implement some simplistic code I sent in (has anyone heard from Peter Wilson lately?)
Lastly, when working with macros and packages and so forth, conceptually divide them between semantic markup (this bit of code describes how this text/number should be represented and thought of) and appearance (this bit of code is necessary to get the text on the page at this pagination state in the best possible way) --- all of the latter macros should be defined twice, once as null ops in one package file, a second time redefined to actually do what is desired in a second package --- that way, the page can be set without them just by commenting out the second package. It's even better if all such macros are named in such a way that they can be easily commented out w/ a find-replace.
- falcor84 1y ago> First, anyone who is interested in this should buy the books: > https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3rd-edition-9780138166489?ranMID=24808 https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3r... I'm getting "Sorry, this book is no longer in print."
- mbarr 1y agoHere's the link to the in-print version: https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-9780135556849 https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-97...
- WillAdams 1y agoMy apologies, didn't notice that the hardcover was out-of-print and that the paperback is what is available: https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-part-i-9780135467336 https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-part-i-978013...
- dmlorenzetti 1y agoRegarding the idea to have some macros that expand to null when unwanted -- I have some "developer" macros that, in day-to-day use, do things like showing TODO items. The most useful one typesets the labels of equations, sections, figures, and so forth, so I can copy-paste right from the document as I'm editing. That makes it so much easier to insert cross-references while writing, without breaking the flow to search out the definition. Rather than commenting out packages, I have two top-level input files, which `\input{}` the actual content. Those files differ only where they read the developer-oriented definitions: \input{latex_input/defn/dev_defns_for_devs.tex} versus \input{latex_input/defn/dev_defns_for_release.tex}
- mbarr 1y agoLooks like there's an update to the tutorial: https://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf https://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf
- jdnier 1y ago> should buy the books Yes I totally will, err..., oh my, ebook for $91.99, paperback for $127.99. What's going on with these prices? These aren't college textbooks. I'm glad to hear about the 3rd edition but the cost gives me pause.
- WillAdams 1y agoI recall them being less expensive when first released. Either there has been a new printing which was done overseas and was affected by tariffs or more expensive for some other reason, or the copies in the warehouse were taxed as inventory (blame Congress for that, it was a major change in the tax law and it created the current mess of remaindered books and no back-list and ever spiraling book prices).
- gucci-on-fleek 1y ago> has anyone heard from Peter Wilson lately? Unfortunately, he seems to have gone missing [0]. [0]: https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb46-1/tb142beet.pdf https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb46-1/tb142beet.pdf