The package below has been updated at tug.ctan.org and should soon be at your favorite mirror.

Thank you, Jim Hefferon Saint Michael's College

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The following information was provided by our fellow contributor:

Name of contribution: newcommand Author's name: Scott Pakin Location on CTAN: /support/newcommand Summary description: Easily generate complex LaTeX macro definitions License type: lppl

Announcement text: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LaTeX's ewcommand is fairly limited in the way it processes optional arguments, but the TeX alternative, a batch of defs and futurelets, can be overwhelming to the casual LaTeX user. newcommand.py is a Python program that automatically generates LaTeX macro definitions for macros that require more powerful argument processing than

ewcommand can handle. newcommand.py is intended for LaTeX advanced beginners (i.e., those who know how to use ewcommand but not internal LaTeX2e commands such as @ifnextchar) and for more advanced users who want to save some typing when defining complex macros.

This update supports optional arguments whose default value is the value of a preceding argument. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

This package is located at http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/newcommand . More information is at http://tug.ctan.org/pkg/newcommand (if the package is new it may take a day for that information to appear). We are supported by the TeX Users Group http://www.tug.org . Please join a users group; see http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html .