[Tex/LaTex] Are there any good general typesetting books / references

book-designbookstypography

I would like to learn more about typesetting, the accepted best practices, rules and tricks used in books, letters, resumes etc. For example, what are the usual left and right margins? Line spacing? When to use what type of justification?

Any good books or links?

Best Answer

Book Recommendations

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. (Christian Lindig: This is a classic and if you only read one book I'd say it should be this one.) (lockstep: Emphasis on book design, plus a chapter about well-designed fonts.)
The Complete Manual of Typography by James Felici, 2nd ed 2011.
Thinking with Type (read online) by Ellen Lupton, 2nd ed 2010.
Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works by Erik Spiekermann. (Christian Lindig: A small and useful book, less about technicalities and more about good taste and providing an overview.) (lockstep: I wouldn't recommend this one -- it does provide an overview, but is completely lacking with regard to technical details.)
Règles typographiques et normes : Mise en pratique avec LaTeX by David Carella; french book. Note: may be out of print as of Sept 2011.
Detail in Typography by Jost Hochuli, 2008. (German language edition 2005.) Very concise, yet chockful of great points.

All links go to Amazon where you can find in-depth reviews.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to setup a TeX document to self publish a book online

Martin gave a full answer with various examples (mentionning book, memoir and scrbook).

When it comes to scrbook, here is an example I have set to fit CreateSpace and Lulu's requirements. I generate US Trade formats (6x9 in):

% WITHOUT BLEED
% US Trade => 6x9
\documentclass[paper=6in:9in,pagesize=pdftex,
               headinclude=on,footinclude=on,12pt]{scrbook}
%
% Paper width
% W = 6in
% Paper height
% H = 9in
% Paper gutter
% BCOR = 0.5in
% Margin (0.5in imposed on lulu, recommended on createspace)
% m = 0.5in
% Text height
% h = H - 2m = 8in
% Text width
% w = W - 2m - BCOR = 4.5in
\areaset[0.50in]{4.5in}{8in}

And here is a similar one which requires a bleed (0.125" on CreateSpace):

% WITH BLEED
% US Trade => 6x9, with a 0.125 bleed
% Adjust images size and gutter so tabs bleed by .125
% See https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/InteriorPDF.jsp
\documentclass[paper=6.125in:9.25in,pagesize=pdftex,
               10pt]{scrbook}
%
% Paper width
% W = 6.125in (6+0.125 --- bleed)
% Paper height
% H = 9.25in (9+2*.125 --- bleed)
% Paper gutter
% BCOR = 0.375in (0.5+0.5-0.625 --- margin with bleed)
% Margin (0.5in imposed on lulu, recommended on createspace)
% m = 0.625in (0.5+0.125 --- bleed)
% Text height
% h = H - 2m = 8in
% Text width
% w = W - 2m - BCOR = 4.5in
\areaset[0.375in]{4.5in}{8in}

The rest of the books are quite standard, and really depend on what you want to put in them.

[Tex/LaTex] What are good advanced LaTeX books

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.

Best Answer

Book Recommendations

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to setup a TeX document to self publish a book online

[Tex/LaTex] What are good advanced LaTeX books

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