[texhax] Dec18 TUG news: gifts, meetings, elections, TUGboat, packages

[TeX Users Group]

Dear TeXers!

The holiday season is upon us.  I hope 2018 has been a good year for
you -- and 2019 has much exciting news in store!

As a gift for the community Peter Wilson typeset a Mt Fuji calendar
for 2019, and Norbert Preining has adapted it for Japan and Austria.
See the links at https://tug.org/calendar.html.

Another gift for the TeX community is from the Computer History Museum
and DEK: An Oral History of Donald E. Knuth.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7GAKLSGnI
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPPll3uDa0
Transcript: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658053
(Many more DEK and other TeX-related videos are listed at
https://tug.org/video.)

Speaking of gifts, you still can reserve a beautiful book by Jerry
Kelly, Hermann Zapf & the World He Designed at Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1307403978/hermann-zapf-and-the-world-he-designed.
The campaign ends soon.

There was some interesting news in November.  The meeting of Japanese
TeX users took place in Sapporo, Hokkaido.  The report in Japanese is
here: https://texconf2018.tumblr.com/.  A report in English by Norbert
Preining is here: https://www.preining.info/blog/2018/11/texconf2018/.

Let me also remind you about next year's TUG election and annual
conference, so you can plan ahead:
https://tug.org/election/
https://tug.org/tug2019/

TUGboat 39:3 is expected to mail this week (and 39:2 will become public
shortly thereafter). We are accepting submissions for 40:1!
https://tug.org/TUGboat

Among new CTAN packages this month are:
 - eqexpl, a package to align explanations for formulas
 - icon-appr, a package to create icon appearances for form buttons
 - modeles-factures-belges-assocs, a package to generate invoices for
   Belgian non-profit organizations
 - pdftex-quiet, a bash wrapper for pdfTeX limiting its output to
   relevant errors
 - tablvar, a package to typeset pretty tables of signs and variations
   according to French usage
 - TikZlings, a collection of cute little animals and similar creatures
 - topiclongtable, an extended longtable with cells that merge
   hierarchically 


Last but not least: traditionally December is the month for giving.
If you are planning your year end donations, you may consider including
TUG in your plans -- it is as easy as clicking on
https://www.tug.org/donate.html.  Please note that donations to TUG
usually qualify for the income tax charitable deduction in the United
States.  If you are not in the US, please consider donating to you
local TeX user group.

Happy TeXing!
Boris Veytsman (TUG President)