Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!sif.claremont.edu
From: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Documentation on TeX 3.0
Message-ID: <7631@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 90 17:46:29 GMT
References: <1990Jun25.165048.4096@king.mcs.drexel.edu>
Sender: news@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
Reply-To: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu
Organization: Quixote
Lines: 44

In article <SPQR.90Jun26174222@manutius.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) writes...
>In article <1990Jun25.165048.4096@king.mcs.drexel.edu> tex@king.mcs.drexel.edu (TeX account) writes:

>   Is there any documentation available (preferably by anonymous ftp)
>   on the new features of TeX 3.0?

>how about the recent issues of Tugboat? yes, I know they are not
>available via FTP but anyone interested in the arcana of 3.0 should
>join TUG anyway. The new features are not going to change your life in
>any way, unless you typeset in languages other than american english
                                                     ^^^^^^^^
                                           (more smug britishness? :-)

Being someone who typesets quite a bit of American English, I
find that TeX 3.0 has dramatically changed my life. Since I've
started using TeX 3.0, I've been promoted, have won the lottery,
am constantly hounded by fabulous babes, and my shirts come back
from the laundry whiter than ever.

And it also has had an effect on my typography and macro writing.
In particular:

  - TeX now has a parameter \emergencystretch, which allows
    better setting of difficult paragraphs (if TeX can't do a
    good job setting the paragraph, it tries inserting
    \emergencystretch additional stretchability in every line. No
    longer                                                  will
    this sort of thing happen to my documents!
  - I can check the \badness of the last box constructed.
  - I can get the input line number (I haven't found a use for
    this yet.
  - I can reduce or extend the error context display as
    necessary.

I won't even begin to mention what TeX 3.0 can do for my Greek
typesetting.

-dh

---
Don Hosek                         TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont Consulting and
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu         production work. Free Estimates.
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