Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The history of the modern Swiss Army knife, pictured on the cover of this book, begins in 1884, when Karl Elsener, a Swiss cutler, discoverd that the knives issued to members of the Swiss Army were made in Germany. Thinking that it would be more appropriate for the Swiss Army to carry Swiss-made knives, he formed the Association of Swiss Master Cutlers in 1891. That same year he developed a pocketknife that contained a blade, a screwdriver, a can opener, and a hole punch. He called this knife the Soldier's knife, beginning the tradition of giving the knives model names rather than model numbers. In 1897 Elsener discovered a way to use one spring to attach blades to both the back and the front of the knife, thus enabling him to add more implements to his knives without adding more bulk. He put an additional blade and a corkscrew on his original knife and called it the Officer's knife. Even today, the knives issued to Swiss officers have corkscrews, while those issued to non-officers do not.

The Swiss Army has traditionally split its orders for knives between the company that Elsener founded, Victorinox, which is based in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and the Wenger company, which is based in French-speaking Switzerland. The knives purchased by the Swiss Army do not have the familiar red plastic handle, but one of a quilted gray aluminum. A small red shield with a white cross in it appears on the side of each knife.

The popular red knives, such as the one pictured on this book, are currently made by both Victorinox and Wengler for commercial use. The vast majority of these knives are sold in the United States, where they were first introduced by soldiers returning from World War II. ...

Edie Freedman designed this cover and made the cover photograph. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.3 using Adobe Helvetica Black condensed fonts. Edie Freedman also designed the page layouts.

Text was prepared in SGML using the DocBook 2.1 DTD. The print version of this book was created by translating the SGML source into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at ORA by Norman Walsh. Steve Talbott designed and wrote the underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU gtroff -gs macros; Lenny Muellner adapted them to SGML and implemented the book design. The GNU groff text formatter version 1.08 was used to generate PostScript output. The body text of the book is set in the Adobe ITC Garamond typeface; the examples are set in Courier. Headings and captions are set in the Helvetica Condensed Bold Oblique typeface.

The figures were created in Aldus Freehand 4.0 and screenshots were processed in Adobe Photoshop 2.5 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.