TeXhax Digest Friday, 24 Dec 1993 Volume 93 : Issue 017 % The TeXhax Digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group % % and UK TeX Users Group in cooperation with the UK TeX Archive group % Today's Topics: TeXhax in 94 Re: Abbreviation marks for feet and inches RE: Abbreviation marks for feet and inches Word for Windows How to make Glossary during thesis writing LaTeX2e -- Preliminary Release Available Bachotek '94 Administrivia: Moderators: David Osborne and Peter Abbott Contributions: TeXhax@ftp.tex.ac.uk Administration, subscription and unsubscription requests: TeXhax-request@ftp.tex.ac.uk M O D E R A T O R ' S N O T E Please note the change of host in our mail addresses to ftp.tex.ac.uk instead of tex.ac.uk as the VAX system tex.ac.uk will soon be withdrawn. A Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year to all our readers! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1993 09:54:26 +0000 From: David Osborne Subject: TeXhax in 94 Dear reader, We're planning some changes to TeXhax in '94 to make it a more useful electronic publication for the TeX community. We have some ideas but we'd like your suggestions for what you'd like to see in it, and what you'd find interesting. Please spare a few minutes of your time to answer the following questions and help us make TeXhax the publication you want it to be. Send your replies to TeXhax-request@ftp.tex.ac.uk ****************** A. About TeXhax... 1. TeXhax has traditionally been a "question and answer" digest of mail messages. Do you like this format? YES / NO / NOT SURE 2. If you answered "NO" or "NOT SURE" above, are questions best answered in other places? YES / NO 3. Do you like to see announcements of new TeX software and services in TeXhax? YES / NO 4. Would you like to see regular topic "columns", as in a magazine? YES / NO 5. If you answered "YES", which of the following topics would you like to see covered: News from the Archives YES / NO Beginner's corner YES / NO Expert's corner YES / NO TUG News YES / NO Announcements of meetings YES / NO New publications YES / NO TeX book reviews YES / NO Other (please describe)... 6. TeXhax currently appears at 2-weekly to monthly intervals, depending on size of contents. Is this the right sort of frequency? YES / NO 7. If you answered "NO", how often would you like to see it appear? WEEKLY / EVERY TWO WEEKS / MONTHLY ****************** B. About you... 1. Are you a member of the TeX Users Group, or affiliated national or language user group? YES / NO 2. How do you currently receive TeXhax? a) Personally, via mail b) Read it in USENET newsgroup comp.text.tex c) Other MAIL / NEWS / OTHER 3. Do you also read other electronic TeX-oriented media? a) UKTeX YES / NO b) Other (please describe)... YES / NO 4. Do you think TeXhax overlaps with othe electronic TeX-oriented media? YES / NO 5. Do you have an Internet connection? YES / NO ****************** Thanks for your co-operation. David Osborne (TeXhax Digest moderator) on behalf of TUG Publications Committee ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 19:49:17 +0000 From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.uni-mainz.de Subject: Re: Abbreviation marks for feet and inches Here are feet and inches (or minutes and seconds) \def\feet{\'{}} \def\inches{\H{}} - --J"org Knappen. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:46:33 +0000 From: P.Taylor@rhbnc.ac.uk Subject: RE: Abbreviation marks for feet and inches >From time to time I need to write LaTeX documents that include measurements in >feet and inches. What I'm looking for is a method of using the ' and " marks >to abbreviate feet and inches. Maths mode is perfect: for example 1 foot four inches can be set as $1' 4''$ Philip Taylor, RHBNC. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:27:13 +0000 From: idb@cimio-limited.co.uk (Ian Bailey) Subject: Word for Windows I wonder if anyone might be able to help me. I have several word-for-windows documents which I must now submit for examination in LATEX format. Is there any software available to carry out the conversion from WfW v.2.0 to a generic LATEX structure ? If anyone has such a product for distribution (or for sale, if it is within the budget of a student), then could they please let me know. Ian Bailey idb@cimio.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 19:11:21 -0500 From: Ferose Lambay Subject: How to make Glossary during thesis writing Hello TeX-Hackers, I have quite got in a fix, I want to know how to make a glossary with the description of the items in it and placed at the end in an appendix. The LaTex book by Lamport only mentions the command \glossary to be used similar to \index, and says nothing how to use \description to describe the \item to be glossarized. So what I understood was only how to put \glossary next to the word to be put into the glossary, but nothing about how to use \description or which commands \makeglossary to be used whether in the TeX file or the document file Kindly help and quote an example for the usage of the commands to make a glossary with some text. Thanking you and wishing you all a Merry X'mas and a Happy New TeX year. Bye........ ferose A. University of Florida USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 14:57:57 +0100 From: Schoepf@sc.zib-berlin.de Subject: LaTeX2e -- Preliminary Release Available It's not a bird, it's not plain, it's......... LaTeX2e -- Preliminary Release Available Leslie Lamport and the LaTeX3 project team 21 December 1993 The new release of LaTeX is now available for testing. LaTeX2e