Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
In these columns I have said several times there are many packages available for Latex at CTAN.ORG. I have also said these packages can do a wide range of typesetting chores. I think I mentioned there are over 2,000 of them in a standard installation of Latex in Linux. With this issue, I am going to browse through the CTAN site and tell you about some of the packages that catch my interest. I will start with the “A” topics and work my way through the English alphabet to the “W” topics over several columns. (There are no “Y” or “Z” topics, and only one “X” topic which is not relevant to my installation of Latex.)
In “A” there are several topics for support for various languages: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani. There is support for lots of languages in many CTAN topics. I will write a column about language support later in this series unless someone asks for a description of what is available for a specific language.
The first “A” topic of interest is “accessible”. Selecting this topic presents a list of eight packages: accessibility, accsup, atkinson, axessibility, glossaries-accsup, hamnosys, Latex2Nemeth, tagpdf. I discuss them in alphabetical order.
Accessibility helps with building tagged and structured PDF files. As of 2020 the author requests people to no longer use this package. He is / was looking for an interested developer to rewrite the package. So do not use it.
Accsup boasts better accessibility support. However the latest version is from 2019. The author said then it is an experimental package. So do not use it.
Atkinson supports the Atkinson Hyperlegible family of fonts. “This package provides LaTeX, pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX support for the Atkinson Hyperlegible family of fonts, named after Braille Institute founder, J. Robert Atkinson. What makes it different from traditional typography design is that it focuses on letterform distinction to increase character recognition, ultimately improving readability.” (from CTAN.ORG). The most recent upgrade is 2024 April. This package is worth investigating particularly if you generate files that should be accessible to people with low or limited vision.
The Atkinson package provides the Atkinson sans serif font files which must be installed following the instructions in the README file in the downloaded zip file. The original opentype fonts are also available at https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont. The download includes four faces: regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. These are for “printed” documents (PDFs are included in printed documents). It also includes fonts suitable for use on web pages. See the example in the image accompanying this text.
Axessibility: PDF documents containing formulas are usually not accessible by assistive technologies for visually impaired people and people with special educational needs (i.e., by screen readers and Braille displays). Screen readers are reasonably useful for regular text. Math, chemistry, physics, and other formulas are difficult or impossible for screen readers. The axessibility package manages this issue, allowing a user to make a PDF document where the formulas can be read by these assistive technologies, since it automatically generates hidden comments in the PDF document (by means of the /ActualText attribute and/or suitable tags) in correspondence to each formula. (from ctan.org)
Glossaries-accsup works with glossaries. It is an interface between the accsup package and the glossaries package. It is distributed with the glossaries package and has been in use since 2009. Since accsup is not recommended for use I suggest you avoid this package as well.
Hamnosys is a font for sign languages. The Hamburg Notation System, HamNoSys, is a system for the phonetic transcription of signed languages. This package requires an installation of either XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX. Hamnosys will not work with regular installations of Latex.
Latex2Nemeth converts Latex source to Braille with math in Nemeth. This “transcription” works in Greek and English. OpenOffice / LibreOffice and the odt2braille macro package are required for embossing. This package supports amsmath as well as the unicode-math package. The package includes four fonts for “printed” Braille as well as fonts suitable for web pages.
Probably the needs of most people with low or limited vision can be satisfied with screen readers and /or suitably enlarged fonts. For those people who use formulas which cannot be read by machines, the axessibility package is worth trying. For people who require printed documents in Braille, latex2nemeth is recommended.
Tagpdf works with LuaLatex and pdfLatex. I do not have either of those on my machine so I will not discuss them.
The next “a” topic of interest is “addr-list”. It has four packages listed: directory, koma-script, phonenumbers, scraddr.
The directory package name gives away its purpose. It will build an address book-like database file using Latex and Bibtex. You will need to have Bibtex installed before you can use this package. The version available at ctan is 1.2 from 2004. It allows for directories in English, German, and French. One (of several) installation options allows for months to be expressed as names instead of numbers. There is a long list of possible fields presented in the documentation for the package. A basic understanding of the Bibtex commands would be useful, perhaps even required, to take advantage of the directory package.
The phonenumbers package makes it possible to typeset telephone numbers according to different national conventions. German, Austrian, French, British, and North American phone numbers are supported. Support for phone numbers from other countries is rudimentary. Country calling codes can be included with phone numbers. The package is able to check if a phone number is valid according to the national rules. It also allows linking phone numbers if used with the hyperref package. The package is dated 2022.
Documentation for the phonenumbers package is 129 pages. There is a separate chapter for each phone number type (each “country”), as well as separate appendices for the area codes in each block of phone numbers, and a list of valid country codes. Here in Canada, area codes have been added in various metropolitan centres in the last ten years. The date of the package becomes important when trying to validate phone numbers.
The KOMA-Script bundle provides replacements for the standard article, report, and book document classes, with emphasis on typography and versatility. There is also a letter class (see scraddr below). KOMA-Script is a bundle of packages available on sourceforge as well as ctan. It also has its own domain: komascript.de Even though I have said it twice, I emphasize that KOMA-Script is a bundle of packages. Some of the included packages can be used independently as packages (see scraddr below). Of course, each package has its own version and date; as a whole the package is dated 2023.
The PDF documentation for KOMA-Script is 567 pages in English. The first twenty-five pages are dedicated to calculating page layouts. The next one hundred pages deal with the three document classes: book, report, article. Then the developer deals with the letter document class and the scrlttr2 package. There are four pages dealing with the scraddr package. There are many more pages on various other included packages. KOMA-Script is a comprehensive package dealing with many facets of document production. For some users it may be the only set of packages they require.
Obviously a package with so many parts and so many features requires in-depth study and practice. There is much in it to understand and learn. I may decide to dedicate several articles to KOMA-Script in the future. Let me know if you are interested.
The last package for this column is scraddr which provides data from scrlttr2's address files. Scrlttr2 is a Latex package which replaces the default “letter” document class. It is maintained by Markus Kohm who is also the maintainer of KOMA-Script. It is part of the KOMA-Script bundle.
As I am sure you can tell, there are many things to explore in the topics presented in ctan. Already I have discovered packages that make printed files more accessible to people with limited or no vision, packages that help format and use names, addresses and phone numbers. I have also uncovered a package which seems to offer options for many parts of the document making process. Next month will have another dip into the resources at ctan.org