The ncctools package has been updated at tug.ctan.org and should have made its way throught the mirroring process.
Jim Hefferon ftpmaint@tug.ctan.org
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The following information was provided by our fellow contributor.
Name of contribution: ncctools Author's name: Alexander I Rozhenko Location on CTAN: macros/latex/contrib/supported/ncctools Summary description: A new release of the NCCTOOLS bungle for LaTeX Project License type: lppl
Announcement text given by the contribution's author: - ------------------------------------------------------------------- % % NCCTOOLS, Release 2.0 %======================
% % HISTORICAL NOTES % ================
The `ncctools' bundle consists of a number of packages extracted from NCC style (developed by A. Rozhenko in 1992-1996 for LaTeX-2.09) while reimplementation it for LaTeX-2e. This job is not completed yet. So, some packages will be added to the bundle later.
Four of the packages, namely dcounter, extdash, manyfoot, and nccfoots, are documented in corresponding `.dtx' files. Others are partially documented just inside `.sty' files.
% % CONTENTS OF THE NCCTOOLS BUNDLE % ===============================
cropbox.sty Implements the cropbox command which prepares a box with crop marks at its corners looking like angles. Angle parameters are customizable.
cropmark.sty Implements the cropmark command producing crop box around page text area (header area, footer area and marginal notes are optionally taken into consideration). The cropmark command is used inside watermark commands. It accurately interprets current state of two-column, two-side, and reverse-margin modes.
dcounter.dtx Dynamic counters. The counter declared as dynamic is really created at the first use and receives at that moment the count style which was established by the countstyle command. The special use of counstyle command with optional parameter allows modifying of subordination of existing counter. For example, while using the book class you can reject the subordination of the section counter to the chapter counter and resubordinate figures, tables and equations to sections.
desclist.sty Implements the desclist environment. It is considered as an improvement of the description environment. The appearance of item markers is easy customizable on the fly. An optional parameter allows set a marker prototype for calculation of hang indentation skip. The description environment is redefined to use an optional parameter also.
extdash.dtx The package implements the commands, Hyphdash, Endash, Emdash, and their *-forms, to control hyphenation of compound words and ordinary words dashed by em-dash. You can also use the shortcuts -/ =/ -- == --- === instead. On contrary to germanb style of the Babel package no active symbols added. You can also decrease the length of em-dash by the option `cyremdash' to satisfy the russian typesetting rules.
manyfoot.dtx The package implements a command, ewfootnote, that adds footnote levels to the standard LaTeX's footnote mechanism. Footnotes of every additional level are automatically grouped together on a LaTeX-2e output page and are separated from another levels by the special vertical space and (maybe) rule. You can customize the typesetting style of additional footnotes choosing between ordinary footnotes and run-in paragraph footnotes (useful for critical editions).
nccbbb.sty Implementation of poor Black Board Bold symbols. Ported from old NCC-LaTeX. It is useless in modern LaTeX but kept just in case.
nccboxes.sty Additional boxes from NCC-LaTeX. The jhbox and jvbox can horizontally and vertically align a body with respect to a prototype. The addbox adjusts the height and depth of the box body (it is alternative to using the `calc' package). The pbox is a simple version of one-column table. It is independent on arraystretch value. The cbox is intended for design of fancy headers in tables.
nccfancyhdr.sty Absolutely new implementation of functionality of the fancyhdr package. It is more transparent, simple, non-aggressive (redefining of standard page styles is optional), and bug-free (I hope :). Header width control is improved with two commands, namely extendedheaders (extended upon marginal notes) and ormalheaders. The command hispagestyle correctly works with fancy page styles (in fancyhdr, it didn't work because of use of global definitions).
nccfoots.dtx The package implements commands for generating footnotes with manual marks. For example, to mark footnote by star you can write Footnote{*}{Footnote text}.
