LaTeX Contest – four days left
The currently running “LaTeX and Graphics” article competition on LaTeX-Community.org will close on 20/06/12. Until now, very few users told me that they would make a contribution. Which means, there’s a good chance to win one of the gnuplot books.
Do you …
- … have a blog you would like to mention?
- … maintain a web site, people may visit?
- … wrote a LaTeX related package, you would like to introduce to readers?
- … would like to show what is possible with LaTeX, today?
This contest could be a nice opportunity for these points and more. Just add some lines about you as the author and your website or your software.
Even a small blog-like post would be very welcome. Feel free to contact me via email to stefan@latex-community.org or via the contact form. I can create an account for you both on the main and on the development server, so that you could even check the final layout before posting.
Wettbewerb auf LaTeX-Community.org – Gewinne ein gnuplot Buch
LaTeX-Community.org hat gemeinsam mit Packt Publishing einen Wettbewerb organisiert. Zwei Leser haben die Chance, je ein Exemplar des neu veröffentlichten “gnuplot Cookbook” von Lee Phillips zu gewinnen.
Um teilzunehmen, schreibe einen kleinen Artikel zur Veröffentlichung auf LaTeX-Community.org. Das Thema des Wettbewerbs ist: LaTeX und Grafik.
Von der Webseite des Buchs:
gnuplot Cookbook – it will help you master gnuplot. Start using gnuplot immediately to solve your problems in data analysis and presentation. Quickly find a visual example of the graph you want to make and see a complete, working script for producing it. Learn how to use the new features in gnuplot 4.4. Find clearly explained, working examples of using gnuplot with LaTeX and with your own computer programming language.
You will learn to plot basic 2d to complex 3d plots, annotate from simple labels to equations, integrate from simple scripts to full documents and computer progams. You will be taught to annotate graphs with equations and symbols that match the style of the rest of your text, thus creating a seamless, professional document. You will be guided to create a web page with an interactive graph, and add graphical output to your simulation or numerical analysis program.
Für mehr Einzelheiten, siehe die Wettbewerbs-Ankündigung und die Buch-Webseite, welches das komplette Inhaltsverzeichnis sowie ein Beispiel-Kapitel zum Download enthält.
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Contest on LaTeX-Community.org – Win a gnuplot Book
LaTeX-Community.org has teamed up with Packt Publishing to organize a contest. Two users stand a chance to win a copy of the new book on gnuplot, the newly published gnuplot Cookbook written by Lee Phillips.
To enter the contest, write a small article for publishing on LaTeX-Community.org. The topic of this contest is: LaTeX and Graphics.
From the book’s web page:
gnuplot Cookbook – it will help you master gnuplot. Start using gnuplot immediately to solve your problems in data analysis and presentation. Quickly find a visual example of the graph you want to make and see a complete, working script for producing it. Learn how to use the new features in gnuplot 4.4. Find clearly explained, working examples of using gnuplot with LaTeX and with your own computer programming language.
You will learn to plot basic 2d to complex 3d plots, annotate from simple labels to equations, integrate from simple scripts to full documents and computer progams. You will be taught to annotate graphs with equations and symbols that match the style of the rest of your text, thus creating a seamless, professional document. You will be guided to create a web page with an interactive graph, and add graphical output to your simulation or numerical analysis program.
To read more details, have a look at the contest announcement and the book’s web page, including the entire table of contents and a sample chapter for download.
This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.
TeX Live 2012 Schedule
Today Karl Berry announced on the TeX Live mailing list, that in about one week (May 10) TeX Live 2011 and tlnet will be frozen, and the building of the pretest version of TeX Live 2012 will start shortly after that.
So the schedule for the release of TeX 2012 is, as it can be read on the TeX Live homepage:
- May 10: TeX Live 2011 and tlnet frozen
- About 2 weeks: CTAN updates continue, pretesting starts
- May 24: Also CTAN updates stop, updates only on request
- May 31: Complete freeze, some time for testing and documentation
- June 14: Final images for the TeX Collection DVD
- In August: DVDs will be delivered to TUG members.
This is the plan, changes are still possible as it depends on the time of the developers and contributors.
TeXworks 0.4.4 released
Today I read on LaTeX-Community.org, that version 0.4.4 of TeXworks has been released, as posted by Thorsten. TeXworks is a quick and efficient LaTeX editor running on most operating systems. It is free and open source.
