Books on TeX, Plain TeX and relations

While Knuth’s book is the definitive reference for both TeX and Plain TeX, there are many books covering these topics:

• The TeXbook by Donald Knuth (Addison-Wesley, 1984, ISBN-10 0-201-13447-0, paperback ISBN-10 0-201-13448-9)
• A Beginner’s Book of TeX by Raymond Seroul and Silvio Levy, (Springer Verlag, 1992, ISBN-10 0-387-97562-4)
• TeX by Example: A Beginner’s Guide by Arvind Borde (Academic Press, 1992, ISBN-10 0-12-117650-9 — now out of print)
• Introduction to TeX by Norbert Schwarz (Addison-Wesley, 1989, ISBN-10 0-201-51141-X — now out of print)
• A Plain TeX Primer by Malcolm Clark (Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBNs 0-198-53724-7 (hardback) and 0-198-53784-0 (paperback))
• A TeX Primer for Scientists by Stanley Sawyer and Steven Krantz (CRC Press, 1994, ISBN-10 0-849-37159-7)
• TeX by Topic by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley, 1992, ISBN-10 0-201-56882-9 — now out of print, but see online books;
• TeX for the Beginner by Wynter Snow (Addison-Wesley, 1992, ISBN-10 0-201-54799-6)
• TeX for the Impatient by Paul W. Abrahams, Karl Berry and Kathryn A. Hargreaves (Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN-10 0-201-51375-7 — now out of print, but see online books)
• TeX in Practice by Stephan von Bechtolsheim (Springer Verlag, 1993, 4 volumes, ISBN-10 3-540-97296-X for the set, or Vol. 1: ISBN-10 0-387-97595-0, Vol. 2: ISBN-10 0-387-97596-9, Vol. 3: ISBN-10 0-387-97597-7, and Vol. 4: ISBN-10 0-387-97598-5)
• TeX: Starting from Square One by Michael Doob (Springer Verlag, 1993, ISBN-10 3-540-56441-1 — now out of print)
• The Joy of TeX by Michael D. Spivak (second edition, AMS, 1990, ISBN-10 0-821-82997-1)
• The Advanced TeXbook by David Salomon (Springer Verlag, 1995, ISBN-10 0-387-94556-3)

A collection of Knuth’s publications about typography is also available:

• Digital Typography by Donald Knuth (CSLI and Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN-10 1-57586-011-2, paperback ISBN-10 1-57586-010-4).

and in late 2000, a “Millennium Boxed Set” of all 5 volumes of Knuth’s “Computers and Typesetting” series (about TeX and MetaFont) was published by Addison Wesley:

• Computers & Typesetting, Volumes A–E Boxed Set by Donald Knuth (Addison-Wesley, 2001, ISBN-10 0-201-73416-8).

FAQ ID: Q-tex-books