Editorial — LaTeX in the IT World
In This Issue
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.
Not too long ago there was a fairly small number of LaTeX and TeX users, and they concentrated mostly on math and scientific documents. As LaTeX and TeX matured over the years and became more accessible, it was natural that they would be used more in Information Technology. Today, there are countless universities, research organizations, and commercial enterprises using TeX in IT.
This issue grew beyond what we expected at the outset. Although it's a very specific area, it generated a lot of interest --- we had over 1,800 hits on the pre-release web site.
I hope you enjoy reading the articles, and be sure to give us feedback by clicking the links next to each article.
- Articles
The first article, Formatting Sweave and LaTeX Documents in APA Style, by Brian D. Beitzel, explains the use of the class aps6.cls for preparing manuscripts to be submitted to American Psychological Association's journals, according to its 6th edition Publication Manual.
The second paper, The Vocal Tract LaTeX Package, by Dimitrios Ververidis, Daniel Schneider, and Joachim Köhler, is dealing with the package VocalTract.sty, devoted to the visualisation of the vocal tract.
The next paper, Writing Posters with Beamerposter Package in LaTeX, by Han Lin Shang, discusses the use of the package beamerposter, a LaTeX tool for creating conference posters as well as some connected packages.
In Seeing stars, James S. Hefferon shows how to create star symbols with MetaPost for rating a web page.
In TeX in the eBook Era, Luca Merciadri emphasizes the advantages of using eBooks, in connection with LaTeX-composed documents.
The following paper, Easy-to-use Chinese MTEX Suite, Hongbin Ma describes, to use his own words, "an easy-to-use and easy-to-learn Chinese MTeX Suite". It was developed by Hongbin Ma and friends in order to provide Chinese LaTeX users with a compact TeX distribution.
In Bashful Writing and Active Documents, Joseph Gil discusses a new paradigm in computer science, active documents. These offer ways of presenting users with documents that change in response to exterior events. The author proposes a new package, bashful, and documents created with this package, in the author's own words, "extend the user interaction offered by active documents to the time of the document creation".
Finally, the article by Rayans Carvalho and Francisco Reinaldo, Documenting ITIL processes with LaTeX (Portuguese), presents a LaTeX-based processes and services documentation tool, as suggested by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library .
- Columns
Ask Nelly answers some questions about the customization of lists in LaTeX and about creating logos with LaTeX.
The Distraction demonstrates a package writing guitar chords, and offers some entertaining font quizzes.
Thanks
The PracTeX Journal thanks the production editors - Lance Carnes and Yogeshwarsing Calleecharan - who worked hard with us to create this issue. Dave Witte Morris carefully copy edited several articles. Thanks to all for helping out. It takes many hours to edit the articles and put together the web site, and working with this team makes it a pleasure to do.
Colin Shanafelt of Gatsbylight.com provided a free license of "Easy Grader" publishing software for each production editor. This software is a a useful tool for teachers, reviewers, and others who evaluate written material. This donation is much appreciated.
Francisco Reinaldo
Paul Blaga
