4th edition of the 4allTeX CD-ROM

General information

Below you will find the most important items concerning the 4th edition of the 4allTeX CD-ROMs.

Availability

The first 4allTeX CD-ROM was introduced on June 9th 1994 at the 13th local NTG (Dutch TeX Users Group) meeting in the Netherlands. Within 3 months all 600 copies were sold (all over the world) and the NTG decided to make a second edition that was introduced on September 15th. On this second edition NTG puts an extra 130 Mb in addition to the first release. In march 1995 the NTG sold the last copy of the second edition (i.e. 850 copies of the second release were sold). The a third edition appeared in July 1995. It was a double cdrom that sold over 4000 copies. Now the NTG is proud to present the fourth edition! Again a double cdrom, even more complete than before.

Contents

4TEX is based on the famous, fast, and well-known emTeX distribution. Besides that, the 4allTeX (yes for all!) CD-ROM contains all related software as available as of the december 1997.

• It contains the latest 4TEX version, 4.71. 4TEX gives the user a friendly interface with a large set of utilities.
• 4TEX contains software in direct executable form.
• 4TEX supports more 20 different formats, both in big and huge versions, plain TeX, LaTeX 2e, Cyrillic, Polish, Greek, TeX info, lollipop, LaTeX 2.09, ConTeXt etc.
• 4TEX supports many printer drivers (including colour deskjets, linotronics, matrix printers, 300/600/1200 dpi laserprinters, laserjets, fax, ghostscript etc. 4TEX can even output PDF!
• 4TEX supports graphics: both for previewing and printing. All functionality of e.g. BM2FONT, GhostScript 5, HP2XX, TeXcad, QFIG, LaTeXcad are included, ready to use!
• 4TEX includes amSpell: a spell-checker for languages English (UK), English (USA), Dutch, German, French, Spanish, South-African and Italian.
• 4TEX contains conversion utilities: WP to LaTeX/TeX, MS-Word/Chiwriter PC-Write/troff to LaTeX, detex, midi2tex, (La)TeX to HTML etc.
• 4TEX contains a huge set of fonts: why waste your time generating fonts (fax, 300dpi, 600dpi, ...dpi)? All fonts are available in .pk format and are not stored into font libraries, i.e. they can be used also for non-DOS systems!
• 4TEX contains a huge set of .sty .cls .mf .pk .tfm .bst etc. files.
• 4TEX supports Metafont with automatic font generation.
• 4TEX supports Metapost for drawing pictures.
• 4TEX fully supports PostScript fonts. E.g. with automatic font generation using PS2PK. The utilities INSTPSFONT and INSTPSFAM can convert any PostScript font for use with TeX.
• With 4TEX you can view and print directly in e.g. Times on any printer.
• 4TEX contains database utilities, supports makeindex, etc.
• 4TEX comes with a choice of fine editors. Macros geared for TeX users are supplied for all editors of the TSE family. E.g., with TSE you can do block compilation: mark a small part of your (large) document, and only that part will be compiled and viewed. But of course you can also your own favourite editor!
• 4allTeX contains a huge set of documentation, including TeX/LaTeX/Metafont/Metapost documentation and tutorials both for novices and gurus, including:
  • all MAPS issues (both Dutch and English articles; starting in 1988; more than 2000 pages with high density information arranged in a large set of PostScript and PDF files),
  • all TEXHAX issues,
  • all TEX-NL issues,
  • all TEX-MAG issues,
  • all UKTEX issues,
  • all BASKERVILLE issues
  • A lot of tutorials in TeX/LaTeX source (also in .dvi, .pdf, and .ps files),
  • The `TeX book' and the `Metafont book' in TeX source format,
  • FAQ about TeX, PostScript, etc,
  • WEB/literate program related contributions. All this documentation is available in PostScript as well as in PDF format. Using Ghostscript or the PDF reader (both on the CD-ROM) you can view the documentation on print it on any printer.
• 4allTeX contains specials: chess (including chinese), bridge, music, crossword, go, and more; including all fonts.
• 4allTeX contains Arabic, French, Cyrillic, Polish and Chinese packages.
• With 4TEX, it is very easy to generate completely new formats.
• 4allTeX contains a lot of .dvi, and PostScript utilities.
• 4allTeX contains GNUPLOT, both in DOS and Windows version.
• 4allTeX contains extensive bibliographies on TeX-related topics.
• It contains several TeX distribution sets for DOS, Windows and OS/2.
• Because TeX is extremely useful for the generation of HTML, PDF and other multimedia documents you will find a lot of those programs on the CD-ROM. Lots of documentation is available in HTML format.

The 4allTeX CD-ROMs contain even more than that!!!

Hard disk requirement for running 4TEX (processing all your documents):
around 100 kilobytes!

The 4allTeX CD-ROM was the first ready-to-use MS-DOS full TeX implementation and is still unchallenged.

