[texhax] enjoy/Visual LaTeX FAQ

[Uwe Lück]

Dear TeX disciples,

... as RTMF and FAQ matters arise every few weeks on mailing
lists like this one ... I'm presenting a kind of review of a new helping
offer on CTAN (kind of weblog here, what about such a "weblog" here?):

     http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive//info/visualFAQ/

by Scott Pakin.

As me, you may often have found the /questions/ in FAQs are
stupid and boring, while your own question seems never have
to been asked before ... or the UK TeX FAQ provides answers
to questions that probably nobody ever has asked ...

... or your problem is a common one, you just don't know its
TeXpert /wording/ ... so what to input to a search engine??

Scott Pakin's Visual LaTeX FAQ -- offered only this year on
CTAN -- alternatively provides a document consisting of /samples/
of many typical typesetting problems. You may take the time and
browse through it without any special purpose ... and see that it
deals with problems you have often wondered about -- but didn't
dare to ask anyone for ... or with the one problem that you
are actually dealing with!?! (And this requires that you can afford
taking such time indeed.)

(... the latter as well applies to not so actual-purpose-oriented,
curious looks at FAQ- and answer lists that have existed
for a long time.)

When you find such an interesting sample in the Visual LaTeX
document, you may click on it, to be directed to the UK TeX FAQ
page(s) concerning the problem.

However -- as Scott Pakin admits, this intention is not satisfied
with many installations. The PDF driver may be unable to send
the web browser to any web page. Still I find: In any case, an
/abbreviation/ of the corresponding FAQ page URL pops up
when the cursor touches the interesting region.
It ends with some (somewhat cryptical) key terms that you
may input to the /search engine/ of the UK TeX FAQ.
That search engine then directs you to FAQ pages that may
really answer questions you often have wondered about or even
that you have actually are wondering about just actually.

As I suggest in another posting, just reading such FAQ answers
may give you insights you have waited for long. Instead of
longwinded explaining how a certain command or package works,
they give brief overviews of by which macros [packages] certain
problems (appearing quite often) might be overcome.

HTH -- Uwe.

...