[comp.text] How do I get started with TeX

zumbachl@softeng1.UUCP (Lyle Zumbach) (09/14/89)

I am interested in learning more about Tex. I have a few elementry 
question I hope someone will answer.

What is the difference between TeX, LaTex, Texinfo ?

I have access to uunet and can uucp the Unix TeX distribution from
the University of Washington (TeX82).
What do I need to start with?

Is it easy to install on a Sun386i?

What do I need to print TeX on a Postscript printer?

Thanks in advance!

zs04+@andrew.cmu.edu (Zachary T. Smith) (09/21/89)

As far as learning about TeX goes, there are several
books out there on the subject. If you've never worked
with a text formatter or typesetting program before
(I mean if you've always been a prisoner of WordImperfect
or some other such program) it may be rough going
at first.

Books to look for include: TeXbook by Knuth, Joy of TeX,
LaTeX by Leslie Lamport, and a paper from stanford
called "First Grade TeX" (1983, author's last name is
Samuel).

There a distribution of TeX on one of the stanford machines,
but you may want to start out with an MSDOS version
first on your Sun 386i. See the recent post regarding this.

Hope this helps,

-Zach T. Smith (zs04+@andrew.cmu.edu)