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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label eplain</title>
</head><body>
<h3>What is Eplain?</h3>
<p>The <a href="http://tug.org/eplain">Eplain</a>
macro package expands on and extends the definitions in Plain TeX.
Eplain is not intended to provide “generic typesetting
capabilities”, as do LaTeX or <a href="FAQ-texinfo.html">Texinfo</a>. Instead, it
defines macro tools that should be useful whatever commands you choose
to use when you prepare your manuscript.
<p>For example, Eplain does not have a command <code>\</code><code>section</code>,
which would format section headings in an “appropriate” way, as
LaTeX’s <code>\</code><code>section</code> does. The philosophy of Eplain is that
some people will always need or want to go beyond the macro designer’s
idea of “appropriate”. Such canned macros are fine — as long as you
are willing to accept the resulting output. If you don’t like the
results, or if you are trying to match a different format, you are out
of luck.
<p>On the other hand, almost everyone would like capabilities such as
cross-referencing by labels, so that you don’t have to put actual page
numbers in the manuscript. The authors of Eplain are not aware of
any generally available macro packages that do not force their
typographic style on an author, and yet provide such capabilities.
<p>Another useful feature of Eplain is the ability to create PDF files
with hyperlinks. The cross-referencing macros can implicitly generate
hyperlinks for the cross-references, but you can also create explicit
hyperlinks, both internal (pointing to a destination within the
current document) and external (pointing to another local document or
a URL).
<p>Several LaTeX packages provide capabilities which Plain TeX
users are lacking, most notably text colouring and rotation provided by
the <i>graphics</i> bundle (packages <i>color</i> and
<i>graphics</i>). Although the <i>graphics</i> bundle provides
a Plain TeX “loader” for some of the packages, it is not a
trivial job to pass options to those packages under Plain TeX, and
much of the functionality of the packages is accessed through package
options. Eplain extends the loader so that options can be passed
to the packages just as they are in LaTeX. The following packages are
known to work with Eplain: <i>graphics</i>, <i>graphicx</i>,
<i>color</i>, <i>autopict</i> (LaTeX picture environment),
<i>psfrag</i>, and <i>url</i>.
<p><a href="http://tug.org/docs/html/eplain">Eplain documentation</a> is
available online, and there’s
also a mailing list — sign up, or browse the list archives, via
<a href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-eplain">http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-eplain</a>
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>Eplain distribution</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/eplain.zip">macros/eplain</a> (<a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/eplain.tar.gz">gzipped tar</a>, <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/eplain/">browse</a>)
</dl>
<p><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=eplain">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=eplain</a>
</body>
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