New packages on CTAN this month:

• pstdoc - SQLite database and Python script that provides extensive help with PSTricks commands from a terminal window.
• eltex - package for drawing simple electrical circuit diagrams in the picture environment withouth any special fonts. The circuit symbols follow the IEC 617 standard. eltex runs with LaTeX 2.09 and LaTeX 2e.
• asyfig - support for including standalone .asy figures into LaTeX documents allowing figures to be rapidly proofed before re-typesetting the document. See Asymptote language.
• getfiledate - fetches from the system the date of last modification or opening of a resident file, providing a user-friendly interface for obtaining and presenting the needed filedate in several formats.
• softmaker-freefont - LaTeX support files for the Softmaker Stone Handwriting font.
• grid - enables grid typesetting in double column documents.
• Steinmetz notation - provides a command for typesetting complex numbers in the Steinmetz notation used in electrotechnics.
• subdocs - provides a different approach for multidocument works, part of the Bezocs bundle, see documentation.
• cpssp - for drawing a two-dimensional representation of a protein’s secondary structure.
• Inconsolata - a monospaced font already described here.
• tabularew - tabular extension to improve alignment of multicolumn cells, described in an earlier post.
• collref - automatically collects multiple \bibitem references which always appear in the same sequence into a single \bibitem block.

Updates in June:

achemso, CodeDoc, recycle, hyph-utf8, dehyph-exptl, biblatex-mla, Asymptote, luaotfload, latexmk, tdclock, floatrow, xwatermark, tdsfrmath, amslatex-primer, sagetex, isomath, babelbib, biblatex-chicago-notes-df, keys3, prelim2e, xpackages, expl3, diagrams/taylor, chemstyle, xstring and glossaries. For package-specific information visit the package folder on CTAN.

More information about new packages and updates can be found in the ctan-ann archive.

The version 1.9.2 of the free LaTeX editor Texmaker has been released today. Changes are:

• a new panel “favorite symbols”,
• previous sessions can be restored,
• words can be selected by SHIFT+LeftArrow and SHIFT+RightArrow again,
• a bugfix for Mac OS X concerning opening of a file by double-clicking on it in the Finder,
• the unstable bidirectional support has been removed.

The complete changelog can be found here.

Robin Fairbairns has released a new version of the famous UK TeX FAQ. v3.19 contains 10 new answers to frequently asked questions:

• “Modern” graphics file names
• Key-value input for macros and package options
• Non-letters in macro names
• Using “old-style” figures
• Characters disappear from figures in PDFTeX
• Token not allowed in PDFDocEncoded string
• Things with “TeX” in the name
• Using symbols
• What are (TeX) macros
• Centring a very wide figure or table

Many answers have been revised. All changes since v3.18 are listed here.

Now there are 438 questions and answers in the FAQ, also available for download on CTAN.

The Inconsolata font package has been released on CTAN yesterday. Inconsolata is a monospaced (”typewriter”) font designed for code listings and the like by Raph Levien. It’s supporting several encodings including T1, OT1 and LY1.

The font can be used by loading inconsolata.sty. The package provides a font scaling option [scaled=X] and would redefine the typewriter font obtained by \texttt. Here’s a small example from the documentation, showing both how to load the font and how it’s looking:

More information can be obtained here:

• Inconsolata Homepage,
• Inconsolata on CTAN,
• documentation by Karl Berry including font tables,
• adding straight single and double quotes to Inconsolata,
• Portrait of the font designer Raph Levien.

The maintenance release 1.6.3 of LyX has been published yesterday. Highlights of this release:

• tex2lyx has been improved and is now able to read files in all LaTeX supported encodings,
• performance problems have been resolved,
• LyX shows new features provided by Qt 4.5,
• the user interface has been improved,
• bugfixes were made.

The LyX team encourages all users to upgrade to this version.

For more information and download visit:

• the LyX Homepage,
• the announcement containing a detailed list of changes,
• the download area.

The German LaTeX forum goLaTeX.de has been inaccessible since one week, from May 28 on. Today it’s available again, at last. There was a technical problem that the provider didn’t solve quickly. The forum will stay alive.

If you’re using pstricks-add or a package requiring it consider updating it if its version is lower than 3.34. The version 3.34 has been released some days ago and brings a bugfix for the \pstScalePoints macro. The bug could look like the one discussed today in “problem with pstricks and \psset” on LaTeX-Community.org where v3.32 has been used.

Further the macro \psMatrixPlot has been modified in v3.34 and is now able to plot a matrix of n² values as an intensity plot.

In standard tabular environments multicolumn headings will be aligned to the left when they are wider then the text below, even if they contain a “c” as format parameter. Here’s a very small demonstration example:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{eurosym}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{r@{.}l}
\multicolumn{2}{c}{Price in \euro} \\
  \hline
  79 & 50 \\
   9 & 85 \\
  10 & 00
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Output:

The tabularew package by Diego Saba solves this problem by introducing new commands for modifying the horizontal alignment. The example above can be changed to:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{eurosym}
\usepackage{tabularew}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabularew}{>{\spew{.5}{+1}}r@{.}l}
\multicolumn{2}{c}{Price in \euro} \\
  \hline
  79 & 50 \\
   9 & 85 \\
  10 & 00
\end{tabularew}
\end{document}

Output:

The command \spew and the tabularew environment are explained in the package documentation.