Message-Id: <199312231003.AA19134@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Wed, 22 Dec 93 14:46:46 GMT
From: David Carlisle <carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      LaTeX2e
Status: R


It's not a bird, it's not plain, it's.........


              LaTeX2e -- Preliminary Release Available

            Leslie Lamport and the LaTeX3 project team

                       22 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