The LaTeX Companion: Parts I & II, 3rd Edition (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting) cover
The LaTeX Companion: Parts I & II, 3rd Edition (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting)
by Frank Mittelbach, Ulrike Fischer, Joseph Wright
ISBN: 013816648X
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sombragris · 2023-09-30 · Original thread
As a 20+ years as a more or less casual LaTeX user, I feel your pain. However, some points your mention have workarounds.

My first advice would be to invest in getting The LaTeX Companion (https://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Companion-Techniques-Computer-T...). Really, it is the "common things people want or need to do documents" as you said.

The third edition is just out of the presses. I have the 2nd one, and one of the appendixes is an explanation of LaTeX and TeX infamously cryptic error messages, and it is really useful.

As for using PDF features, try PDFLaTeX or even better, XeLaTeX or luatex. The latter use utf-8 and advanced PDF kerning techniques, among other useful stuff.