- Hardcover: 702 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press; Reissue edition (13 Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1575860112
- ISBN-13: 978-1575860114
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 16.3 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
2,617,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #22 in Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Design Studies > Typography
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'This wonderful new book contains Don Knuth's articles on TeX and METAFONT, and includes important archival material ... Reading this book is like holding in your hand twenty years of history. My view of TeX, and of the Computer Modern fonts that I use every day, has been changed completely by this book.'
Product Description
Donald Knuth's influence in computer science ranges from the invention of literate programming to the development of the TeX programming language. One of the foremost figures in the field of mathematical sciences, Knuth has written papers which stand as milestones of development over a wide range of topics. In this collection, the second in the series, Knuth explores the relationship between computers and typography. The present volume, in the words of the author, is the legacy of all the work he has done on typography. When type designers, punch cutters, typographers, book historians, and scholars visited the University while Knuth was working in this field, it gave to Stanford what some consider to be its golden age of digital typography. By the author's own admission, the present work is one of the most difficult books that he has prepared. This is truly a work that only Knuth could have produced.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you haven't heard of TeX this probably isn't the place to start. But for a scintillating peek behind the scenes at twenty years of TeX and Metafont, this is the book to read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating Background Material to Knuth's Typesetting Work
23 Mar 2002
Format:Paperback
This book won't teach you TeX or Metafont. It might not even teach you all that much about particular algorithms (although Chapter 3 is one of the most detailed explanations of TeX's linebreaking algorithms published anywhere). Instead, this book offers a look behind the scenes.
Instead of beholding TeX and Metafont in their almost final versions, as published in _TeX: The Program_ and _Metafont: The Program_, respectively, you see them grow from the first design studies (when Knuth thought of TeX as a program for two grad students to write over a summer) to where they are today. You see how the collaboration between Knuth and Zapf on the Euler fonts worked, and you get another glance at many facets of Knuth's mind (And a beautiful mind it is indeed, even though it is entirely sane).
If you have any deeper interest in TeX and Metafont, this book is well worth the money.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
A very stimulating bathroom read
12 Jun 1999
Format:Paperback
This book collects numerous writings on TeX and typography from one of the greatest coumputer scientists of all time, Donald Knuth. Here you get to read fascinating inside information on Knuth's earliest development of TeX, how doggone hard he worked to get the letter "S" just right in his computer modern fonts, how to typeset his wife's recipes, and other bits of amazing minutiae. Knuth's style is breezy and funny in a wry-dry kind of way. (He's the kind of down-to-earth genius you'd love to take out to dinner.), and I was amused to find out that he seems to be a film buff. (His journal from his early work on TeX shows that he went to see "Earthquake," for goshsakes, "to relax"!)
This is a brilliant book, a book to treasure, and with its relatively short essays, a book to keep handy for bathroom reading. But then again, you may get addicted and just keep reading one chapter after another! If you love TeX (or LaTeX or AMS-TeX) as much as I do, you'll have to have this book. It's that good, and you will not only be astounded by his genius, entertained by the presentation, but you'll learn things too. Trust me on this one.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
!
15 May 1999
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you haven't heard of TeX this probably isn't the place to start. But for a scintillating peek behind the scenes at twenty years of TeX and Metafont, this is the book to read.
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