Publications in 2021

Interview with Frank Mittelbach

• Frank Mittelbach and Paulo Ney de Souza
• Published paper, 2021
• Video of the interview
• Keywords: LaTeX history, LaTeX future, LPPL, LaTeX3
• Abstract

  This interview took place on 7 August 2021, during the TUG 2021 online conference. Frank Mittelbach has been leading the LaTeX Project since August 1989, i.e., for exactly $2^5$ years at the time of the interview.

See also Interview of Frank Mittelbach – A combined interview of the LaTeX Project director from 2006.

On the road to Tagged PDF: About StructElem, Marked Content, PDF/A and Squeezed Bärs

• Ulrike Fischer
• TUGboat 42:2, 2021
• Abstract

  In this article I present two packages as part of the LaTeX Project’s “Tagged PDF” effort:

  • tagpdf which contains the core code to create a tagged PDF and is used by the LaTeX team to test new code.
  • pdfmanagement-testphase which contains a large number of PDF-related commands and tools and installs a new management command for central PDF dictionaries.

  I will show how to use these packages and the benefits they will bring for the average user, while also mentioning resulting incompatibilities and required changes in documents.

There is also a video from the talk given at the TUG online conference 2021 at YouTube on this topic.

TUG Conference 2021 (Online conference)

Taming the beast — Advances in paragraph tagging with pdfTeX and XeTeX

• Frank Mittelbach
• Video of the talk at the TUG 2021 online conference
• Keywords: LaTeX, tagging, paragraph handling
• Abstract

  In this talk I demonstrate and describe our solution for automatically tagging paragraphs when using engines such as pdfTeX or XeTeX. The situation with LuaTeX is different, and simpler, and therefore not the subject of this talk. I briefly touch on the problems one encounters and explain the approaches we used to overcome them. This will be done with a number of demonstrations intermixed with theoretical explanations.

  This work is part of our multi-year journey to gradually modernize LaTeX so that it can automatically produce high-quality tagged and “accessible” PDF without the need to post-process the result of the LaTeX run.

Any colo(u)r you like

• Joseph Wright
• Video of the TUG 2021 online conference
• Keywords: LaTeX, color handling
• Abstract

  TeX itself has no built-in support for colour, which is therefore handled by specials or engine-specific extensions. For LaTeX 2ε , the different interfaces are abstracted out by the color package. However, there is a lot that the color package does not do; for example, handling colour model interconversion, mixing colours or device-specific colour spaces. Packages such as xcolor and colorspace fill that gap, whilst the luacolor package addresses a separate issue: avoiding the need to use whatsits for colour at all.

  As part of wider efforts to enhance the LaTeX kernel via expl3 additions, recent work on the l3color package has brought many of these concepts into a single set of interfaces. That means not only copying existing ideas but also ensuring maximal functionality. In my talk, I will explore the work on l3color, highlighting where it can go beyond the predecessor packages in ease of use and functionality.

Reviving Type 3 fonts for modern LuaLaTeX documents

• Marcel Krüger
• Video of the TUG 2021 online conference
• Keywords: Type3 fonts
• Abstract

  For a long time, Type 3 fonts in LaTeX-generated PDF files were known for (undesirable) bitmap fonts, but that’s only a small aspect of what this font format can do. With OpenType color fonts, the idea behind Type 3 fonts has seen a revival, and LuaTeX recently added support for adding such fonts for non-bitmap use cases too.

  In this talk I want to look at how this format can be used to create smaller and simpler PDF files involving color fonts and user-generated glyphs and consider advantages and disadvantages in contrast to traditional alternatives like virtual fonts or macrobased solutions.

Creating document commands: The good, the bad and the ugly

• Joseph Wright
• TUGboat 42:1, 2021
• Abstract

  Creating document commands in LaTeX has traditionally involved a mix of \newcommand, semi-internal kernel commands (like \@ifnextchar and \@ifstar) and low-level TeX programming using \def. As part of wider efforts to improve LaTeX, the team have over the past few years developed ideas for creating document commands in the package xparse. In a parallel article (on \NewDocumentCommand, on the following pages), I’ve looked at how the xparse ideas compare to the abilities of other packages.

\NewDocumentCommand versus \newcommand versus . . .

• Joseph Wright
• TUGboat 42:1, 2021
• Abstract

  Creating new document commands in LaTeX has traditionally been the job of \newcommand. This lets you create a command with mandatory arguments, and also support a first optional argument. However, it can’t create more complex commands: LaTeX uses stars, multiple optional arguments, and plenty more. To define commands using such syntaxes, the kernel itself uses lower-level TeX programming. But this is opaque to many users, and a variety of packages have been created to ease the burden. …