is the new standard version of LaTeX -- prepared and supported by the LaTeX3 project team. It is upwardly compatible with LaTeX 2.09 documents, but contains new features. Over the years many extensions of LaTeX have been developed. This is, of course, a welcome development, since it shows that the LaTeX system is in a healthy state. It has, however, had one unfortunate consequence: there are now several incompatible systems, in the sense of format (.fmt) files, all claiming to be LaTeX. Therefore, in order to process documents coming from various places, a site maintainer needs to provide several format files: LaTeX (with and without NFSS), SLiTeX, AmSLaTeX, and so on. In addition, when looking at a source file it is not always clear for which format the document was written. LaTeX2e puts an end to this unsatisfactory situation---it will give access to all such extensions based on a single format and thus end the proliferation of mutually incompatible dialects of LaTeX 2.09. It uses an enhanced version (NFSS2) of the New Font Selection Scheme. Files such as amstex.sty (formerly the AmSLaTeX format) or slides.sty (formerly the SLiTeX format) will become extension packages, all working with this single format. The introduction of this new version will also make it possible to add a small number of often-requested features (such as extended versions of \newcommand). To summarize: * Standardisation: a single format incorporating NFSS2, to replace the present multiplicity of incompatible formats (NFSS, lfonts, pslfonts, etc.) * Maintenance: a standardised system supported by a reliable maintenance policy. LaTeX2e adheres, as far as possible, to the following principles: * Unmodified version 2.09 document files can be processed with LaTeX2e. * All new features of LaTeX2e conform to the conventions of version 2.09, making it as easy as possible for current users to learn to use them. LaTeX2e is described in a new edition of `LaTeX: A Document Preparation System' by Leslie Lamport (to appear during 1994) and `The LaTeX Companion' by Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin, both published by Addison-Wesley. LaTeX2e will be distributed twice a year. This distribution is a preliminary test release, and doesn't contain all of the files that will be part of the full release. In particular, it does not contain the planned extensions in the area of graphics inclusion. The first full release will be available in Spring 1994. This is a test release, so please get it and test it on as many different systems as possible! LaTeX2e can be retrieved by anonymous ftp from the CTAN archives: ftp.tex.ac.uk /tex-archive/macros/latex/distribs/latex2e-test ftp.shsu.edu /tex-archive/macros/latex/distribs/latex2e-test ftp.uni-stuttgart.de /tex-archive/macros/latex/distribs/latex2e-test Please report any problems with LaTeX2e by using the report-generating program latexbug.tex, included in the LaTeX2e distribution. Error reports can be sent to the following mail address: latex-bugs@rus.uni-stuttgart.de Note that no one on the programming team will be reachable until January 1994 (to give them a chance to see their families again). All mail sent to the above address will be answered then. Seasons greetings to you all! For the LaTeX3 Project Johannes Braams David Carlisle Alan Jeffrey Frank Mittelbach Chris Rowley Rainer Sch\"opf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 11:12:41 -0500 From: Wlodek Bzyl Subject: Bachotek '94 Dear David and Peter, We send you an official announcement of the 2nd GUST meeting, which will be held in the coming year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! - --W{\l}odek Bzyl - --Tomek Przechlewski (editors of the GUST bulletin) ***************************************************************** 2nd General Meeting of the Polish TeX Users Group (GUST) Bacho\TeX '94 2nd general meeting of GUST will be held in Bachotek (Brodnica Lake District) from 30.04 to 2.05 94. The deadline for submission of papers is March 1st 1994. A correspondence and papers should be directed to Hanna Ko{\l}odziejska, International Computers Ltd Poland, ul. Leszno 21, 01-199 Warszawa POLAND e-mail: hkolo@plearn.edu.pl ****************************************************************** ------------------------------ Further information about the TeXhax Digest, the TeX Users Group, and the latest software versions is available in every tenth issue of the TeXhax Digest. Please send contributions to: TeXhax@ftp.tex.ac.uk Administration, subscription and unsubscription requests: On Internet: send a one line mail message to TeXhax-request@ftp.tex.ac.uk SUBSCRIBE TEX-L UNSUBSCRIBE TEX-L On BITNET: send a similar one-line mail message to LISTSERV@xxx On JANET: send a similar one line mail message to TeXhax-request@uk.ac.tex.ftp For information on the TeX Users Group, please send a message to TUG@TUG.org, or write TeX Users Group, P.O. Box 869, Santa Barbara, CA 93102, USA. Back issues of the digest are available for anonymous ftp from the UK TeX Archive, tex.ac.uk (134.151.79.28) in [tex-archive.digests.texhax.YY]texhax.NN and ftp.tex.ac.uk (134.151.79.32) in /pub/archive/digests/texhax/YY/texhax.NN where YY = last two digits of year, NN = issue number ftp.tex.ac.uk is also mirrored to pip.shsu.edu (192.92.115.10) and ftp.uni-stuttgart.de (129.69.1.12) as part of the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, and may give better response for subscribers in the USA and Europe, respectively. \bye End of TeXhax Digest [Volume 93 Issue 17] *****************************************