This is the fourth issue of The PracTeX Journal.
The Editorial Board deserves congratulations for getting this
project off the ground late last year, and sticking with it
for four issues. And of course the
Journal would not be here without the contributions of the numerous
authors. (If you're curious, Dave Walden has organized the
site nicely so you can view the author index, back
issues, and other useful indexes -- see the Archives section
on the home page.)
You may notice a new look to some of the papers in this
issue. Will Robertson, a new Editorial Board member, designed
some new features into the pracjourn style. View the PDF
files for Flom, Hefferon, and Mertz/Slough to see the new format. Will
also helped with production editing for this issue.
PracTeX Journal readers provided
insightful feedback, and some of their questions were answered in Ask Nelly and in Travels
in TeX Land. As you read the articles and columns please use the
response links to send comments. The authors and editors appreciate
feedback from readers.
Three articles in this issue deal with using TeX for
practical documents: composing meeting minutes,
making overhead slides, and designing a brochure. Jim
Hefferon's Minutes in Less Than
Hours describes how he transformed the mundane task
of recording minutes for a committee meeting into an
intriguing
LaTeX document project. Andrew Mertz and William Slough show
how to get started making overhead slides with the popular beamer package in
their presentation Beamer by Example.
A frequent contributor, Michael Guravage, describes his
experiences designing A Brochure using ConTeXt.
A fourth article by our once-fledgling LaTeX user, Peter
Flom, is aimed at academics and researchers who probably wouldn't ordinarily come
into contact with LaTeX, and shows how it can work well for
them.
Steve Peter's \starttext
column describes a typographic flourish called a swelled
rule and how it can be constructed using MetaPost and
used in a ConTeXt document. In Travels
in TeX Land Dave Walden explores a number of topics:
the Word2TeX and TeX2Word converters, using plain TeX, and
thought breaks. Ask Nelly
answers reader questions about the use of hyperlinks and the
apa (American Psychological Association) document style. And
finally, for those who like puzzles and challenges, Distractions introduces a typesetting
contest involving Sudoku
puzzles, and also announces the winners of, and the answers to, last issue's
Pitfalls and Web Treasure Hunt contests.
As you read the articles and columns please use the
response links to send us feedback. If you use a technique
from an article or column, be sure to contact the author and
report how it worked for you. The PracTeX
Journal is still evolving and your feedback will help
us as we strive to improve it.
Thanks
The Editorial Board and I want to thank the authors,
columnists, and Ask Nelly answerers for their excellent
pieces which make this journal possible. We also want to
thank those who worked behind the scenes:
Reviewers and copy editors: Karl Berry, Jon
Breitenbucher, David L Elliott, Peter Flom, Baden Hughes, Tarcisio
Praciano-Pereira, Will Robertson, and David Walden
See also other key
people who make this publication possible.
The PracTeX Journal project and numerous other
TeX-related projects are sponsored by the TeX Users Group.
Please show your support by joining TUG and participating in
TUG conferences. If
you're already a member, thanks for your support.
Lance Carnes
Editor
