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I have just realized that "The LaTeX Companion" is published in it's 3rd edition: https://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Companion-Techniques-Computing-Typesetting/dp/0134658949

However, it is not available from Amazon, it seems. How can I purchase the 3rd edition?

Update

Does anyone know when the EPUB version is expected to be ready?

Svend Tveskæg
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    According to the webpage you've provided, the 3rd edition will be released in November 2022. Patience, just a bit more patience... – Mico Aug 31 '21 at 03:41

3 Answers3

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The (publishing) world is a bit strange in this regard. Sometimes internal tentative dates end up in xls sheets that in turn end up in places like Amazon and become real before they are. The 3rd edition is still being worked on and my plans/hopes is to be ready for copy-editing early next year, i.e. February timeframe. From that point on it will still take several months until publication date, so summer 2022 is what I think is realistic.

And just to prove that "something" is happening here are the latest draft covers (from December 2021):

enter image description hereenter image description here

They aren't the final ones but we are getting closer.

Update July 2022

We are now in the middle of copy editing and proof reading by the publisher (as well as preparing the final index). Volume I is essentially done, but finishing Volume II + index will take us to January in the current schedule. In other words my optimistic assumption above was simply too optimistic: I should have done the math and figured out how much work it is to copy-edit 20 chapters, each of which with an average of 80-90 pages.

Somebody asked below if a TOC is available. The answer is yes, here are the draft TOCs for both volumes:

Update November 11th, 11:11, 2022

More or less exactly at that moment (which is a very important day+time in my city, because then the fifth season starts) I have finished the last copyedit corrections for the book, so it is soon going into the production phase. Paper selection was made (same as Don Knuth's for his TAOCP series) --- this is difficult these days, good paper is a rare thing. There are a few outstanding bits and pieces to be resolved for the production, but we are well in front of the original schedule, so I hope that the planned publishing date (which was April/May 2023) can be moved earlier. If there is an update I will post that here.

Happy and tired :-)

Semi-final update January 2nd, 2023

Between the previous update and today the remaining work was done at my end: yet another two rounds of checking the index to make it better and dealing with final organizational questions like the cover blurb, legal pages, etc. At 2AM on Christmas Eve I was finally able to send of camera-ready copy to the publisher and now it is out of my hands.

Im sorry to say, that it is still not yet with its own page on the publisher's shop informit.com, but I hope we get that sorted during the next weeks and also sad is the fact that odering information on various online shops are still inaccurate (often only listing the first part and not the bundle of part I+II). The reason is that initially only one volume was planned and even though the change to two has been communicated long ago, it seems difficult to get the old data weeded out. Anyway, here is the final info on ISBNs:

Part I:

ISBN-13: 978-0-13-465894-0
  ISBN-10: 0-13-465894-9


Part II:


ISBN-13: 978-0-201-36300-5
  ISBN-10: 0-201-36300-3


Part I+II: (bundle)


ISBN-13: 978-0-13-816648-9
  ISBN-10: 0-13-816648-X

but in all honesty it doesn't make much sense to buy the parts individually or only one of them --- it is really a single book but because of its size (1984 pages in total) split into two equal volumes and the bundle is supposed to be noticeably cheaper than the individual books.

In a few days all examples from the book are available for download from https://ctan.org/pkg/tlc3-examples (I will upload them to CTAN tonight).

Given that I managed to finish a month or so earlier than planned I have some hope that the publishing date moves earlier too, but who knows ... in any case I will make a final update when that happens.

Final update March 8th, 2023

As mentioned in a comment by Jacques Cremer the third edition is now listed on the publisher's website, InformIt, as ready for preordering. The printed version is with the printer so the publication date will be met to the best of my knowledge (and just for the record, as this isn't always mentioned correctly: the books are hardcover with reading ribbons).

The digital version is in the works with a vendor generating an ePub version. There is a good chance that that will be ready by beginning of May, but if I'm not happy with the results then there might be a bit of delay (the uPDF was prepared by me and is with the publisher so that is already ready).

Note, that the InformIt bundle offering is unique and not available elsewhere (containing the books + uPDF + ePub). Same with the digital only offering which contains uPDF + ePub. On other platforms, e.g., Amazon, you only get the ePub as the digital product, because they don't sell it in several format (I think that's a pity but this is how they operate).

So here is the offical publisher link to it

The full set of examples from the edition are available from CTAN at

including both the sources and the pdf output.

Finally, I'm going to update the material on our website during the next days so that one can take a look at a comprehensive selection of sample pages there (basically the first pages of each chapter). This will show up (probably by the weekend) at

