TeX for the Impatient

1\ Using this book. . . . .1

Syntactic conventions. . . . .2

Descriptions of the commands. . . . .3

2\ Using TeX. . . . .7

Turning input into ink. . . . .7

Programs and files you need

Running TeX

Preparing an input file. . . . .10

Commands and control sequences

Arguments

Parameters

Spaces

Comments

Punctuation

Special Characters

Groups

Math formulas

How TeX works. . . . .16

New TeX versus old TeX. . . . .18

Resources. . . . .18

3\ Examples. . . . .21

Entering simple text. . . . .22

Indentation. . . . .24

Fonts and special characters. . . . .26

Interline spacing. . . . .28

Spacing, rules, and boxes. . . . .30

Odds and ends. . . . .32

Using fonts form other sources. . . . .34

A ruled table. . . . .36

Typesetting mathematics. . . . .38

More mathematics. . . . .40

4\ Concepts. . . . .43

5\ Commands for composing paragraphs. . . . .97

Characters and accents. . . . .97

Letters and ligatures for European alphabets

Special symbols

Arbitrary characters

Accents

Defeating boundary ligatures

Selecting fonts. . . . .102

Particular fonts

Type styles

Uppercase and lowercase. . . . .103

Interword spacing. . . . .104

Centering and justifying lines. . . . .108

Shaping paragraphs. . . . .110

Starting, ending, and indenting paragraphs

Shaping entire paragraphs

Line breaks. . . . .120

Encouraging or discouraging line breaks

Line breaking parameters

Hyphenation

Section headlings, lists, and theorems. . . . .129

6\ Commands for composing pages. . . . .133

Interline and interparagraph spaces. . . . .133

Page breaks. . . . .136

Encouraging or discouraging page breaks

Page breaking parameters

Page layout. . . . .140

Page description parameters

Page numbers

Header and footer lines

Marks

Insertions. . . . .145

Footnotes

General insertions

Modifying the output routine. . . . .148

Splitting vertical lists. . . . .149

7\ Commands for horizontal and vertical modes. . . . .153

Producing space. . . . .153

Fixed-width horizontal space

Fixed-length vertical space

Variable-size space

Manipulating boxes. . . . .160

Constructing hboxes and vboxes

Setting and retrieving the contents of boxes

Shifting boxes

Dimension of box registers

Struts, phantoms, and empty boxes

Parameters pertaining to malformed boxes

Retrieving the last item from a list. . . . .171

Rules and leaders. . . . .172

Alignments. . . . .176

Tabbing alignments

General alignments

8\ Commands for composing math formulas. . . . .187

Simple parts of formulas. . . . .187

Greek letters

Miscellaneous ordinary math symbols

Binary operators

Relations

Left and right delimiters

Arrows

Named mathematical functions

Large operators

Punctuation

Superscripts and subscripts. . . . .197

Selecting and using styles

Compound symbols. . . . .199

Math accents

Fractions and other stacking operations

Dots

Delimiters

Matrices

Roots and radicals

Equation numbers. . . . .207

Multiline displays. . . . .208

Fonts in math formulas. . . . .209

Constructing math symbols. . . . .211

Making delimiters bigger

Parts of large symbols

Aligning parts of a formula. . . . .212

Aligning accents

Aligning material vertically

Producing spaces. . . . .214

Fixed-width math spaces

Variable-width math spaces

Spacing parameters for displays

Other spacing parameters for math

Categorizing math constructs. . . . .218

Special actions for math formulas. . . . .218

9\ Commands for general operations. . . . .221

Naming and modifying fonts. . . . .221

Converting information to tokens. . . . .224

Numbers

Environmental information

Values of variables

Grouping. . . . .227

Macros. . . . .230

Defining macros

Other definitions

Controlling expansion

Conditional texts

Repeated actions

Doing nothing

Registers. . . . .242

Using registers

Naming and reserving registers, etc.

Doing arithmetic in registers

Ending the job. . . . .246

Input and output. . . . .247

Operations on input files

Operations on output files

Interpreting input characters

Controlling interaction with TeX. . . . .252

Diagnostic aids. . . . .253

Displaying internal data

Specifying what is traced

Sending messages

Initializing TeX. . . . .263

10\ Tips and Techniques. . . . .265

Correcting bad page breaks. . . . .265

Preserving the end of the page. . . . .267

Leaving space at the top of a page. . . . .267

Correcting bad line breaks. . . . .268

Correcting overfull or underfull boxes. . . . .268

Recovering lost interword spaces. . . . .270

Avoiding unwanted interword spaces. . . . .270

Avoiding excess space around a display. . . . .271

Avoiding excess space after a paragraph. . . . .271

Changing the paragraph shape. . . . .272

Putting paragraphs into a box. . . . .272

Drawing lines. . . . .273

Creating multiline headers or footers. . . . .274

Finding mismatched braces. . . . .275

Setting dimensions. . . . .276

Creating composite fonts. . . . .276

Reproducing text verbatim. . . . .277

Using outer macros. . . . .279

Changing category codes. . . . .280

Making macro files more readable. . . . .281

11\ Making sense of error messages. . . . .283

12\ A compendium of useful macros. . . . .291

Preliminaries. . . . .291

Displays. . . . .295

Time of day. . . . .297

Lists. . . . .298

Verbatim listing. . . . .300

Table of contents. . . . .301

Cross-references. . . . .302

Environments. . . . .304

Justification. . . . .306

Tables. . . . .307

Footnotes. . . . .309

Double columns. . . . .309

Finishing up. . . . .311

13\ Capsule summary of commands. . . . .313

Index. . . . .341

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