{"id":107,"date":"2004-11-04T16:58:28","date_gmt":"2004-11-04T20:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=107"},"modified":"2004-11-04T17:03:53","modified_gmt":"2004-11-04T21:03:53","slug":"like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"Like a Kid in a Candy Store"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Guide<\/a> A certain ministry with close ties to my church decided one day that they would print a church-planting manual produced in-house. Since the existing manual was a sorry mess, it was decided that we would re-type the whole book. I was entrusted with the task of design and typesetting.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I decided to use LaTeX<\/a> for the task, feeling that it was the best system for the task (no, honey, neither OpenOffice.org nor MS Word *argh* would do it). I was right, and in no time I was able to produce excellent camera-ready copies of sample chapters. For those who do not know what LaTeX is, here is a description: “LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system, with features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto<\/em> standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.”
\n (From the above linked website<\/a>; more information here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The problem was that LaTeX documentation, or at least the freely available type, was scattered, fragmented, and not very easy to reference. Therefore, I asked Rev S. if we could purchase some manuals. I explained him the purpose of those manuals. Thanks to Rev S. willingness to get documentation, I was able to purchase the book set by Frank Mittelbach et al.,<\/em> The LaTeX Companions, Revised Boxed Set, The: A Complete Guide and Reference for Preparing, Illustrating, and Publishing Technical Documents, 2nd Edition<\/em><\/a> (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2004) from amazon.com at a very good discounted price.<\/p>\n

Oh my. This was pure candy. I felt like a thief, having all those excellent books for a comparatively low price. One of the books included there was that of Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly, Guide to LaTeX, 4th ed.<\/em><\/a>. This book took the place of “introductory material” in the book set. I wondered how useful it could be. Would it be too ‘introductory’? Would it be too ‘reference-like’? It turned out the answer to both questions is “yes”.<\/p>\n

This is a book that serves as an excellent starting point for LaTeX. It present a great discussion of every major aspect of the system, along with many tricks that stem from the experience of the authors. Even though it is introductory, the Guide<\/em> is no tutorial. (If you need a great LaTeX tutorial, check out the excellent, brief and comprehensive book by Tobias Oetiger, The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e<\/em><\/a>, freely available in several formats.) I approached the book as a LaTeX user, with specific questions in mind about how could I do this or that task in LaTeX, and I was rewarded. But it does not exclude new users; only, again, bear in mind that this is no tutorial.<\/p>\n

The writing style is concise and terse; perhaps too terse in some parts. I missed better descriptions in areas such as the fancyhdr<\/code> package, and fonts. But I felt that I could quickly solve the ambiguities I perceived by coding example documents and testing, and I was right.<\/p>\n

All in all, this book, at 597 pages, is good value for your money and even more so if you get it as a part of the book set. Recommended for all, essential to LaTeXnicians. Now, excuse me, I’ll have some more candy… \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A certain ministry with close ties to my church decided one day that they would print a church-planting manual produced in-house. Since the existing manual was a sorry mess, it was decided that we would re-type the whole book. I was entrusted with the task of design and typesetting. Naturally, I decided to use LaTeX…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}