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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+% This is part of the book TeX for the Impatient.
+% Copyright (C) 2003 Paul W. Abrahams, Kathryn A. Hargreaves, Karl Berry.
+% See file fdl.tex for copying conditions.
+
+\input macros
+\frontchapter{Preface}
+
+{\tighten
+Donald Knuth's \TeX, a computerized typesetting system,
+provides nearly everything
+needed for high-quality typesetting of mathematical
+notations as well as of ordinary text.
+It is particularly notable for its flexibility, its superb hyphenation, and its
+ability to choose aesthetically satisfying line breaks.
+Because
+of its extraordinary capabilities, \TeX\ has become the leading typesetting
+system for mathematics, science, and engineering and has been adopted as
+a standard by the American Mathematical Society. A companion program,
+^{\Metafont},
+can construct arbitrary letterforms including, in particular, any symbols that
+might be needed in mathematics.
+Both \TeX\ and \Metafont\ are widely available within the
+scientific and engineering community and have been implemented on a
+variety of computers.
+\TeX\ isn't perfect---it lacks integrated support for graphics, and
+some effects such as ^{revision bars} are very difficult to produce---%
+but these drawbacks are far outweighed by its advantages.
+\par}
+
+\thisbook\/ is intended to serve scientists, mathematicians, and
+technical typists for whom \TeX\ is a useful tool rather than a primary
+interest, as well as computer people who have a strong interest in \TeX\
+for its own sake. We also intend it to serve both newcomers to \TeX\
+and those who are already familiar with \TeX. We assume that our
+readers are comfortable working with computers and that they want to get
+the information they need as quickly as possible. Our aim is to provide
+that information clearly, concisely, and accessibly.
+
+{\tighten This book therefore provides a bright searchlight, a stout
+walking-stick, and detailed maps for exploring and using \TeX. It will
+enable you to master \TeX\ at a rapid pace through inquiry and
+experiment, but it will not lead you by the hand through the entire
+\TeX\ system. Our approach is to provide you with a handbook for \TeX\
+that makes it easy for you to retrieve whatever information you need.
+We explain both the full repertoire of \TeX\ commands and the concepts
+that underlie them. You won't have to waste your time plowing through
+material that you neither need nor want. \par}
+
+In the early sections we also provide you with enough orientation so
+that you can get started if you haven't used \TeX\ before. We assume
+that you have access to a \TeX\ implementation and that you know how to
+use a text editor, but we don't assume much else about your background.
+Because this book is organized for ready reference, you'll continue to
+find it useful as you become more familiar with \TeX. If you prefer to
+start with a carefully guided tour, we recommend that you first read
+Knuth's ^{\texbook} (see \xrefpg{resources} for a citation), passing
+over the ``dangerous bend'' sections, and then return to this book for
+additional information and for reference as you start to use \TeX. (The
+dangerous bend sections of \texbook\ cover advanced topics.)
+
+The structure of \TeX\ is really quite simple: a \TeX\ input document
+consists of ordinary text interspersed with commands that give \TeX\
+further instructions on how to typeset your document. Things like math
+formulas contain many such commands, while expository text contains
+relatively few of them.
+
+The time-consuming part of learning \TeX\ is learning the commands and
+the concepts underlying their descriptions. Thus we've devoted most of
+the book to defining and explaining the commands and the concepts.
+We've also provided examples showing \TeX\ typeset output and the
+corresponding input, hints on solving common problems, information about
+error messages, and so forth. We've supplied extensive cross-references
+by page number and a complete index.
+
+We've arranged the descriptions of the commands so that you can look
+them up either by function or alphabetically. The functional
+arrangement is what you need when you know what you want to do but you
+don't know what command might do it for you. The alphabetical arrangement
+is what you need when you know the name of a command but you don't know exactly
+what it does.
+
+We must caution you that we haven't tried to provide a complete
+definition of \TeX. For that you'll need ^{\texbook}, which is the
+original source of information on \TeX. \texbook\ also contains a lot
+of information about the fine points of using \TeX, particularly on the
+subject of composing math formulas. We recommend it highly.
+
+In 1989 Knuth made a major revision to \TeX\ in order to adapt it to
+$8$-bit character sets, needed to support typesetting for languages
+other than English. The description of \TeX\ in this book incorporates
+that revision (see \xref{newtex}).
+
+{\tighten You may be using a specialized form of \TeX\ such as ^{\LaTeX}
+or ^{\AMSTeX} (see \xref{resources}). Although these specialized forms
+are self-contained, you may still want to use some of the facilities of
+\TeX\ itself now and then in order to gain the finer control that only
+\TeX\ can provide. This book can help you to learn what you need to
+know about those facilities without having to learn about a lot of other
+things that you aren't interested~in. \par}
+
+Two of us (K.A.H. and K.B.) were generously supported by the
+University of Massachusetts at Boston during the preparation of this
+book. In particular, Rick Martin kept the machines running, and
+Robert~A. Morris and Betty O'Neil made the machines available. Paul
+English of Interleaf helped us produce proofs for a cover design.
+
+We wish to thank the reviewers of our book: Richard Furuta of the
+University of Maryland, John Gourlay of Arbortext, Inc., Jill Carter
+Knuth, and Richard Rubinstein of the Digital Equipment Corporation. We
+took to heart their perceptive and unsparing criticisms of the original
+manuscript, and the book has benefitted greatly from their insights.
+
+We are particularly grateful to our editor, Peter Gordon of
+Addison-Wesley. This book was really his idea, and throughout its
+development he has been a source of encouragement and valuable
+advice. We thank his assistant at Addison-Wesley, Helen Goldstein, for
+her help in so many ways, and Loren Stevens of Addison-Wesley for her
+skill and energy in shepherding this book through the production
+process. Were it not for our copyeditor, Janice Byer, a number of small
+but irritating errors would have remained in this book. We appreciate
+her sensitivity and taste in correcting what needed to be corrected
+while leaving what did not need to be corrected alone. Finally, we wish
+to thank Jim Byrnes of Prometheus Inc. for making this collaboration
+possible by introducing us to each other.
+\vskip1.5\baselineskip
+
+\line{\it Deerfield, Massachusetts\hfil\rm P.\thinspace W.\thinspace A.}
+\line{\it Manomet, Massachusetts\hfil\rm K.\thinspace A.\thinspace H.,
+ K.\thinspace B.}
+
+\vskip2\baselineskip
+
+\noindent {\bf Preface to the free edition:} This book was originally
+published in 1990 by Addison-Wesley. In 2003, it was declared out of
+print and Addison-Wesley generously reverted all rights to us, the
+authors. We decided to make the book available in source form, under
+the GNU Free Documentation License, as our way of supporting the
+community which supported the book in the first place. See the
+copyright page for more information on the licensing.
+
+The illustrations which were part of the original book are not included
+here. Some of the fonts have also been changed; now, only
+freely-available fonts are used. We left the cropmarks and galley
+information on the pages, to serve as identification. An old version of
+Eplain was used to produce it; see the {\tt eplain.tex} file for
+details.
+
+We don't plan to make any further changes or additions to the book
+ourselves, except for correction of any outright errors reported to us,
+and perhaps inclusion of the illustrations.
+
+Our distribution of the book is at {\tt
+ftp://tug.org/tex/impatient}. You can reach us by email at {\tt
+impatient@tug.org}.
+
+\pagebreak
+\byebye