0.4.4 is a stable version which will be included in TeX Live 2012.
New and updated features in this version, compared to 0.4.3:
- “Clear Recent Files” has been added to the “Open Recent” menu.
- The preferences dialog now contains an autocompletion entry.
- Lua(La)TeX has been added to the default tools, LaTeXmk has been dropped.
- Now there’s an option to open log files.
- Experimental CMake support has been implemented.
- SyncTeX has been updated to version 1.17.
- URLs have been updated and now point to http://www.tug.org/texworks/.
- The window running TeX is brought to the top at the beginning of typesetting, to ensure that the console output is visible.
- Symlinks are allowed and display only folders in “path for programs” in the preferences dialog.
- The “Unable to execute…” error dialog has been improved.
- “Show/Hide Output Panel” was renamed to “Show/Hide Console Output” in the menu and in the preferences dialog.
- The “email to mailinglist” now includes instructions in the body, the subject was removed.
- When looking for scripts, symlinks are resolved
- Scripting has been improved.
Moreover, many bugs are fixed and some further improvements have been made. You can read about that in the changelog or on the TeXworks homepage where you also can find the way to the downloads.
Kile 2.1.2 erschienen
Die Version 2.1.2 des LaTeX-Editors Kile ist erschienen. Einige Fehler sind behoben worden, und die voreingestellte Eingabecodierung in den Dokumentvorlagen ist nun utf8 statt utf8x.
biblatex.cwl wurde aktualisiert. CWL-Dateien dienen zur Code-Ergänzung: sie enthalten Abkürzungen, die auf Anforderung durch längere Text-Strings ersetzt werden. Also eine gute Neuigkeit für biblatex-Anwender.
Für mehr Informationen und Download siehe:
- die Kile Homepage,
- die Kile News
- den Download-Bereich.
This text is available in English. Dieser Text ist auch in Englisch verfügbar.
Kile 2.1.2 released
The version 2.1.2 of the LaTeX editor Kile has been released. Some bugs were fixed, and the default encoding in document templates is now utf8 instead of utf8x.
biblatex.cwl has been updated. CWL files are completion files: they contain abbreviations, which are replaced by longer text strings on demand. So, good news for biblatex users.
For more information and download visit:
- the Kile Homepage,
- the latest news
- the download area.
This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.
LaTeX Templates
Velimir just published an article about LaTeX templates on LaTeX-Community.org. In this article, he explains benefits of using templates, and he introduces his site www.LaTeXTemplates.com, which collects templates and publishes it under a Creative Commons license.
Some benefits of using templates:
- Rapid document development
- Based on tried, tested and proven pre-defined layout
- Documented methods for customization
Of course, this requires templates which are of high quality and up-to-date. It might be a good idea to additional classify templates by development date and review date. A simple line “Reviewed 2012 by …” can create confidence in a template.
LaTeX3 will introduce a template concept. This is a similar idea, but it will go further and shall separate the design (template) from the author interface (document) and the underlying source (classes and packages). With LaTeX2e templates, design and interface are still mixed, though it can already be a good way for authors. And I think, when LaTeX3 comes out, good existing LaTeX2e templates will benefit and will be designed to become LaTeX3 templates.
TeXmaker 3.3.3 erschienen
Heute wurde die Version 3.3.3 von Texmaker veröffentlicht. Texmaker ist ein freier and plattformübergreifender LaTeX-Editor, verwendbar auf Linux, Mac OS X und Windows Systemen. Er ist Unicode-fähig und bietet Rechtschreibprüfung, Auto-Vervollständigung, Code-Falten und kommt mit eingebautem PDF-Betrachter mit SyncTeX-Unterstützung und kontinuierlichem Anzeigemodus.
Neue Features in 3.3.3, aus der ChangeLog-Datei:
- Es gibt ein Session-Management: Dateien, Zeile, Bookmarks und “Schnellübersetzungs”-Modus werden gespeichert und können durch das neue “Sitzungs”-Menü wiederhergestellt werden.
- Nach der Übersetzung wird die horizontale Position im PDF Betrachter wiederhergestellt, falls gültig, weiterhin der Vergrößerungsfaktor nach Neustart.
- Jetzt ist es möglich, einen “Benutzer-Tag” zu verändern.
