i Preface It is important to read the chapters in order-the book is not that big,after all.Be sure to carefully read the examples,because a lot of the information is in the examples placed throughout the book BTX is available for most computers,from the PC and Mac to large UNIX and VMS systems.On many university computer clusters you will find that a ITEX installation is available,ready to use.Information on how to access the local IsTEX installation should be provided in the Local Guide.If you have problems getting started,ask the person who gave you this booklet. e scope of this document is not to tell you how to install and set up a you how to write your documents so that they can be proce If you need to get hold of any ITEX related material,have a look at one of the Comprehensive TEX Archive Network(CTAN)sites.The homepage is at http://www.ctan.org. You will find other references to CTAN throughout the book,especially ad. Instea within the a ree you sho IT your own computer,take a look at what is If If vou have ideas for something to be added.removed or altered in this document,please let me know.I am especially interested in feedback from BTEX novices about which bits of this intro are easy to understand and which could be explained better. Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch> OeTIKER-PARTNER AG 4600 Olten Switzerlandvi Preface It is important to read the chapters in order—the book is not that big, after all. Be sure to carefully read the examples, because a lot of the information is in the examples placed throughout the book. LATEX is available for most computers, from the PC and Mac to large UNIX and VMS systems. On many university computer clusters you will find that a LATEX installation is available, ready to use. Information on how to access the local LATEX installation should be provided in the Local Guide [5]. If you have problems getting started, ask the person who gave you this booklet. The scope of this document is not to tell you how to install and set up a LATEX system, but to teach you how to write your documents so that they can be processed by LATEX. If you need to get hold of any LATEX related material, have a look at one of the Comprehensive TEX Archive Network (CTAN) sites. The homepage is at http://www.ctan.org. You will find other references to CTAN throughout the book, especially pointers to software and documents you might want to download. Instead of writing down complete URLs, I just wrote CTAN: followed by whatever location within the CTAN tree you should go to. If you want to run LATEX on your own computer, take a look at what is available from CTAN://systems. If you have ideas for something to be added, removed or altered in this document, please let me know. I am especially interested in feedback from LATEX novices about which bits of this intro are easy to understand and which could be explained better. Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch> OETIKER+PARTNER AG Aarweg 15 4600 Olten Switzerland The current version of this document is available on CTAN://info/lshort