[texhax] LaTeX manual / error help [was diff...tab...]

[Uwe Lück]

At 21:26 15.04.06, tom sgouros wrote:

>Paul Tremblay <phthenry at iglou.com> wrote:
>
> > Sorry to be dense, but what do you mean by the LaTeX companion? I have
> > a hard copy of *A Guide to LaTeX,* but this book has a copyright of
> > 1999.
>
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201362996/sr=8-1/qid=1145129442/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7915068-7508833?%5Fencoding=UTF8

... in original LaTeX, error help messages (appearing on input `H' after
an error message) referred to the `LaTeX manual' -- which seems to
have been Leslie Lamport's manual.

More recently, that message has added reference to the
"LaTeX Companion" as well -- so the LaTeX Project Team
seems to have thought that both of them /together/ help
with most /LaTeX2e/ problems -- while just one of them may
not suffice for all such problems.

The "Guide to LaTeX" by Kopka and ... seems to be something
different, originating from Kopka's original /German/ guide volumes
-- very helpful indeed.

Concerning error help messages however: are there any actual
installations that don't entirely abort at any error message
(`Emergency stop'), hiding that help message entirely!??
I am thinking of those old installations that offered interactive
processing as well ...

Cheers,
   Uwe.