May 17, 2021
With v3 of siunitx out, I am as expected
getting quite a few questions about moving from v2. In the main, this is quite
easy as there is a decent amount of compatibility code. Here, I’ll pick out
a few cases where you might want some adjustments.
May 10, 2021
Following up on the recent first beta for
siunitx, I’ve now made a second beta
available. There was only
one issue picked up so far by testers, plus of course those I’ve spotted myself.
In particular, I’ve allowed a way to set the text font manually if simply
resetting back to the standard one doesn’t work. I’ve also sneaked in a late
addition: the ability to parse and print uncertainties the way NIST seem to
suggest they should appear.
April 16, 2021
I’ve been talking about a new version of
siunitx for
ages. Progress has been slow but I’ve now put
my back into it and got to a feature-complete version: I’m calling this
v3.0.0-beta. As this is a beta release, it’s not ready for production just
yet, but it is ready for proper testing. I’ve made the TDS-style zip file
available here; if you
know how to use this kind of file, please download and test!
August 20, 2020
Creating new document commands in LaTeX has traditionally been the job of
\newcommand. This lets you create command with mandatory arguments, and can
also add a first optional argument. However, it can’t create more complex
commands: LaTeX uses for example stars, multiple optional arguments, etc. To
create these, 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.
August 19, 2020
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 improved
xparse to the point where it is capable
of creating a vast array of document commands.
January 15, 2020
A few years ago
I wrote about the work the LaTeX team were doing on providing case changing
functions in expl3. Since then, the code has been tested and revised,
and very recently has moved to a ‘final’ home within expl3. It therefore
seems like a good time to look again at what the challenges are and what tools
we’ve provided.
November 2, 2019
I’ve been talking about a new version of
siunitx for a
number of years now, and progress has been
slower than I’d hoped.
March 17, 2019
Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of the light-weight TeXworks editor. It keeps the user interface pared down, letting both new and experienced users focus on their input, whilst at the same time having lots of handy features.
March 7, 2019
LaTeX environments are almost always used for cases where the content does not make sense as a macro argument. That can happen for example because there are clear ‘start’ and ‘end’ conditions, because the content is long and open-ended, or because category code changes are needed.