General ⇒ LaTeX cookbook for making Books ?

[tjyang]

Hi, All
Is such a book exist ?
I bought 3 LaTeX books(See R1) and the set of "The TeX book" (R2).
But that really doesn't help me to jumpstart on creating a Book.

What I am looking for is complete receipt for making a different books/article/resume with pre-configured teamplates.

Ex: "make -f Makefile.ExampleManual bookstyle1"
Then I will get a manual-style1.pdf generated.
in manual-style1.pdf I will see the the *.svg, *.dia type of pictures got inserted into books where it suppose to be.

R1 and R2 type of books, IMHO, are good for references. I don't have patience to read through the whole books to create a decent book.

Why not just change the example text to one's in ExampleManul.tex file ?
This kind of template is provided in MS Word or FrameMaker.

If there is no such book, can we start an effort to create one ?

tj yang
R1:
1. http://www.amazon.com/Latex-Companion-A ... 0201541998
2. http://www.amazon.com/Guide-LaTeX-4th-H ... _b_title_3
3. http://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Graphics-Co ... 827&sr=1-2
R2: http://www.amazon.com/TeXbook-Donald-E- ... 0201134489

[frabjous]

I don't understand what it is that you want. How are document classes like book, amsbook or scrbook not sufficient? There’s nothing they don’t provide that could be provided by a “recipe” that would apply to all books.

Why would make be necessary when latex/pdflatex (or latexmk) is clearly sufficient?

[localghost]

[...] What I am looking for is complete receipt for making a different books/article/resume with pre-configured teamplates. [...]

You can take a look at the TeX Catalog [1]. It lists some useful classes and packages that may help.

[...] I don't have patience to read through the whole books to create a decent book. [...]

If so, why did you buy them all?

[...] Why not just change the example text to one's in ExampleManul.tex file ?
This kind of template is provided in MS Word or FrameMaker. [...]

Feed the search engine of your choice with the right terms and you will find a lot of templates done by others.

[...] If there is no such book, can we start an effort to create one ? [...]

I can only speak for my language (German). There are a lot of books which describe how to draw up a thesis, PhD thesis or a book. And as frabjous already mentioned, there is no universal remedy for setting up a book. You can pick up some pieces from several templates or figure out a layout by yourself and translate it by means of the right class and packages.

[1] The TeX Catalogue Online, Topic Index


Best regards
Thorsten