Here you find some manuals that I wrote. They are not typical manuals, but that could be exactly the reason for you to like them (or not). Here's my problem. First, typical books are several hundred pages long, so it takes time to find relevant information. Second, I am a mathematician, so I do not need long explanations and dozens of examples. I am happy with basic definitions and precise rules, I can work out the rest faster than I would find it in books.
Thus when I am learning something new I read on it, chew on it, process it and distill the material into a few pages. Later, when I need something, I can find it in those few pages easily and I find exactly the information I need and in exactly the way I can understand it best. To my surpise, people were also able to learn from my notes. Before computers came, my notes were handwritten and classmates used to xerox it. But then the 90's came and I could type stuff in, so now I can share it with you - that is, if you are interested. If you like thinking algorithmically, you might like it.
• A manual for TeX.
I actually started learning AMSTeX first, so the manual covers both plain and AmSTeX, I hope I separated them sufficiently to allow the reader to ignore AMSTeX if (s)he has no desire to use it. I reworked it recently to include some more advanced stuff that I learned since then, and a Bonus section at the end where I am collecting useful solutions to popular problems.
• A manual for LaTeX.
I needed to learn LaTeX because some publishers insist on it, this time the manual is shorter, since it mostly shows differences compared to (AmS)TeX.
• A manual for TikZ.
TikZ allows one to draw pictures directly in TeX source file. The installation includes a full manual whose size is getting nearer to 1000 pages with each new version, so I made this personal version that contains basics and then things that I needed so far. When I need something else, I will add it.
• A manual for Maple.
As usual, I learned a bit more than I really needed and distilled it into 22 pages. If you want to start learning Maple, then it might be better to first look at the crash course on my Maple page.
• A manual for HTML.
I am no whiz, so don't expect any Java, but you can do a lot with HTML up to version 4, which is incidentally still the most reliable tool. Once you start messing around with CSS and stuff, you never know what might happen when the page is loaded by some non-standard browser (Explorer comes to mind). Pages coded directly by hand are way cleaner than pages done by some webpage editing software (again, Microsoft comes to mind), consequently they run faster and load much more reliably. If you feel like putting some simple pages together and do not plan on becoming an expert, these 16 pages could be enough.
• A manual for SVG.
When working on mathematical web pages, I realized that it would be much simpler if I could create pictures using language similar to html. So I learned some basics of SVG and put them into a manual.