doc/ltnews03.tex

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  29 % Filename: ltnews03.tex
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  31 % This is issue 3 of LaTeX News.
  32
  33 \documentclass
  34 %   [lw35fonts]
  35    {ltnews}
  36
  37 \publicationmonth{June}
  38 \publicationyear{1995}
  39 \publicationissue{3}
  40
  41 \begin{document}
  42
  43 \maketitle
  44
  45 \section{Welcome to \LaTeXNews~3}
  46
  47 An issue of \emph{\LaTeXNews} will accompany every future release of
  48 \LaTeX.  It will tell you about important events, such as major bug
  49 fixes, newly available packages, or any other \LaTeX{} news.
  50
  51 \section{June 1995 release of \LaTeX}
  52
  53 June 1995 sees the third release of \LaTeXe.  We are on schedule
  54 to deliver a release of \LaTeX{} every six months, in December and
  55 June.
  56
  57 In the last \emph{\LaTeXNews}, we said ``we don't expect so much
  58 activity in the next six months,'' which has turned out not to be
  59 true!
  60
  61 \section{Additional input encodings}
  62
  63 In the last release of \LaTeX{} we distributed a test version of the
  64 \texttt{inputenc} package which allows the use of input characters
  65 other than just a--z and A--Z.  The package has proved to be robust,
  66 so we are now distributing an expanded version.
  67 The new release comes with a number of input encodings:
  68
  69 \begin{itemize}
  70 \item \texttt{ascii} the standard encoding,
  71 \item \texttt{latin1} the ISO Western European alphabet,
  72 \item \texttt{latin2} the ISO Eastern European alphabet,
  73 \item \texttt{cp437} the IBM codepage 437,
  74 \item \texttt{cp850} the IBM codepage 850, and
  75 \item \texttt{applemac} the Apple Macintosh encoding.
  76 \end{itemize}
  77 These can be used by specifying an option to the \texttt{inputenc}
  78 package, for example:
  79 \begin{verbatim}
  80    \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
  81 \end{verbatim}
  82 The new input encodings are currently being tested, but we don't
  83 expect any major changes.
  84
  85 \section{\LaTeX\ getting smaller}
  86
  87 In the past releases of \LaTeXe, the amount of memory \LaTeX{}
  88 requires has increased, but we are pleased to say that this trend has
  89 been reversed.  We hope that future releases of \LaTeX{} will continue
  90 to get smaller.
  91
  92 For example, on this document, the December 1994 release used 52,622
  93 words of memory, and the June 1995 release uses 51,216 words of
  94 memory, which is a 2.7\% reduction.
  95
  96 We are currently experimenting with other ways of reducing the size of
  97 \LaTeX.  For example, we are experimenting with an option to remove
  98 the \texttt{picture} and \texttt{tabbing} environments from the
  99 \LaTeX{} kernel, and to load them from a file the first time they are
 100 used.  This should help \LaTeX{} to run on machines with limited
 101 memory.  See \texttt{autoload.txt} for details.
 102
 103 \section{Distribution and modification}
 104
 105 One topic of discussion that has kept us busy is the distribution and
 106 modification conditions of \LaTeX.  We are committed to keeping
 107 \LaTeX{} as free reliable software, and ensuring that (as far as
 108 possible) \LaTeX{} documents will produce the same results on all
 109 systems.
 110
 111 The modification conditions are currently under discussion, and we
 112 would like to hear from anyone interested.  Please read
 113 \texttt{modguide.tex} for more information.
 114
 115 \section{AMS-\LaTeX\ full release}
 116
 117 The AMS-\LaTeX\ packages were still in beta test in the December 1994
 118 release of \LaTeX, and the full release came out in January 1995.
 119
 120 AMS-\LaTeX\ is described in the \emph{User's Guide}
 121 (\texttt{amsldoc.tex}) and in \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion}.
 122
 123 \section{PostScript fonts}
 124
 125 There is a new test release of the PSNFSS packages for accessing
 126 PostScript fonts in \LaTeXe.  This includes an update to all of the
 127 fonts, to remove many of the underfull and overfull \verb|\hbox|
 128 warnings, and improve the setting of non-English languages.
 129
 130 The new release of \LaTeX{} removes all of the `hidden' uses of
 131 Computer Modern mathematics.  For example, the footnote markers used
 132 to use math mode, so always used Computer Modern digits rather than
 133 ones from the current text font.  This has now been fixed.
 134
 135 \section{Further information}
 136
 137 For more information on \TeX{} and \LaTeX, get in touch with your local
 138 \TeX{} Users Group, or the international \TeX{} Users Group,
 139 P.~O.~Box~869, Santa~Barbara, CA~93102-0869, USA, Fax:~+1~805~963~8358,
 140 EMail:~tug@tug.org.
 141
 142 The \LaTeX{} home page is \verb|http://www.tex.ac.uk/ctan/latex/|
 143 and contains links to other WWW resources for \LaTeX.
 144
 145 \end{document}