----- Forwarded message from Walter Schmidt ----- ============================================================ VTeX/Free 8.44/8.46 for OS/2 and Linux ============================================================

A new release of the free TeX System VTeX/Free for OS/2 and Linux (x86) is available from

ftp://dante.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/vtex

and will soon propagate to the other CTAN nodes.

About VTeX/Free ---------------- VTeX/Free is a TeX distribution, which is built around the VTeX program. VTeX is an implementation of the TeX typesetting engine, including the eTeX extensions. VTeX can generate PDF or PostScript output immediately from the TeX source file. The distribution includes Plain TeX, a LaTeX system with many additional packages and fonts, and the Bibtex and Makeindex programs. VTeX is developed by MicroPress Inc.

In contrast to traditional TeX systems, no intermediate DVI files need to be generated, no DVI driver programs are required, and there is no need to take care of their sometimes fussy setup. The common PostScript and PDF viewers Ghostscript and Adobe Reader (Acrobat) are to be used for (pre)viewing and printing. Output from VTeX is immediately suitable for public distribution, e.g., over the www, since PDF and PostScript are standardized document formats.

Actually, VTeX/Free is a port of MicroPress' commercial TeX system VTeX for the Windows platform, see http://www.micropress-inc.com. However, the free distribution does not include the GUI and certain tools of VTeX/Win, and it does not support HTML and SVG generation.

VTeX/Free comes in two variants:

* VTeX/2 is for the OS/2 operating system * VTeX/Lnx is for Linux (on the x86 platform only)

VTeX has a built-in Postcript interpreter and supports

* inclusion of PostScript images, * inclusion of PDF images, * inclusion of bitmap images (PNG, JPG, TIFF and others), * inline PostScript programming.

Thus, packages such as PStricks, PSfrag and draftcopy can be used with VTeX. and are part of the distribution. The hyperref features are supported in both PDF and PostScript mode. PDF encryption is available without external tools.

Beside the standard Computer Modern fonts, VTeX/Free includes lots of other free Type1 fonts and the macro packages to use them:

* European Computer Modern (EC/TC fonts) * URW's clones of the 35 PostScript base fonts * Pazo Math fonts * the AMS math fonts (Symbols, Euler, Fraktur and others) * various special math fonts: RSFS, WASY, St-Mary-Road, Doublestroke, esint, esvect * the Ibycus 4 system and its Greek typefaces * the ArabTeX system with Arab and Hebrew typefaces * the CJHebrew package with Hebrew typefaces * TIPA (phonetic) typefaces * BrushScriptX-Italic * various symbol fonts: MarVoSym, Cheq, Context navigation symbols, MF-Logo

What is new in the currect release? ----------------------------------- * v8.44 of the VTeX compiler for OS/2, v8.46 on Linux * latest LaTeX * additional fonts: Fourier, CJHebrew, esint * ... and more, see the file ftp://dante.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/vtex/NEWS

NB: The previous distribution site ftp.uni-erlangen.de is NO LONGER IN USE. Please, do not attempt to download VTeX/Free from this site any longer! ----- End forwarded message -----

Reinhard Zierke for the CTAN team