<div class="gmail_quote"><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_quote">Dear PracTeX Journal Readers,<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br>
The 2012-1 issue of the PracTeX Journal<b> LaTeX in the IT World</b> is
<a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/toc.html" target="_blank">now available
</a><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/toc.html" target="_blank">online</a>.<br><br>
The authors and journal editors worked hard to present these articles,
and we hope you enjoy reading them. If you find an article you like or
which you want to comment on, please click the "Comment on this
article" link to send a note to the author or to the
editors.<br><br>
<b>Next issue: 2013-1 Spring 2013<br><br></b>Theme:<b> Collaborative Writing<br><br></b>Articles welcome on methods and experiences of sharing documents between coauthors. Let us know your results if you have used a web service, a version control system, or other method to coauthor a LaTeX or TeX document.<br>
<b><br>
</b>Articles on other topics are also welcome. If you would like to write an article for the Journal send your idea
or outline to
<a href="mailto:pracjourn@tug.org%3Fsubject=Article%20idea" target="_blank">the
editors</a>.<br><br>
Best regards,<br>
Francisco "Rei" Reinaldo<br>Paul Blaga<br>Lance Carnes<br>
PracTeX Journal Editors <br><br>
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<a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/toc.html" target="_blank">The PracTeX Journal</a>
<div>An online journal of the TeX Users Group focusing on practical uses of LaTeX and TeX.<br><br></div>
<div>
<div>2012-1 Table of Contents<br><br>
<a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/editor.html" target="_blank">Editorial — LaTeX in the IT World</a></div>
<div>Francisco Reinaldo, Paul Blaga. Software systems
for document preparation, project management, and requirements analysis
are continually evolving. There is no limit to how much these systems
can expand and become a more significant force in computerized
automation. In this issue of the PracTeX Journal we present several
articles by authors involved in these areas, with the hope that their
experiences and techniques using LaTeX and other TeX tools will be
useful to others. </div><br><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/news.html" target="_blank">News From Around</a></div><div>
<div>The LaTeX Community blog.</div>
<div><br></div></div><div><div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/readers.html" target="_blank">Feedback from readers</a></div>
<div>Comments on previous articles: Math formatting, missing chess piece.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/beitzel.html" target="_blank">Formatting Sweave and LATEX Documents in APA Style</a></div>
<div>Brian D. Beitzel. Journals in the social
sciences typically require manuscripts to be formatted according to the
American Psychological Association's Publication Manual, which is now in
its 6th Edition. The apa6 class is an update of the popular apa class
(often referred to as “apa.cls”), bringing it into compliance with 6th
Edition requirements and adding a few new features. This article
describes the major features of apa6 and presents results from testing
apa6 with four bibliographic package scenarios; the output of these
bibliographic packages is compared with 6th Edition requirements. The
article concludes with information regarding how to easily convert a
document from LaTeX to Microsoft Word for the purpose of submitting
manuscripts to journals that require APA style.</div><br><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/ververidis.html" target="_blank">The Vocal Tract LaTeX Package</a></div><div>
<div>Dimitrios Ververidis, Daniel Schneider, and
Joachim Köhler. VocalTract.sty is a package to visualize the vocal
tract. Vocal tract is manipulated by a vector of articulation parameters
according to S. Maeda model. Animation can be achieved by providing a
sequence of vectors over time, e.g. from Matlab©. An embedded sequence
of vectors in the VocalTract.sty for certain German phonemes allows for a
sequence of phonemes animation when no vector is available.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/shang.html" target="_blank">Writing Posters with Beamerposter Package in LaTeX</a></div>
<div>Han Lin Shang. The beamerposter package in LaTeX
is an excellent tool for the creation of posters. There are several
options available using the beamerposter package, when writing a poster
in LaTeX. Here, I would like to present some of these options associated
with the beamerposter package. I shall introduce the basics and some
useful companion packages that make a poster look neat and nice. </div>
<div><br></div>
</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/hefferon.html" target="_blank">Seeing Stars</a></div>
<div>Jim Hefferon. MetaPost is a great tool for line
art. We walk through creating a rate one-to-five graphic with it,
highlighting some of its advantages over a mouse-driven graphics tool.</div><br><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/luca.html" target="_blank">TeX in the eBook Era</a></div><div>
<div>Luca Merciadri. We discuss some advantages of
using eBooks, and creating them with LaTeX. We continue by explaining
technical aspects that might improve and help you with your LaTeX eBook.
We end with a short discussion about the PDF file format and its use
with eBook documents.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/hongbin.html" target="_blank">Easy-to-use Chinese MTeX Suite</a></div>
<div>Hongbin Ma. Although there are many free and
commercial TeX collections and distributions, Chinese TeXers still have
many difficulties in TeXing Chinese documents. Some of the problems
Chinese TeX users confront with TeX distributions are: the huge size,
complex structure, nontrivial installation and configuration, lack of a
full-featured Chinese editor, and lack of other needed add-ons. These
difficulties may prevent many people from becoming TeXers or TeX
experts. Motivated by these issues and many other practical demands, the
author and several friends developed an easy-to-use and easy-to-learn
Chinese MTeX Suite, which is a green, compact, free, convenient,
pragmatic and powerful TeX distribution with many add-ons and unique
features which are seldom available in other TeX distributions.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/gil.html" target="_blank">Bashful Writing and Active Documents</a></div>
<div>Yossi Gil. Active documents is an emerging
technology by which the product of computerized typesetting is more than
an aesthetically pleasing composition of letters, words and punctuation
characters broken into lines and pages. An active document offers modes
of interaction with its reader, while the document itself may change
its content in response to events taking place in the external world.
Bashful documents, the concept proposed by the bashful package, and
discussed in this article, extend the user interaction offered by active
documents to the time of the document creation.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/rayans.html" target="_blank">Documenting ITIL processes with LaTeX (Portuguese)</a></div>
<div>Rayans Carvalho, Francisco Reinaldo. Many
companies have evolved with the implementation of the Information
Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), using the best practices and
processes to achieve practical results. Good practice suggests what to
do, but at the same time raise doubts about how to do it and which tools
to use to get better work performance in ITIL. Noting these facts, this
article presents a LaTeX-based processes and services documentation
tool, as suggested by ITIL. (In Portuguese)</div>
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</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/madsen.html" target="_blank">Avoid eqnarray!</a></div>
<div>Lars Madsen. Whenever the eqnarray environment
appears in a question or example of a problem on comp.text.tex,
<a href="http://tex.stackexchange.com" target="_blank">tex.stackexchange.com</a> or other forums there is a high probability that
someone will tell the poster not to use eqnarray. This article will
provide some examples of why many of us consider eqnarray to be harmful
and why it should not be used.
<br>
<br>The article is an updated edition, first published in PracTeX Journal 2006-4. </div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/asknelly.html" target="_blank">Ask Nelly</a></div>
<div>How to customize lists and produce logos.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/distract.html" target="_blank">Distraction - Guitar Chords and Font quizzes</a></div>
<div>A very recent package, gtrcrd, by Riccardo Bresciani, some quizzes on typography terms, and a kerning test.</div>
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<div><a href="http://tug.org/pracjourn/2012-1/reviews.html" target="_blank">Book Review: LaTeX and Friends</a></div>
<div>This new feature of the PracTeX Journal includes,
from time to time, short reviews of newly published textbooks or
reference books on LaTeX and friends. For this issue, we selected a
Springer book, LaTeX and Friends by Marc R.C. van Dongen </div>
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