Latex Newslatter 2005

LATEX News
Issue 17, December 2005
Project licence news
Updates of required packages
The LATEX Project Public License has been updated

slightly so that it is now version 1.3c. In the warranty
section the phrase unless required by applicable law
has been reinstated, having got lost at some point. Also,
it now contains three clarifications: of the difference
between maintained and author-maintained; of the
term Base Interpreter; and when clause 6b and 6d
shall not apply.
Following requests, we now also provide the text of
the licence as a LATEX document (in the file lppl.tex).
This file can be processed either as a stand-alone
document or it can be included (without any
modification) into another LATEX document, e.g., as an
appendix, using \input or \include.
Several of the packages in the tools bundle have been

updated for this release.
The xspace package has some new features. One is an
interface for adding and removing the exceptions it
knows about and another is that it works with active
characters. These remove problems of incompatibility
with the babel system.
In LATEX News 16 we announced that some packages
might begin to take advantage of -TEX extensions on
systems where these are available: and the latest
version of xspace does just that. Note also that fixltx2e
will make use of the facilities in -TEX whenever these
are present (see below).
The calc package has also been given an update with
a few extra commands. The commands \maxof and
\minof, each with two brace-delimited arguments,
provide the usual numeric max and min operations.
The commands \settototalheight and
\totalheightof work like \settoheight and
\heightof. There are also some internal improvements
to make calc work with some more primitive TEX
constructs, such as \ifcase.
The varioref package has acquired a few more default
strings but there are still a number of languages for
which good strings are still missing.
The showkeys package has also been updated slightly
to work with more recent developments in varioref.
Also, it now provides an easy way to define the look
of the printed labels with the command
\showkeyslabelformat.
New guide on font encodings

Way back in 1995 work was started on a guide to
document the officially allocated LATEX font encoding
names. However, for one reason or another this guide
(named LATEX font encodings) was, until now, not added
to the distribution. It describes the major 7-bit and 8-bit
font encodings used in the LATEX world and explains the
restrictions required of conforming text font encodings.
It also lists all the encoding specific commands (the
LICR or LATEX Internal Character Representation) for
characters supported by the encodings OT1 and T1.
When the file encguide.tex is processed by LATEX, it
will attempt to typeset an encoding table for each
encoding it describes. For this to be possible, LATEX
must be able to find .tfm files for a representative
example font for each encoding. If LATEX cannot find
such a file then a warning is issued and the
corresponding table is omitted.
Robust commands in math

The font changing commands in text-mode have been
robust commands for years, but the same has not been
true for the math versions such as \mathbf. While the
math-mode commands worked correctly in section
heads, they could cause problems in other places such
as index entries. With this release, these math-mode
commands are now robust in the same way as their
text-mode counterparts.
Work on LATEX fixes

The package known as fixltx2e has three new additions.
A new command \textsubscript has been added as a
complement to the command \textsuperscript in the
kernel. Secondly, a new form of \DeclareMathSizes
that allows all of its arguments to have a dimension
suffix. This means you can now use expressions such as
\DeclareMathSizes{9.5dd}{9.5dd}{7.4dd}{6.6dd}.
The third new addition is the robust command
\TextOrMath which takes two arguments and executes
one of them when typesetting in text or math mode
respectively. This command also takes advantage of
-TEX extensions if available; more specifically, when
the -TEX extensions are available, it does not destroy
kerning between previous letters and the text to be
LATEX News, and the LATEX software, are brought to you by the LATEX3 Project Team; Copyright 2005, all rights reserved.
typeset. The command is also used internally in fixltx2e

to resolve a problem with \fnsymbol.
Also, further work has been done on reimplementing
the command \addpenalty, which is used internally in
several places: we hope it is an improvement!
The graphics bundle

The graphics bundle now supports the dvipdfmx
post-processor and Jonathan Kews XETEX program. By
support we mean that the graphics packages recognize
the new options xetex and dvipdfmx but we do not
distribute the respective driver files.
This leads elegantly to a description of the new
policy concerning such driver files in the graphics
bundle. Most driver files for our graphics packages are
maintained by the developers of the associated
post-processor or TEX programs. The teams developing
these packages are working very hard: their rapid
development offers a stark contrast to the current
schedule of LATEX releases. It is therefore no longer
practical for the LATEX Team to be responsible for
distributing the latest versions of these driver files.
Therefore the installation files for graphics have been
split: there is now graphics.ins to install the package
files and graphics-drivers.ins for the driver files
(located in drivers.dtx). There is no need to install all
those provided in the file drivers.dtx.
Please also note that, as requested by the maintainers
of PStricks, we have removed the package pstcol as
current versions of PSTricks make it obsolete.
Future development
The title of this section is a little misleading as it
actually describes current development. In 1998 the
expl3 bundle of packages was put on CTAN to
demonstrate a possible LATEX3 programming
environment. These packages have been lying dormant
for some time while the LATEX Project Team were
preoccupied by other things such as developing the
experimental packages xor, template, etc., (and also
writing that indispensable and encyclopaedic volume,
The LATEX Companion 2nd edition).
In October 2004 work on this code base was resumed
with the goal of some day turning it into a kernel for
LATEX3. This work can now also make full use of the
widely accepted -TEX extensions. Currently two areas
are central to this work.
Extending the kernel code of LATEX3.
Converting the experimental packages such as xor,
template to use the new syntax internally.
Beware! Development of expl3 is happening so fast
that the descriptions above might be out of date when
you read this! If you wish to see whats going on then
go to http://www.latex-project.org/code.html
where you can download fully working code (we
hope!).

Latex Newslatter 2005

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Latex Newslatter 2005

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Latex Newslatter 2005

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

LATEX News

Issue 17, December 2005

Project licence news

Updates of required packages

The LATEX Project Public License has been updated

Several of the packages in the tools bundle have been

New guide on font encodings

Robust commands in math

Work on LATEX fixes

typeset. The command is also used internally in fixltx2e

The graphics bundle

You might also like