trunk/doc/ltnews06.tex

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  29 % Filename: ltnews06.tex
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  31 % This is issue 6 of LaTeX News.
  32
  33 \documentclass
  34 %    [lw35fonts]
  35    {ltnews}
  36
  37 % \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  38
  39 \publicationmonth{December}
  40 \publicationyear{1996}
  41 \publicationissue{6}
  42
  43 \begin{document}
  44
  45 \maketitle
  46
  47 \section{Welcome to \LaTeXNews~6}
  48 This issue of \emph{\LaTeXNews} accompanies the sixth release of the
  49 new standard \LaTeX{}, \LaTeXe.
  50
  51 \section{Mono-case file names}
  52 Previously \LaTeX\ has used some files with `mixed-case' file names
  53 such as \texttt{T1cmr.fd} and \texttt{T1enc.def}.
  54
  55 These file names cause problems on some systems (in particular they
  56 are illegal on the ISO 9660 CDROM format) and so in this release
  57 all file names have been made lowercase (for example
  58 \texttt{t1cmr.fd} and \texttt{t1enc.def}).
  59
  60 This change should \emph{not} affect any document. Within \LaTeX,
  61 encodings still have the usual uppercase names in uses such as
  62 \verb|\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}| and \verb|\fontencoding{T1}|.
  63 \LaTeX\ will automatically convert to the lowercase form while
  64 constructing the file name.
  65 \LaTeX\ will input the `fd' file under the old name if it fails to
  66 find the file with the new name, so existing collections of fd files
  67 should still work with this new release.
  68
  69 The change \emph{does} affect the configuration files that may be used
  70 to make the \LaTeX\ format with initex. For example, the file
  71 \texttt{fonttext.ltx} previously specified \verb|\input{T1cmr.fd}|.
  72 It now has \verb|\input{t1cmr.fd}|.
  73 If you use a local file \texttt{fonttext.cfg}
  74 you will need to make similar changes, as \verb|\input{T1cmr.fd}|
  75 will not work as \texttt{T1cmr.fd} is no longer in the distribution.
  76
  77 The files affected by this change all have names of the form
  78 \verb|*.fd| or \verb|*enc.def|.
  79
  80 \section{Another input encoding}
  81 Thanks to work by S\o ren Sandmann, the \textsf{inputenc} package now
  82 supports the IBM codepage~865 used in Scandinavia.
  83
  84 \section{Better user-defined math display environments}
  85 Suppose that you want to define an environment for displaying text
  86 that is numbered as an equation.  A straightforward way to do this is
  87 as follows:
  88 \begin{verbatim}
  89   \newenvironment{texteqn}
  90     {\begin{equation}
  91        \begin{minipage}{0.9\linewidth}}
  92       {\end{minipage}
  93      \end{equation}}
  94 \end{verbatim}
  95 However, if you have tried this then you will probably have noticed
  96 that it does not work perfectly when used in the middle of a paragraph
  97 because an inter-word space appears at the beginning of the first
  98 line after the environment.
  99
 100 There is now an extra command (with a very long name) available that
 101 you can use to avoid this problem; it should be inserted as shown here:
 102 \begin{verbatim}
 103   \newenvironment{texteqn}
 104     {\begin{equation}
 105        \begin{minipage}{0.9\linewidth}}
 106       {\end{minipage}
 107      \end{equation}
 108      \ignorespacesafterend}
 109 \end{verbatim}
 110
 111 \section{Docstrip improvements}
 112 The \textsf{docstrip} program that is used to unpack the \LaTeX\
 113 sources has undergone further development. The new version should be
 114 able to process all old `batchfiles' but it allows a simpler syntax in
 115 new `batchfiles' (no need to define \verb|\def\batchfile{|\ldots).
 116
 117 It also allows `target' directories to be specified when writing
 118 files.  This directory support is disabled by default unless activated
 119 in a local \texttt{docstrip.cfg} configuration file.
 120 See \texttt{docstrip.dtx} for details.
 121
 122 \section{AMS \LaTeX\ update}
 123 Since the last \LaTeX\ release in June, the American Mathematical
 124 Society have re-issued the `AMS\LaTeX' classes and packages, fixing
 125 several reported problems.
 126
 127 \section{Graphics package update}
 128 The \LaTeX\ color and graphics packages have been updated slightly,
 129 principally to support more dvi drivers, see the readme file in the
 130 \textsf{graphics} distribution.
 131
 132 \section{EC Fonts released}
 133 The first release of the Extended Computer Modern fonts has just been
 134 made. (In January 1997.)
 135
 136 This release of \LaTeX\ does \emph{not} default to these `ec' fonts
 137 as its T1 encoded fonts. By default it will
 138 use the `dc' fonts if the T1 encoding is requested.
 139
 140 As noted in \texttt{install.txt} you may run \TeX\ on the install file
 141 \texttt{ec.ins} \emph{after} unpacking the base distribution but
 142 \emph{before} making the \LaTeX\ format. This will produce
 143 suitable `fd' files making \LaTeX\ (including, for the first time, the
 144 \textsf{slides} class) use the `ec' fonts as the default T1 encoded
 145 font set.
 146
 147
 148 \end{document}
 149