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The TEXbook. (6th printing). (English) Zbl 0609.68001

Computers & Typesetting. Vol. A. Reading, Massachusetts etc.: Addison- Wesley Publishing Company. IX, 483 p. (1986).
This is the first volume of the series ”Computers & Typesetting” which describes the results of D. E. Knuth’s work on computerized typesetting. The earlier book by Knuth on this subject, TEXand METAFONT, New Directions in Typesetting” (1979; Zbl 0494.68089) described an early stage of this work and is now obsolete.
Volume A can be considered the most important of the series, it is the basic reference volume for all who need information about TEX. ”TEX” is the name of Knuth’s system of typesetting programs, especially designed for papers and books which contain mathematical expressions and formulas. The five volumes of this series are exclusively typeset using TEX. For non-commercial typesetting, TEXhas become the most popular system, with powerful capabilities. Implementations are available across the entire range of general purpose data processing equipment.
Volume B accompanies this volume, it contains the TEXprogram. Volume A is an introduction as well as a reference manual. Step by step, the concepts and the use of TEXare presented to the reader. Special chapters are committed to the input language, the different modes (breaking paragraphs into lines and lines into pages), typesetting mathematical formulas, the macro facilities, typesetting tables, and many more. Later, all aspects of TEXare explained in great detail. Many examples and exercises aid the reader in understanding the concepts. The solutions to all the exercises are given, too. The book is completed by an exceptionally rich index.
The book is not intended to be understood in a single reading. The text is highly structured and contains different kinds of information. This makes learning about TEXnot a simple task. There are introductions to the techniques in increasing complexity and detail, and dangerous-bend signs warn the reader to skip sections that might confuse non-experts.
The very large and complete index section (25 pages) includes references to (almost) all occurrences of all needed and some surprising entries, differentiated into normal references, examples, and main sources of information. The index reflects the complexity of the system. Due to the didactic approach, related details sometimes had to appear in different parts of the text. But when using the book as a reference manual and searching for the solution of an actual problem, it is distracting that descriptions of similar things are located at different places. Despite the large index, it is not easy to find all the information about a specific, especially minor topic. So, when looking at the book for a longer time, one always finds new details and information, even if it is not yet the solution of the current problem. Since the book is sprinkled with jokes, this is fun, too.
The success of TEXis based upon its portability, its availability (public domain), and the high quality of output that can be achieved. Cheaply produced books and papers can become better, but publishers give control over quality into the hands of authors.
The philosophy of TEXis non-WYSIWYG (”What-You-See-Is-What-You- Get”), but batch. The system incorporates no graphic capabilities, but space can be reserved for the inclusion of graphics in the final output process. The series itself makes use of this provision; Volumes A and C both include nice illustrations (by Duane Bibby) on the first page of each chapter (in Volume A they show a lion named ”TEX”, and in Volume C a lioness named ”Meta”).
It is easy to do simple things with TEX. It is also easy to do difficult things once someone has set up a format (for example typeset music). But when one has to change or to debug a format, one has to cope with all the problems of interpreted systems (e.g. too easy to change, difficult to structure, and imprecise error messages).
TEXis oriented on the English language (hyphenation, character set, character spacing), but it can be adapted to other languages, too, by the definition of additional characters (or completely new fonts), and change of some variables and macros, and even right-to-left writing (needed for hebrew and arabic texts) or top-to-bottom (like chinese or japanese) are possible. The number of tricks (used in TEXand usable by an experienced user) is almost unlimited.
The typesetting quality of the whole series is very good, but sometimes one is annoyed a minor deficiency that is not due to TEXbut to the final process of production and print: the blackness of pages varies slightly, and sometimes more than slightly (e.g. p. 246 and 247).
Volume A is recommended to everyone who uses TEX, who is interested in typesetting, or who is interested in the internals of this system (those should read volume B, too.)
Reviewer: H.Stenzel

MSC:

68-02 Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to computer science
68U99 Computing methodologies and applications
68Q99 Theory of computing

Citations:

Zbl 0494.68089

Software:

METAFONT; TeX