trunk/doc/ltnews01.tex

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  29 % Filename: ltnews01.tex
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  31 % This is issue 1 of LaTeX News.
  32
  33 \documentclass
  34 %   [type1fonts]
  35    {ltnews}
  36
  37 \publicationmonth{June}
  38 \publicationyear{1994}
  39 \publicationissue{1}
  40
  41 \begin{document}
  42
  43 \maketitle
  44
  45 \section{Welcome to \LaTeXNews}
  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{\LaTeXe---the new \LaTeX{} release}
  52
  53 The most important news is the release of \LaTeXe, the new version of
  54 the \LaTeX{} software.  This version has better support for fonts,
  55 graphics and colour, and will be actively maintained by the \LaTeX3
  56 project team.  Upgrades will be issued every six months, in June and
  57 December.
  58
  59 \section{Why a new \LaTeX?}
  60
  61 Over the years many extensions have been developed for \LaTeX. This
  62 is, of course, a sure sign of its continuing popularity but it has had
  63 one unfortunate result: incompatible \LaTeX{} formats came into use at
  64 different sites. Thus, to process documents from various places, a
  65 site maintainer was forced to keep \LaTeX{} (with and without \NFSS),
  66 \SLiTeX, \AmSLaTeX, and so on.  In addition, when looking at a source
  67 file it was not always clear for which format the document was written.
  68
  69 To put an end to this unsatisfactory
  70 situation a new release of \LaTeX{} was produced.
  71 It brings all such extensions back under a single format and thus
  72 prevents the proliferation of mutually incompatible dialects of
  73 \LaTeX~2.09. The new release was available for several months as a
  74 test version, and the final release of 1~June officially
  75 replaces the old version.
  76
  77 \section{Processing documents with \LaTeXe}
  78
  79 Documents written for \LaTeX~2.09 will
  80 still be read by \LaTeXe.  Any such document is run in
  81 \emph{\LaTeX~2.09 compatibility mode}.
  82
  83 Unfortunately, compatibility mode comes with a price: it can run
  84 up to 50\% slower than \LaTeX~2.09 did.  If you want to run your document
  85 in the faster \emph{native mode}, you should try replacing the line:
  86 \begin{verbatim}
  87    \documentstyle[<options>,<packages>]{<class>}
  88 \end{verbatim}
  89 with:
  90 \begin{verbatim}
  91    \documentclass[<options>]{<class>}
  92    \usepackage{latexsym,<packages>}
  93 \end{verbatim}
  94 Unfortunately, this will not always work, because some \LaTeX~2.09
  95 packages will only work in \LaTeXe{} compatibility mode.  You should find
  96 out if there is a \LaTeXe{} version of the package available.
  97
  98 \LaTeXe{} native mode also gives access to the new features of \LaTeXe,
  99 described in \emph{\LaTeXe{} for authors}.
 100
 101 \section{New packages}
 102
 103 \LaTeXe{} has much better support for graphics, colour, fonts, and
 104 multi-lingual typesetting.  The following software should be available
 105 from the distributor who brought you \LaTeXe:
 106
 107 \begin{citations}
 108 \item[babel] for typesetting in many languages.
 109 \item[color] for colour support.
 110 \item[graphics] for including images.
 111 \item[mfnfss] for using bitmap fonts.
 112 \item[psnfss] for using Type~1 fonts.
 113 \item[tools]  other packages by the \LaTeX3 team.
 114 \end{citations}
 115 The packages come with full documentation, and are also described in
 116 \emph{\LaTeX: A Document Processing System} or
 117 \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion}.
 118
 119 \section{Further information}
 120
 121 More information about \LaTeXe{} is to be found in:
 122
 123 \begin{citations}
 124 \item[\LaTeX: A Document Preparation System]
 125    Leslie Lamport, \AW, 2nd ed, 1994.
 126 \item[The \LaTeX{} Companion]
 127    Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin, \AW, 1994.
 128 \end{citations}
 129 The \LaTeX{} distribution comes with documentation on the new features of
 130 \LaTeX:
 131
 132 \begin{citations}
 133 \item[\LaTeXe{} for authors]
 134    describes the new features of \LaTeX{} documents,
 135    in the file \verb|usrguide.tex|.
 136 \item[\LaTeXe{} for class and package writers]
 137    describes the new features of \LaTeX{} classes and packages,
 138    in the file \verb|clsguide.tex|.
 139 \item[\LaTeXe{} font selection]
 140    describes the new features of \LaTeX{} fonts for
 141    class and package writers,
 142    in the file \verb|fntguide.tex|.
 143 \end{citations}
 144 For more information on \TeX{} and \LaTeX, get in touch with your local
 145 \TeX{} Users Group, or the international \TeX{} Users Group,
 146 P.~O.~Box~869, Santa~Barbara, CA~93102-0869, USA, Fax:~+1~805~963~8358,
 147 EMail:~tug@tug.org.
 148
 149 \end{document}
 150
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