Next: Packages known not to work, Previous: Environment for loading packages, Up: Loading LaTeX packages
The following table lists packages that had been tested and are known to work with Eplain, and locations where you can find manuals for these packages. Some of the short descriptions of the packages were taken from the documentation for those packages.
This is the LaTeX “picture mode”, started by
\begin{picture} and ended by \end{picture} (in
LaTeX, this package is not explicitly loaded since it is part of
the LaTeX kernel). It provides commands to draw simple figures
inside your document without resorting to any external tools.
These packages are from the LaTeX graphics collection. They provide commands for changing text/page colors, text rotation and scaling, and much more.
Warning 1: If you encounter problems loading one of these packages under pdfTeX (more specifically, when pdfTeX reads supp-mis.tex), the cause may be an outdated supp-mis.tex (part of ConTeXt, a typesetting system for TeX) installed on your system. The problem was fixed in supp-mis.tex version 2004.10.26. You can obtain up-to-date versions of supp-mis.tex and the accompanying supp-pdf.tex from http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/pdftex/graphics. To convince TeX to use the new files, you have the following options in the decreasing order of preference:
Note that option 1 is the safest but provides the fix
only for your current document. Options 2 and 3 will
usually suffice for Eplain but may break ConTeXt. Option 4 is
the most general but is more complicated than the first three. Be
sure to backup any files you overwrite. Also keep in mind that
upgrading your TeX distribution may overwrite files you install in
the system texmf tree.
End of warning 1.
Warning 2: If you encounter problems using the
\pagecolor command from the color.sty package under
pdfTeX, the cause may be an outdated pdfTeX color and graphics
driver pdftex.def. The problem was fixed in pdftex.def
version 0.03p. You can obtain an up-to-date version from
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/pdftex/pdftex.def.
End of warning 2.
The graphics/graphicx packages have the option
draft which instructs \includegraphics not to include the
graphics but instead typeset a box with the dimensions of the graphics
and the name of the graphics file in typewriter type at the center of
the box. These packages expect the LaTeX-provided command
\ttfamily to switch to the typewrite type. This command is not
defined by miniltx.tex, therefore Eplain defines it and makes it
equivalent to plain TeX's
\tt.
See Hyperlinks (xhyper.tex), for the demonstration of text rotation and graphics inclusion using the graphicx package, and using the color package to colorize hypertext links.
Klaus Höppner has written a nice introduction to the LaTeX graphics packages and different graphics formats. You can download it from
http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/2005-3/hoeppner
This package does on-the-fly conversion of Encapsulated PostScript
(EPS) graphics into Portable Document Format (PDF)
graphics for inclusion with the \includegraphics command from
the graphics/graphicx packages, so that you do not have
to explicitly call the epstopdf script.
PSfrag allows the user to precisely overlay Encapsulated PostScript
(EPS) files with arbitrary (La)TeX constructions. In order to
accomplish this, the user places a simple text “tag” in the graphics
file, as a “position marker” of sorts. Then, using simple
(La)TeX commands, the user instructs PSfrag to remove that tag from
the figure, and replace it with a properly sized, aligned, and rotated
(La)TeX equation.
This package provides hyphenatable letterspacing (spacing out),
underlining, and some derivatives. The package is optimized for
LaTeX, but works with plain TeX—you don't actually need to
load it with the \usepackage command, just say \input
soul.sty. If you intend to use the highlighting macros of
soul, don't forget to load the color package.
This package provides a form of \verbatim that allows
line breaks at certain characters or combinations of characters,
accepts reconfiguration, and can usually be used in the argument to
another command. It is intended for email addresses, hypertext links,
directories/paths, etc., which normally have no spaces.
Eplain can create hypertext links with the \url command
(see URL hyperlinks).
Be sure to get a version dated at least 2005/06/27, as older versions have problems in plain TeX.