nccmath.sty Extension of the `amsmath' package. Its main aim is to combine AMS's typesetting of display equations and NCC-LaTeX's one. In amsmath, the `eqnarray' environment leaves unchanged. This package redefines `eqnarray' to allow using of amsmath tag control features and display breaks. Intercolumn distance is reduced to the distance typical for relation operations. All columns are prepared in the displaystyle. A new `darray' environment is a mix of the AMS's `aligned' environment and LaTeX's `array' environment. It is typed out in the same way as `aligned' environment but has columns definition parameter as `array' environment. The use of column specifications is restricted to the necessary commands only: l,c,r,@, and * are allowed. The implementation is compatible with the array package. Some additional commands are introduced also.
nccpic.sty Envelop for the `graphicx' package. It customizes graphics extensions list for most popular drivers, namely dvips, dvidpf, and dvipdfm, and for use with pdftex also. Extension list now contains extensions of graphics files which are processed on the fly without additional efforts. Using this feature simplifies typesetting. You need not specify a graphics file extension when use the includegraphics command. Depending on a dvi driver specified, a graphics file with an appropriate extension is searched. So, you only need to create a number of versions of a graphics file in different formats (for example, `.bmp' for dvips or Yap and `.png' for pdftex). After that you can produce resulting `.ps' and `.pdf' file without any changes in the source file. The recommended storage for graphics files is the graphics/ subdirectory of the directory the `.tex' file is translated. Some additional commands are introduced also.
nccsect.sty Extension of LaTeX's section, caption, and toc-entries generation technique. The package contains many improvements. More interesting of them are:
* simple declaring of sections of any level (including sections of 0th level and captions for floats); * user-controlled typeout for display sections (user can select one of the following typeout styles: hangindent, parindent, center); * customizing of section or caption tag by the manner similar to AMS equation tag; * simple declaring of toc-entries using prototypes for calculation of hang indentations; * umberline command newer overlaps the text going after; * PnumPrototype{} is used for calculation of right margin in table of contents; * different captions for different float types; * simple handle of new types of floats (after registration of a new float in the package you can declare a caption and toc-entry for it; be sure that the chapter command will automatically produce a vertical skip in a toc for the new float also).
nccthm.sty Yet another extension to the ewtheorem command. Four orthogonal properties of theorems are used:
numbering mode - standard or APAR (a number before header); theorem type - defines an appearance of a theorem (what fonts are used for header, comment, and body). The `theorem' and `remark' types a predefined; indent style - margin, nomargin, indent, noindent (selected in package options); break mode - do break after header or not? Hardcoded when a new theorem is declared. Can be overridden on the fly for concrete math statement.
Easy customization of spacing and commands inserted after headers. Two types of QED symbol (white and black). The proof command is introduced. The ewtheoremtype command allows create new theorem types. The likeTYPE command is automatically created for every new type. It simplifies typeout of rare math statements. Instead of creation of a new theorem environment you can use
liketheorem{Header}{Number}[Comment]
for it, or likeremark, or ... Every theorem environment and theorem type can be redefined with enewtheorem and
enewtheoremtype. Counters of all theorem-like environments are dynamic. So, they are created at the first use. This is very helpful for package writer. A number of theorem-like environments can be created in a package or class, and a user only selects the count style for them (in simple case this can be done with only one countstyle command in the document preamble).
parskip.sty Useful for documents with non-zero skips between paragraphs. In this case, the additional vertical space inserted by lists is unlikely. The package provides identical distance between all paragraphs except section markups. It redefines control list commands and suppress opskip, partopskip, and itemsep in lists. As a result, the distance between ordinary paragraphs and paragraphs prepared by lists is the same. The command SetParskip{distance} is described to control this distance.
tocenter.sty Provides two commands, namely ToCenter and FromMargins, which simplify the customization of page layout. It is now easy to change text width and height and center the text area on the page (the header, footer, and marginal note fields are optionally taken into consideration). Other way is like-Word declaring of paper layout: you set margins from the left, right, top, and bottom.
watermark.sty Provides watermarks on output pages. A watermark is some text or picture printed at the background of paper. A watermark is usually stored in the page header. This way is inconvenient: it needs redefinition of page style commands. We use another method that is orthogonal to page mark commands and needs no redefinition of page marks. The left and right watermarks are allowed. Temporary hiswatermark acts on the current page only. Using this way it is easy to substitute a page header by your own page header with the hispageheading command.