The package can be loaded by:

\usepackage[options]{zwpagelayout}

All options have to be set in the preamble, either by this line or given to the document class.
Options may be paper sizes (by name or by lengths), orientation (portrait, landscape), margins, text dimensions (also concerning head and foot), cropmark related options and options concerning the design of book covers like spine and flap.

There are even options to reflect pages horizontally or vertically, that are intended for printing but shouldn’t be used for documents providing hyperlinks.

Further the package is capable of calculating missing page layout dimensions if enough dimensions are already given.

zwpages comes well documented on 16 pages. For more information and download visit:

• the package homepage,
• its directory on CTAN,
• the short README file,
• the package documentation.

Some the new features of the version 3.30 are

• SyncTeX/Sumatra PDF support,
• improved UTF8 support for the spell checker,
• update to Hunspell 1.2.8, Scintilla 1.77,
• BibTeX front-end,
• a pdfLaTeX optimized toolbar,
• Linux support by wine.

For further information and download visit the WinShell Homepage.

pdfcomment requires the packages hyperref, xkeyval, ifpdf, marginnote and packages needed by them.

pdfcomment provides options for subject, author and color of annotations, supports icons used as graphics for pdf annotations.

For further information you could have a look at

• the README file,
• the documentation in English,
• the documentation in German,
• the package homepage on CTAN,
• the pdfcomment homepage with documentation and example.

Stefan

• faster spell checker, based on a more recent hunspell version,
• inverse search will no more launch a new instance of Texmaker because now it can be started only once per user,
• brace matching again,
• improved autocompletion, \begin{…} completed with \end{…},
• improved error detection.

Texmaker is a free LaTeX IDE running under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and is published under the GPL 2.

For features, documentation and download visit the Texmaker homepage.

Some of the new features are:

• possibility to change almost all settings, even the paper or font size, after loading the class and even after \begin{document},
• arbitrary base font size, not only in pt, also in other units of measure like pica (pc),
• new key=value interface, backward compatible,
• new package tocbasic for generation of table of contents and other lists, supporting the multilingual babel package,
• arbitrary choice where chapters are allowed to start,
• improved documentation.

To download KOMA-Script 3, visit http://developer.berlios.de/projects/koma-script3/.

There are release notes in English and more extensive in German.

edit Nov 11: KOMA-Script 3 is available now also as MiKTeX package. I’ve installed it with TeX Live on Ubuntu Linux by the MiKTeX package manager.

On Oct 30 2008 the Ubuntu team announced the release of Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server. You can read about its features in the press release.

To download Ubuntu 8.10, or obtain CDs, see: Get Ubuntu. For instructions on upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10, visit: Upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10.
Upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge as always.

Check out the release notes and look at the new features.

To get more information, visit www.ubuntu.com.

1. come up with a new macro, ensure that it’s not defined yet,
2. save the definition of the original macro to the new macro,
3. redefine the original macro using the new macro with the saved original code,

I will give a very simple example for a demonstration. Today a LaTeX Community member said that he’s using the quote environment but wants the enclosed text to have a smaller size. A straightforward solution is to use \renewenvironment copying the original code, let’s say from article.cls, and to make a small modification:

\renewenvironment{quote}
  {\list{}{\rightmargin\leftmargin}%
   \item\relax\small}
  {\endlist}

Just the \small was added. This solution needs the writer to examine the class source, that may also be changed later.

The second solution is the method I’ve described above:

\newcommand*\origquote{}
\let\origquote\quote
\renewcommand*\quote{\origquote\small}

The \newcommand line may be omitted, I’ve just used it to ensure that an error would be raised if a macro with that name was already defined by somehing else.
The last code works like the first solution, but respects the original class code and it will also respect further changes of the class, therefore I’m preferring it.

But the third solution is similar, shorter and doesn’t need the creation of another macro. It’s doing the same job but uses the original macro directly, avoiding a recursion problem by using \expandafter:

\expandafter\def\expandafter\quote\expandafter{\quote\small}

You can find the same method applied in my comment to a previous blog post.

If you want to know how expandafter works you will find explanations in TeX books and documentations. Further there’s an extensive tutorial by Stephan v. Bechtolsheim (TUGboat, Volume 9, 1988), old but still valid of course.

This topic was discussed in the LaTeX Community Forum and on Matheplanet.com.

The party in the c-base Berlin will start on November 1, 2008, 4pm, admission will be free. There will be presentations showing new features of Ubuntu 8.10, its new network management, talks about first steps with Ubuntu and tuning the desktop. Of course I’ll be there too.

If you cannot come to Berlin but want to celebrate the Intrepid release too, have a look at the Intrepid release parties worldwide.