[texhax] Plain TeX

[unixdude2038-tex at yahoo.com]

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:43:43 -0400
From: John Culleton <john at wexfordpress.com>
To: texhax at tug.org
Subject: Re: [texhax] Plain Tex
Message-ID: <200910301743.43840.john at wexfordpress.com>
Content-Type: Text/Plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"

On Sunday 27 September 2009 12:38:10 Kelly wrote:
> Dear Sir/Madam:
>
> I have tried to learn TeX on my own through Knuth's book, and 
am writing
> stuff using a MikTex implementation on Windows Vista.
>
> I would like to continue using plain TeX instead of LaTeX.
>
> Is it possible to use color, include photos, and hyperlinks in my 
pdf files
> using plain TeX instead of LaTeX?
>
> If so can you recommend a simple explanatory source to me, 
who knows little
> else than what is in the Knuth book.
>
> Sincerely,
>   Kelly McKennon
pdftex has useful extensions to the plain tex format but almost all 
of plain tex still works. For my work I use pdftex plus eplain.tex. I 
just don't like LaTeX.

Books I have on plain tex that are less heavy than The TeXBook 
include "TeX for the Impatient" (Abrahams et al.) and "A Beginners
book of TeX"  (Seroul & Levy).  Try Amazon Marketplace for either.
I think "...Impatient" is still available in pdf form also.

And of course do not neglect the oldie but goodie "A Gentle 
Introduction to TeX". With permission I have posted a pdf of this 
classic on my website:

http://wexfordpress.com/tex/gentle.pdf

-- 
John Culleton
"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html


------------------------------


"TeX for the Impatient" is available for download and appears to be released under the "GNU Free Documentation License" and available from TUG, both in PDF and TeX source.  Please check the following links:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/TeX_for_the_Impatient


and 

http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/teximpatient/


-Burton