and almost as long since the appearance of
the second edition of A Guide to LaTeX, the time is ripe to consider a third edition.
How has LaTeX changed in this interval? What has to be altered in the
book?
Four years after the release of LaTeX2 and almost as long since the appearance of
the second edition of A Guide to LaTeX, the time is ripe to consider a third edition.
How has LaTeX changed in this interval? What has to be altered in the
book?
First of all, LaTeX2 is now well established as the official version of LaTeX; for
this reason the title of this book reverts to the original form used for the first edition.
(The second edition was titled A Guide to LaTeX2 to emphasize that it
covered the new LaTeX.) Nevertheless, we continue to point out those features
that are exclusive to LaTeX2 and which were not available under version
2.09.
LaTeX is upgraded every six months. The first few updates to LaTeX2 saw a
number of important changes, but now it has become very stable, at least for
standard features at the user level. Improvements and changes occur mostly at
deeper levels, or in supporting packages. For example, the number of input
encoding tables and graphics drivers has steadily increased. The 256-character
DC fonts have now been replaced by their EC equivalents. However, the
major change since 1994 is the prevalence of the Internet and World Wide
Web; new programs are now available to enable LaTeX documents to be
`put online'. These do not reflect changes to LaTeX itself but rather to the
entire LaTeX environment and its applications. This is now dealt with in
Section D.4.
A new edition provides an opportunity to reorganize much material, to change emphasis, and to correct mistakes. In this light, we have decided that the importation of graphics files is no longer an extension for advanced users, but a basic part of LaTeX application. The usage has become standardized; many problems have been identified and solved. Thus a very detailed explanation of the graphics and color packages is now given in Chapter 6 and the emphasis on the LaTeX picture environment has been reduced.
The use of PostScript fonts has also become more relevant, to such an extent that Computer Modern fonts are no longer the hallmark of a LaTeX document. Appendix F (TeX Fonts) has been revised to reflect this.
Several example packages in Appendix C (LaTeX programming) have been removed, in particular those dealing with language adaptation and author-year citations. These examples contained far too much TeX code to be appropriate as demonstrations, and their usefulness as packages is questionable considering the widespread availability of the babel and natbib packages. As compensation, a new package is offered for redefining the sectioning commands.
It has always been our intention only to describe the standard LaTeX features, and not to elaborate on many of the excellent contributed packages available. This is not because we consider them to be inferior; on the contrary, a large number of them are indispensable and should be part of any standard installation. It is simply that we must limit the material in this book somehow, and these packages are dealt with elsewhere, for example in the LaTeX Companion and LaTeX Graphics Companion. We have decided to make two exceptions. Many of the `tools' packages mentioned in Section D.3.3 are now described in the main text where their application would be most appropriate. Packages like multicol, array, longtable should be used in everyday situations, and are by no means exotic.
The amsmath and amsfonts packages are the other exception. An overview to these important mathematical tools is now provided in Appendix E and tables of the extra AM S symbol fonts are given on pages 552-554. For mathematical typesetting, these additional commands must also be considered indispensable.
We feel the changes will make this book even more relevant and applicable to the effective production of high-class documents with LaTeX.
Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly September 1998
The great success of Helmut Kopka's book LaTeX, eine Einführung in Germany has led to many requests for an English translation, especially from non-German-speaking visitors to our Institute. The standard manual on LaTeX by Leslie Lamport, LaTeX, A Documentation Preparation System, provides a reasonable introduction to this text formatting program, but leaves many open questions about advanced topics and user-defined extensions. Kopka's book includes many tips and practical examples for solving common problems that are not to be found in the Lamport manual.
A straightforward translation of the German book would not be particularly useful, since it contains considerable information on the application to German texts. For this reason, Patrick W. Daly has undertaken to produce an English version of Kopka's work, adding the sections on international and multilingual LaTeX, and including some applications from his own experience.
At the time of the first edition, late 1992, LaTeX was undergoing major revisions. Some test versions of the new extensions were described in that book, but were in fact out of date before it appeared. Now the revised and consolidated new LaTeX has been released, mid-1994, with many improvements and additions.
This second edition of the Guide attempts to present both the classical version
(designated 2.09) and the new official standard, named LaTeX2. Of course, the
emphasis is on the newer version.
The entire book has been revised in the light of LaTeX2, although the basic
material in Chapters 2-7 is much the same. The Advanced Features of Chapter 8
now include the New Font Selection Scheme, a list of standard packages, and the
slides class (formerly SLITeX, which had an appendix to itself previously). The
error messages of Chapter 9 have been extended. Appendix C is totally new,
describing the advanced programming features of LaTeX, with useful examples.
Finally, Appendix D, on Extensions, has been expanded; it also contains a
description of the CTAN network, the electronic source for TeX and its
accessories.
As for the first edition, it is hoped that this book will be particularly useful to those readers who wish to go beyond the basic features of the LaTeX system but who do not want to venture into the murky depths of the TeX world on which it is all based. The Command Summary and Summary Tables and Figures in Appendix F should become standard reference tools for any LaTeX user of any degree of experience.
Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly March 1995