Frank Mittelbach
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  • Thanks for the update! Just a quick comment on the ToC of Book II: For subsection 10.10 (and the rest og 10.XY) an 10.10.10 (and the rest of 10.10.XYZ) the space between the numbers and the text is too narrow, in my opinion. – Svend Tveskæg Jul 17 '22 at 20:37
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    @SvendTveskæg quite true (even overprinting for 10.10.10), but as I said above we are in copyediting of Volume II and so the layout isn't yet done for that volume (there is actually a marginally note that reminds me the toc layout needs adjusting), but thanks anyway, it could have been easily an oversight – Frank Mittelbach Jul 18 '22 at 21:17
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    Does the book have a page on the publisher's website? – homocomputeris Oct 22 '22 at 21:07
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    @homocomputeris not yet. It will appear on https://www.informit.com but their policy is to only add items that are less than 90 days before publication and the publication is scheduled for April/May. I'll announce here the moment they have added the page. – Frank Mittelbach Oct 24 '22 at 07:13
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    1984 pages? That sounds rather dystopian. – Gaussler Jan 02 '23 at 18:04
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    I noticed that too, but can't really help it, @Gaussler :-), more precisely it is 976 + 1008 which is 16x61 + 16x63. But it isn't a dystopia, it only reflects how much is happening in the LaTeX world (when just trying to select the good stuff). – Frank Mittelbach Jan 02 '23 at 20:57
  • "Perfect" binding (which is how most books are bound the days) has a maximum capacity of about 1,000 pages per volume. Even then, the book will be somewhat fragile. I presume that you at least managed to arrange it so it was divided at a chapter break. – barbara beeton Jan 06 '23 at 21:26
  • @barbarabeeton it is going to be hardcover like Don's Art of Computer Programming (same paper and I would presume the same binding). Second edition was about 1100 pages. And yes it is divided on chapter breaks. – Frank Mittelbach Jan 07 '23 at 22:47
  • Oh, good! But almost all books these days are glued, not sewn, even if hardcover. Do you know which method will be used for TLC3? – barbara beeton Jan 08 '23 at 00:00
  • @FrankMittelbach Rather (but not completely) urelated: I would like to buy the latest printing of TLC2 before I buy TLC3; can I be sure that when I buy it at https://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Companion-Techniques-Computer-Typesetting/dp/0201362996 that it is the latest printing? (I have a second printing from 2004 but I would like a copy with all the corrections.) – Svend Tveskæg Jan 08 '23 at 14:23
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    @SvendTveskæg I may be wrong, but I think the last reprint with corrections was fourth printing 2005. I would doubt that amazon sells older printings but I have no control over anything like that. – Frank Mittelbach Jan 09 '23 at 08:12
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    Best wishes to Frank and Ulrike – MadyYuvi Mar 07 '23 at 16:35
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    Here it is on informit: https://www.informit.com/store/latex-companion-parts-i-ii-3rd-edition-9780138166489. Available 15 May or so. – Jacques Cremer Mar 07 '23 at 16:56
  • Will you release the LaTeX version of this book for ebook buyers? Thanks. – Y. zeng Mar 29 '23 at 07:25
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    @Y.zeng if xyou look at the links provided above then you see that the InformIT store shows "the 2 books", "the content as a single ebook in format ePub and uPDF" and both together as a bundle. Note that other distributors (eg Amazon) only provide the ePub (which I personally don't think is that useful to work with ... it is not a novel after all). – Frank Mittelbach Mar 30 '23 at 09:07
  • If they can sell LaTeX format, it will be better. – Y. zeng Mar 30 '23 at 13:15
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    @Y.zeng beside the fact that this is not going to happen why in God's nasme should that be better? All 1600 examples are online and avaliable in LaTeX format and the rest why should anybody want that? – Frank Mittelbach Mar 31 '23 at 18:22
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    If one learns how to make all the book's contents the best LaTeX author writes, he absolutely learns much more than by 1600 examples. Making thousands of pages of the book nice is very difficult to learn by small examples. If one can understand how to make the book as you, I think he has learned this book thoroughly. I once get a LaTeX book about computer science. I think it is better than pdf. – Y. zeng Apr 01 '23 at 07:02
  • @Y.zeng : I completely agree – vrgovinda Apr 01 '23 at 23:24
  • @FrankMittelbach does this edition include contents of the other book, "The LaTeX Graphics Companion, 2nd edition", or are they separate? If separate, is the 2nd edition of the graphics companion still relevant with respect to changes that happened to LaTeX over the last decade? And do you plan to release an updated version too? – AkaZecik Apr 18 '23 at 18:58
  • @AkaZecik TLC3 has one chapter on basic data-to-day graphics but it is otherwise essentially orthogonal to The LaTeX Graphics Companion. The contents of that book is much much more stable (because more specialized) which is why we accepted that it is reprinted by Lehmanns from the plates of the second edition ast year, see https://www.latex-project.org/news/2022/03/08/LGC2-update/ – Frank Mittelbach Apr 19 '23 at 13:55
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Frank Mittelbach addresses the upcoming third edition of The LaTeX Companion in this interview from TUG2021. The link should begin at 39:09 into the interview.

https://youtu.be/VDsEum6GoBI?t=2349

LaTeXereXeTaL
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Just received message from amazon announcing the publication on August 13th

Rafael R. Pappalardo
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    Forget it, there is still (don't ask me why) incorrect data floating around. I'm sure eventually that gets corrected, but it seems more slowly that I would have thought. The correct publication date is April/May 2023 (depending on type: print / digital or bundle). – Frank Mittelbach Mar 08 '23 at 11:07
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    @FrankMittelbach Yesterday Amazon showed the date as May of this year for the bundle and I pre-ordered. – LaTeXereXeTaL Mar 08 '23 at 17:30