What are good advanced LaTeX books?

Question

I've been using LaTeX for about 3 months, and I'm hooked. My background is programming, so for the basic, google is sufficient. I did some research on amazon.com and found these two books with many positive feedback:
LaTeX-Companion-Techniques-Computer-Typesetting
Guide to LaTeX (4th Edition)

However, most of people said they are more like references than a real book. And if they really are, then I think I'd rather look up at CTAN. What I'm looking for is a book that can teach me how to program in LaTeX, for example:

Write my own package
Create animation
Create and using macro in LaTeX
....

I know there are many options around, however to pick the right one is not an easy task. Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I don't think there is a book which covers points 1 and 2. Also note it's 'LaTeX' not 'Latex' (or 'LaTex' or 'latex', but latex is the compiler.) — Martin Scharrer, Jul 26 '11 at 08:34
@Herbert: Ok, latex is a symlink to pdftex. Close enough ;-) — Martin Scharrer, Jul 26 '11 at 13:35
@Martin: I wonder if you have a chance to have a look at those two titles I mentioned above? If you did, could you give me some feedback about them? Thanks in advance. — roxrook, Jul 26 '11 at 16:35
@Chan: They are both very good books and the first one contains good information on package writing (if I remember correctly). If you have access to them (check your local library) then you should really try to read them. — Martin Scharrer, Jul 26 '11 at 16:41
@Martin: Thanks a lot for your feedback. I found them in my school library ^_^ Happy! — roxrook, Jul 26 '11 at 20:26
Related question: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/12668/where-do-i-start-latex-programming/27589#27589 — Christian Feuersänger, Jan 07 '14 at 07:14

score 37 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 07 '14 at 06:18

A personal list of list for heavy LaTeX users:

More Math into LaTeX, 4ed. (easier)
A Guide To LaTeX, 4ed.
Digital Typography Using LaTeX. Springer.

More advanced:

The LaTeX Companion, 2ed.
The LaTeX Graphics Companion, 2ed.

And more: Many documents of LaTeX packages (user-level).

A personal useful book list for macro writers:

TeXbook.
TeX by Topic. (free eBook)

A personal useful (package) documentation list for package and class writers, general purpose:

clsguide: LaTeX2e for class and package writers.
source2e: Documented source code of LaTeX kernel.
classes: Documented source code of LaTeX standard classes.
macros2e: Martin's useful manual for LaTeX internal macros. (c.f. source2e)
eTeX's manual.
etoolbox: a useful toolbox of eTeX. For modern packages it is really useful.
keyval: Support for key-value interface.
pgfkey or xkeyval or l3keys2e: More advanced key-value interface.
Some packages of Oberdiek bundle: ifpdf, ifxetex, ifluatex, atbegshi, kvoptions, zref, ...
Some packages of tools bundle: array, calc (c.f. eTeX's primitives), fontsmpl (c.f. fonttable), layout (c.f. layouts), showkeys, trace, xspace, ...
expl3, interface3 and source3 (i.e. l3kernel bundle): Introduction of LaTeX3 syntax and documented (developing) LaTeX3 kernel.
Some packages of l3packages bundle, especially xparse.
Documents of pdfTeX, and maybe XeTeX and LuaTeX.

To be continued... I'll add links for the documents.

I made the answer CW. Any modification is welcome. – Leo Liu Jul 26 '11 at 13:57 — Leo Liu, Jul 26 '11 at 13:57

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

7

For point 1, have a look at the following links:

The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e

LaTeX2e for Authors

Although they refer to LaTeX2e, it should be sufficient for most applications of LaTeX. For point number 2, have a look at the following article:

Tools for creating LaTeX-integrated graphics and animation under GNU/Linux

For point 3, have a look at the following link:

Martin Scharrer's Website

The document provided on this site lists the internal macros defined by the LaTeX2e base files which can also be useful to package authors.

edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

Community

1

answered Jul 26 '11 at 09:28

Bill

1,181

macros2e is on CTAN already, you can update the link. – Andrey Vihrov Jul 26 '11 at 13:22
3

I must say (personally, I'm sorry), lshort is really not a good document. And it's only for beginners, but not suitable for any advance reference. A much better quick introduce to LaTeX is ltxprimer by Indian TUG. – Leo Liu Jul 26 '11 at 13:23
See the macros2e answer of mine for the updated CTAN and code repository links. I have to say that IMHO this document is not a starting point to learn how to define own macros. – Martin Scharrer Jul 26 '11 at 14:22
@Bill: Thanks a lot. Your reference links are amazing ;) – roxrook Jul 26 '11 at 16:26
-1 The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e & linkrot: http://scharrer-online.de/ – nilon Sep 14 '16 at 13:03

What are good advanced LaTeX books?

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