Publications by topic: LaTeX3 Applications (in LaTeX2e)

Case changing: LaTeX reaches Unicode-land

• Joseph Wright
• TUGboat 43:2, 2022
• Abstract:

  The concept of letters having case is familiar to speakers of several languages, most obviously those from Europe using Latin, Greek or Cyrillic scripts. The ability to convert between upper and lower case, case changing, is something we might take for granted both for people and for computer systems. However, there are subtleties that a careful implementation needs to take into account…

This paper describes the new kernel mechanisms to manage this complexity.

A video on “Case changing: LaTeX reaches Unicode-land (2022)” as presented by Joseph at the TUG conference is also available.

TUG Conference 2022 (Online conference)

Case changing: LaTeX reaches Unicode-land

• Joseph Wright
• Video of the TUG 2022 online conference
• Keywords: LaTeX, Unicode, case changing
• Abstract

  In 2015, I talked about my work exploring Unicode-land, particularly how to carry out case changing in XeTeX and LuaTeX properly. Since then, expl3 has become a part of the LaTeX kernel, and LaTeX has adopted UTF-8 as the standard input encoding. The time has therefore become ripe to “open up” Unicode-land to allow MakeUppercase and MakeLowercase to roam free. In this talk, I’ll remind us of what Unicode tells us about case changing, where the challenges are and how we’ve approached them in expl3. I’ll then show how this has combined with some *TeX features to enable us to make the switch, incorporate ideas from the textcase package and upgrade MakeUppercase and MakeLowercase for the 21st century.

siunitx: Launching version 3

• Joseph Wright
• Video of the TUG 2022 online conference
• Keywords: LaTeX, scientific notation
• Abstract

  Since it was first released in 2008, siunitx has become established as the major package for typesetting physical quantities in LaTeX. Following up on my TUG 2018 talk, I will look at how the update to version 3 has gone now that this is out. I’ll briefly look at the background, then consider some of the user and developer efforts that have made the launch a success.

Case changing: From TeX primitives to the Unicode algorithm

• Joseph Wright
• TUGboat 41:1, 2020
• Abstract

  The concept of letter case is well established for several alphabet-based scripts, most notably Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Upper- and lowercase are so widely used that it may not be obvious that there are several subtleties in converting case. However, those subtleties are important in supporting a wide range of users, and getting all of them right is non-trivial.

  Whilst the English alphabet has simple casechanging rules, when we look beyond English and (possibly) beyond the Latin alphabet, tracking the requirements becomes more complicated. Many of these have been codified by the Unicode Consortium, and following these guidelines means that different pieces of software can give consistent outcomes.

  Here, I want to look at how case changing can be set up in TeX, primarily focussing on tools that the LaTeX Project have provided, but in the wider context of the TeX ecosystem.

From the TUG Conference 2018 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

siunitx: Past, present and future (slides)

• Joseph Wright
• TUG Conference 2018 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• Abstract:

Over the past decade, siunitx has become established as the major package for typesetting physical quantities in LaTeX. Here, I will look at the background to the package, and how it’s developed over the years. I’ll also lay out plans for the future: where are we going for version 3, and why is that important for users.

Conference paper published in TUGboat 39:2, 2018: siunitx: Past, present and future

Video of the talk recorded by IMPA on YouTube: siunitx: Past, present and future

The xtemplate package: An example

• Published paper, TUGboat, Volume 33 (2012), No. 3
• Keywords: LaTeX3, designer-interface, evaluation report

An evaluation by Clemens Niederberger of the ideas behind the template interface for LaTeX3.

From \newcommand to \DocumentNewCommand with xparse

• Joseph Wright
• Published paper, TUGboat, Volume 31 (2010), No. 3
• Abstract:

  The xparse package provides a new method for creating document macros, moving beyond \newcommand. With xparse it is possible for ordinary LaTeX users to create functions with multiple optional arguments, stars and mixtures of these. This brief article highlights using the xparse approach for the LaTeX user (as distinct from the LaTeX programmer).

A discussion by Joseph Wright of some of the new possibilities offered by the xparse package compared to those offered by \newcommand.

Beyond \newcommand with xparse

• Joseph Wright
• Published paper, TUGboat, Volume 31 (2010), No. 1

An introduction by Joseph Wright to the xparse package, a package that provides a powerful mechanism to define new user commands with different number of optional arguments, stars, etc.

Some note on templates

• Lars Hellström
• Published paper, TUGboat, Volume 24 (2003), No. 2
• Keywords: LaTeX3, designer-interface, evaluation report

A discussion by Lars Hellström of the current implementation of the concept of templates.