[XeTeX] Is the apprentice's incompetence?

[Andres Conrado Montoya]

Greetings.

I am a very junior newbie in the TeX/LaTeX/XeTeX world, but i'm a
experienced book designer, working for the Faculty of Humanities in a
public university, along with personal projects in a little press of
my own. Seeking cost-effective solutions for the production of books,
found XeTeX, what I consider to be a good solution. However, I can not
understand where I can start to learn. I can not find good sources of
documentation about the commands and it's effects in the type. I have
spent hours in front of the screen trying to find documentation of
XeTeX, but I find some here, some there, nothing founded so far says
something like "for starting a document you ned to write this and
that, and end the document with this and that" Some kind of tutorial.
Google was the first and obvious option, that finally guide me there,
and give links to other manuals, but I start reading and feels like is
supposed that I know at least how to write the base of a document
(headers, how to start it, how to end it, etc.), but I don't know how
to do it.

Is it my mistake? I'm missing someting? I tried using existing XeTeX
documents, like the ones in the showcase, but finally, I don't know
how the document works, and I'm unable of editing it except at the
information level.
Could you please give me some clues on where to find manuals or
guides, specifically XeTeX, to start learning and guide others? Need
to know how to control typographically the design, how to make
variations, bleeds, etc., at the design level. I know this is
posibble, but I'm frustrated... I'm intelligent, I can handle the
code, can handle the documentation I've founded, but is fragmented,
just wanna know where to start.

I'm very grateful for all you can tell me, and apologize for not
knowing what to do. Probably I'm looking in a bad direction. (and
sorry for my bad english)

Have very nice day, everyday, all of you there.
--
Andrés Conrado Montoya
El Andi
andresconrado at gmail.com
http://chiquitico.org
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