- Benutzer-Tags können nun durch Ziehen der Tags in der Reihenfolge verändert werden.
- Für die Windows-Version wurden poppler-data Dateien und fontconfig Konfiguration hinzugefügt.
- Ein US-Englisch-Wörterbuch wurde ergänzt.
- @electronic wurde zur Erkennung der Literaturverzeichnis-Einträge hinzugefügt.
- Mehrere Fehler wurden behoben.
Das komplette Changelog befindet sich hier. Klicke hier zum Download von TeXmaker 3.1 für Linux, Mac OS X oder Windows sowie für Quellcode-Pakete.
This text is available in English. Dieser Text ist auch in Englisch verfügbar.
Texmaker 3.3.3 released
Today, Texmaker version 3.3.3 has been released. Texmaker is a free and cross-platform LaTeX editor, running on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows systems. It is Unicode capable and provides spell checking, auto-completion, code folding, and it comes with a built-in PDF viewer with SyncTeX support and continuous view mode.
New features in 3.3.3, from the ChangeLog file:
- Now there’s a session management (files, line, bookmarks and “quick compilation” mode are stored and can be restored via the new “session” menu).
- After a compilation, the horizontal position in the pdf viewer is restored (if valid), also the zoom factor after a restart.
- Now it’s possible to modify a “user tag”.
- User tags can now be reordered by dragging items.
- For the windows version, poppler-data files and fontconfig configuration have been added.
- An US English dictionary has been added.
- @electronic has been added to the bibliography items detection.
- Several bugs have been fixed.
The complete ChangeLog can be found here. Click here for downloading versions for Linux, Mac OS X or Windows or source files.
This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.
Springer recommends eqnarray
I just read on LaTeX-Community.org, that the publisher Springer still recommends to use eqnarray. I could not believe that, so I went to Book Manuscript Guidelines, choose Manuscript Preparation in LaTeX and downloaded svmult.zip, which contains the Springer class for contributed books, proceedings, and similar. It has a folder called templates, which contains a file author.tex. In this file I could read:
... % Use this file as a template for your own input. ... Use the standard \verb|equation| environment to typeset your equations, e.g. % \begin{equation} a \times b = c\;, \end{equation} % however, for multiline equations we recommend to use the \verb|eqnarray| environment\footnote{In physics texts please activate the class option \texttt{vecphys} to depict your vectors in \textbf{\itshape boldface-italic} type - as is customary for a wide range of physical subjects}. \begin{eqnarray} a \times b = c \nonumber\\ \vec{a} \cdot \vec{b}=\vec{c} \label{eq:01} \end{eqnarray} |
A close look shows this template doesn’t even align at the relation symbol, which could be done with eqnarray. The example equations are simply right aligned. One could see that in the output if one of those equations would be extended.
eqnarray is considered to be obsolete and faulty, as I wrote 2008 in the comparison eqnarray vs. align. Actually it’s been obsolete since the amsmath package appeared. The better ways are described in its manual, such as using align, gather or multline.
I’m sure most experienced LaTeX users know that fact, and LaTeX beginners are told this frequently in forums and Usenet groups. Why it does not reach Springer? Perhaps this publisher doesn’t really welcome LaTeX for scientific publishing and doesn’t care if his templates are outdated. I wonder what they use then.
Sumatra PDF erschienen
Thorsten schrieb gerade auf LaTeX-Community.org, dass die Version 2.0 des freien Sumatra PDF Readers veröffentlicht wurde. Dieser PDF-Betrachter ist bekannt für seine Geschwindigkeit und für seine gute schlichte Benutzer-Schnittstelle. Mit ihm funktioniert Vorwärts- und Rückwärtsuche mit TeX-Quellcode und PDF-Ausgabe besonders gut, und er blockiert nicht geöffnete Dateien, wie andere Reader es tun.
Verglichen mit Version 1.9 bringt dieses Major Release ein paar Änderungen, wie in den News genannt:
- Er unterstützt das MOBI eBook-Format.
- CHM-Dokumente können von Netzlaufwerken geöffnet werden.
- Eine Auswahl kann als Bild in die Zwischenablage kopiert werden, indem man das Kontextmenü mittels rechtem Mausklick benutzt.
- Er verwendet ucrt, um die Programmgröße zu reduzieren.
This text is available in English. Dieser Text ist auch in Englisch verfügbar.
