LaTeX Patches Guide 21 February 1997 This document describes the procedure by which changes to the LaTeX distribution in between the six-monthly releases will be made. Such changes will be made only when major problems are discovered and fixed. Other changes will only be made twice a year, in June and December. Changes which affect the file latex.ltx, and hence the format, are called `patches to the LaTeX kernel': this concept is described in detail below. The changes of this type are described briefly at the end of this file, in chronological order. All changes to all files should be listed, in reverse-time order, in the files called changes.txt: there is one in each distribution subdirectory. Patches to the LaTeX kernel dated <1996/12/01> ============================================== New releases of LaTeX will occur at six-monthly intervals, in June and December. Between these releases it may be necessary to make small updates to fix major problems. We have made it relatively easy to install updates that affect only the format---by placing all these changes in one file, called ltpatch.ltx. In order to update your LaTeX format you should put ltpatch.ltx where it can be read by iniTeX and then run iniTeX on latex.ltx. You do not need to unpack the latex sources again. In this run of iniTeX, the file ltpatch.ltx (if it exists) will be read just before the format file is `dumped'. This will correct any bugs and it will modify the opening banner of LaTeX: for example, from: LaTeX2e <1996/12/01> to: LaTeX2e <1996/12/01> patch level 1 Changes to the kernel in LaTeX2e <1996/06/01> patch level 1 ----------------------------------------------------------- (1997/02/21) %%% internal/2402 %%% Missing % in \g@addto@macro %%% latex/2404 %%% Reset space factor codes in the output routine. %%% The default settings are based on the values set at \begin{document} %%% unless they are set by defining \normalsfcodes in a class file %%% or package. %%% This bug was inherited from LaTeX2.09 (in fact from plain TeX). %%% latex/2414 %%% Prior to the 1996/12/01 release a \noindent immediately after an %%% \item would `remove' a horizontal space of length \parindent. %%% This could have surprising effects in cases where \itemindent %%% was not equal to \parindent. %%% %%% In the December release this code was rationalised to use %%% the `\lastbox' mechanism as used after section headings. %%% A result of this was that \noindent had no effect at all %%% after \item. %%% %%% This was probably reasonable in explicit lists but it also %%% meant \noindent had no effect in contexts such as %%% \begin{abstract}\noindent... %%% in the standard classes that use the list environment `internally'. %%% %%% This patch restores the behaviour of \noindent in abstract, and %%% more generally always removes the \itemindent spacing from the %%% current item if used after \item, thus it should work as expected %%% even if \parindent and \itemindent are not equal. %%% %%% This area is still under investigation, and this may not be the %%% `final' version that will be incorporated in the next full release. Changes to non-kernel files in LaTeX <1996/06/01> -------------------------------------------------- This section details files that have changed in the `base', `tools', `graphics' and `mfnfss' distributions. Updates to the `babel' `psnfss' and `amslatex' distributions will be announced separately, if necessary. To activate the non-kernel updates you have to retrieve the .dtx files and unpack them with their corresponding .ins files or alternatively (for the files in `base') you may obtain the unpacked files from ctan archives. base/doc.dtx Missing % in \GetFileInfo (latex 2404) tools/tabularx.dtx Improved documentation and message in case table is too large to fit to the requested width. graphics/graphics.ins Add generation of dvipdf.def file. graphics/240 --- Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 The LaTeX3 Project. All rights reserved ---