It includes a huge set of documentation (and it also works under Linux, OS/2 (in a DOS box -- tip: set DPMI to 6) and Windows (in a DOS box). When running on Windows 95 or Windows NT it will be even more powerful because it can run Windows programs concurrently, e.g. a Windows editor or DVI viewer.

The 4allTeX CD-ROM contains a unique set of TeX and LaTeX software for both MS-DOS and non MS-DOS users!

Unbelievable but true!

Computer system requirements

The ready-to-use 4TEX system is available for PC's running MS-DOS, MS-Windows 3.x, MS-Windows 95, MS-Windows NT (3.51 or higher) or OS/2. The cpu must be a 80386 or higher. 4 megabytes of memory is recommended. However, the major part of the software on the 4allTeX CD-ROM is system independent.

Further you need:
* a hard disk/diskette drive of 100 kilobyes (yes: 100.000 bytes), or more...,
* a CD-ROM drive (of course),
* any printer.

How to install

The 4TEX system on the 4allTeX CD-ROM can be installed within one minute (!) and the first TeX example can be previewed and printed within the next 10-20 seconds.
After an installation of the CD-ROM, i.e. after running the installation program INSTALL one can start 4TEX by typing

    4tex sample

The new installation program also supports installing a customized subset of the 4TEX system on a hard disk (in case you want to speed things up, or use other CD-ROMs at the same time).

• The price of the double CD-ROM including a 140 pages manual (when ordering from the NTG office) is: ** 60 Dutch guilders **
  (or the equivalence in dollars)
• The CD-ROM contains the manual in electronic format. Therefore you can also by the double CD-ROM without paper manual. The price is ** 30 Dutch guilders **
  (or the equivalence in dollars)
• The price includes shipping (even by air mail for outside Europe!)
• Paying by MasterCard/VISA card is possible.
• Add 15 guilders if you pay to NTG with a bank cheque or non-Dutch bank transfer (this is not recommended and costs the NTG/you the additional 15 guilders).

How to order the 4allTeX CD-ROM-ROM from a TeX user group

There could be a possibility that Local User Groups (LUGs) are also (re)selling the 4allTeX CD-ROM. So please contact your local LUG first!

The NTG is selling the 4allTeX CD-ROM directly to all LUGs for bookstore pricing. This means that LUGs/TUG are probably the quickest and cheapest way to order.

Please see the dealer list and the order form for details.

For all comments, questions etc. please contact the NTG:

NTG
NTG board e-mail: ntg@ntg.nl

4TEX discussion list support

Yes there is already a lot of 4TEX support using the world-wide 4TEX discussion list.

How to subscribe? Send the one line message:

    subscribe 4tex your_personal_name

How to retrieve old e-mails? All discussions will be archived. In order to receive a list of all archived files, send the one-line message:

    index 4TEX

In order to retrieve one of the monthly archieved e-mail file, send the one-line message (for month 05 in year 94):

    get 4TEX log9405

The 4TEX authors Wietse Dol and Erik Frambach are monitoring this fast growing 4TEX list! For very specific requests/questions use the 4TeX support address

4TEX discussion list e-mails can also be found on the 4allTeX CD-ROM.

The 4TEX manual

The price of the 4TEX manual only (without the 4allTeX CD-ROM) is:
In Holland/Belgium: NLG 20 (including shipping).
Other countries: USD 15 (including shipping).

Electronic versions of the manual are on the CD-ROM itself and here, too:

• In HTML format
• In TeX DVI format (613 KB), zipped (180 KB)
• In Adobe Acrobat format (731 KB), zipped (664 KB)
• In PostScript format (1931 KB), zipped (846 KB)

Latest update

Just a quick list of the additions in 4TEX version 4.71 compared to the earlier release 3.27:

• An as complete as possible version of LaTeX 2e (June'97 release)
• Upgrades DVI-drivers from Eberhard Mattes
• Upgrade of DVIPS PostScript DVI-driver (5.76)
• Significant overall performance improvements
• Improved support for Metapost
• Updates of the 4TEX batchfiles, in order to e.g.:
  • make 4TEX run faster
  • more conversion tools
  • the usual bugfixes
• Support for Windows programs when running on Windows 95 / Windows NT: e.g. use a Windows editor and DVI-viewer concurrently
• New Windows help file on LaTeX 2e commands
• All standard PostScript fonts available
• All Computer Modern, AMS and LaTeX fonts in PostScript format
• Support for writing Chinese in LaTeX, including PostScript fonts
• 4TEX can generate Adobe Acrobat output (PDF)
• (La)TeX to HTML conversion
• Several other new utilities

Future improvements

Of course 4TEX is continuously under development. In a next release you can expect e.g.:

• latest version of other (TeX-related) products,
• update dvi drivers,
• and more.

Updates and bugfixes will be announces on the 4TEX mailing list and will be made available through FTP.

For more information, please contact