New packages on CTAN in September 2009:

• latex-make - tools to simplify the compilation of LaTeX documents
• rangen - generation of random integers, rational numbers and decimal numbers
• eqexam - a LaTeX package for writing exams, tests, quizzes,
  homework assignments, etc. Though it’s a stand alone package it’s integrated with the AcroTeX eDucation Bundle.
• chklref - automatically find unused labels in LaTeX documents
• widetable - like tabularx but typesets tables of specified width by adjusting the inter column glue
• pst-abspos - a PSTricks related package providing a macro \pstPutAbs(x,y) to put any object on absolute or relative coordinates of a page
• cachepic - simplifying and automating conversion of document fragments into external EPS or PDF files
• mailmerge - provides an interface to generate text from a template where fields are replaced by actual data
• texdiff - compares two (La)TeX documents in order to create a merged version showing changes
• bracketkey - LaTeX class for producing bracketed identification keys
• drv - a set of MetaPost macros for typesetting derivation trees
• trimspaces - trim spaces around an argument or macro
• csv2latex - a Ruby script and Applescript combination allowing cut-and-paste of spreadsheet tables (e.g., from Excel, Open Office Calc, iWork Numbers, etc.) into a LaTeX file in various popular LaTeX table formats: plain tables, booktabs, longtable and raw cells
• memdesign - notes on book design, derived from the first part of the memoir users manual
• DoX - extensions to the doc package

Updates in August:

boolexpr, tex-gyre, lm, mfpic, FiXme, mathspec, epstopdf, ctantools, tablor, dox, Asymptote, bclogo, notes2bib, mattens, cachepic, cleveref, luamplib, luaotfload, luainputenc, luatextra, glossaries, BaKoMa, etextools, csquotes, expl3, pdfcomment, memoir, siunitx, biblatex, PerlTeX, biblatex-apa, zhmetrics, autolatex, linguex, biblatex-chem, umthesis, trimspaces, ctable, pdfbook, footmisc, version, mk, vpp, answers, prerex, biblatex-chem, xeCJK, cwpuzzle, ctex, l2tabu, ifplatform, sam2p, latex2e-help-texinfo, Context, collref, oberdiek bundle, tablenotes, xpackages, xltxtra, softmaker-freefont, epspdfconversion, achemso, listings-ext. For package-specific information visit the package folder on CTAN.

The free document viewer Evince is now available for Windows operating systems. The developer team provided an msi installer file together with the new release 2.28.0. Evince is the standard pdf viewer for the GNOME desktop environment, beside pdf it’s able to show postscript, djvu, tiff and dvi documents. Evince is popular as a previewer among LaTeX users for instance on Ubuntu Linux where GNOME is the default desktop environment.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

Karl Berry announced on the TeX Live mailing list today that the new version 2009/09/24 of LaTeX2e has been released by the LaTeX Project team. The changed have been incorporated into TeX Live and will be available with the pretest version of TeX Live 2009.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

Today is the Software Freedom Day 2009. This event is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software with the goal to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality free and open source software in education, in government, at home and in business. The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates this event at a global level, volunteer teams around the world are organize local SFD events.

TeX and LaTeX are very remarkable examples of free software.

Today Jim Hefferon announced on the CTAN mailing list that CTAN will not continue to provide the tools directory. The material contained therein is in no way TeX related, nearly all those programs are archiving software like arj, bzip2, compress, pkzip, lharc, tar etc. and conversion tools like uuencode/ uudecode, word-to-LaTeX and some more.

The reason is that those tools could easily be found and downloaded on the internet today in contrary to the earlier days of the world wide web, it does not make much sense to maintain that part of the archive any longer.

You still could have a look: http://www.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/tools/, but the link will be dead soon.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

I’v just read the blog post Automatic Table Row Numbers in LaTeX by Alexander O’Connor, while reading it came to my mind how to use a feature of the array package to automatize such tasks. The array syntax >{command} allows to include commands in row formating parameters that will be executed with each cell. Here’s a short compilable demonstration example:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{array}
\newcounter{rowno}
\setcounter{rowno}{0}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{>{\stepcounter{rowno}\therowno.}cl}
\multicolumn{1}{r}{No.} & text \\\hline
 & first  \\
 & second \\
 & third  \\
 & fourth
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Output:

Of course it would be only useful with longer tables. But this example is also intended to show how to execute commands for certain cells in general.

The autumn conference of 2009 and and 41st general meeting of the German TeX Users Group DANTE e.V. will be held on September 12th in Esslingen. There will be a meeting already on Friday 11th in the evening.

The program will include talks about

• using Postscript in PDF documents,
• the perl program biber as successor for BibTeX,
• the graph visualization software Graphviz-dot,
• using LaTeX for creation of dynamic books like individual conference programs on web servers,
• comfortable make files,
• some small LaTeX package being presented
• and about news of the upcoming TeX Live 2009.

For more information concerning location, registration, accommodation and program visit the announcement on the DANTE homepage.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

The version 2.8 of the Windows LaTeX Distribution MiKTeX has been released on September 1, 2009. Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, Server 2003 and 2008 are supported. It’s coming with a portable edition that makes it possible to run MiKTeX for instance from USB sticks. MiKTeX now includes the integrated development environment TeXworks.

For more information visit

• the MiKTeX homepage,
• the 2.8 status page,
• the release notes,
• the download/setup area.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

New packages on CTAN in August 2009:

• tablenotes - package by Matthias Borck-Elsner for placing notes in tables and list them, like endnotes and footnotes
• listings-ext - contains macros and a bash script that can be used to input parts of source code programs into a documentation, written by J. Hoffmann
• threeparttablex - extends threeparttable bringing it to longtable, by Lars Madsen
• font-change - macros for plain TeX written by Amit Raj Dhawan allowing to change the fonts (text and math) in a TeX document with only one statement
• JFlap2TikZ - converts JFlap jff files representing a finite automaton, push down automaton, or Turing machine to a LaTeX file depicting the automaton graphically using TikZ, programmed by Andrew Mertz
• suanpan - MetaPost macros for drawing Chinese and Japanese abaci by Denis Roegel
• garrigues - Metapost macros for the reproduction of Garrigues’ Easter nomogram by Denis Roegel
• spverbatim - provides a macro that is analogous to \verb and an environment that is analogous to verbatim, but they allow LaTeX to break lines at space characters, developed by Scott Pakin
• titlepic - package by Thomas ten Cate that supports placing a picture on the title page of a LaTeX document

Updates in August:

boolexpr, curves, pst-geo, MWCLS, dvisvgm, pst-math, pst-barcode, pst-3dplot, keycommand, algorithms, fontinst, tablor, biblatex-dw, Asymptote, Boisik, latexmk, cleveref, autolatex, GaPFilL, ctanify, gbrief-creator, thailatex, etextools, biblatex-chem, biblatex, siunitx, findhyph, luaotfload, bibhtml, dashrule, pkfix-helper, pict2e, achemso, xwatermark, expl3, lhfonts, xeCJK, tablists, softmaker-freefont, makecell, hyph-utf8, cellspace, floatrow, bidi, blindtext. For package-specific information visit the package folder on CTAN.