First Steps in Latex

Are you in a hurry? A friend received a letter from the American Mathematical Society (AMS) inform­ ing him that his paper had been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the AMS. If he submitted it as a lt-TEX document, it would be published in 20 weeks­ any other format would take almost a year before the appearance in print of the article. The friend had It-T EX installed on his computer on Friday, borrowed the manu­ script of this book, and mailed a It-T EX version of his article to the AMS on Monday. First Steps in YI'EX is for the mathematician, physicist, engineer, scientist, or technical typist who needs to quickly learn how to write and typeset articles con­ taining mathematical formulas. A quick introduction to E\TE)C and the AMS enhancements is provided so that you will be ready to prepare your first article (such as the sample articles on pages 53-54 and 67-69) in only a few hours. Specific topics can be found in the table of contents, the Quick Finder, or the index. While the index is Jt.TEX -oriented, the Quick Finder lists the main topics using terminology common to wordprocessing applications. For example, to find out how to italicize text, look under italics in the Quick Finder. Setting the stage Watch someone type a mathematical article in I!lfE)C. You will see how to • Type the document using a text editor to create a Jt.TE)C source file.

From the reviews:

"The author lays a clear structure to guide the newcomer through the process of preparing a text with LaTeX.... Besides the comprehensive index at the end of the book, there is a useful Quick Finder at the beginning of the book; the reader can hardly get lost. The book fulfills the claim of the title.... With its clear structure and the well-organized index and quick finder [it] may also serve the more experienced TeXie as a reference." ―Zentralblatt Math 

"Fortunately, there are some excellent books for learning LaTeX. Grätzer’s book is one of these superb books. Readers who work through this book are likely to reuse it frequently as a reference while writing papers with mathematical content." ―Journal of Mathematical Psychology

“The book is very well organized, contains many practical examples and, undoubtedly, will become an indispensable tool for a novice who is in a hurry to write his first LaTeX paper.”―(REVUE D’ANALYSE NUMÉRIQUE ET DE THÉORIE DE L’APPROXIMATION)