Happy New Year! Fireworks with TikZ

T_EX wizards recently demonstrated how you can draw fireworks with TikZ:

(There’s also an earlier Q&A about drawing Christmas trees.)

Geeky DIY Christmas and New Year cards, anyone? :-)

Ampang Beamer Theme [best with Ubuntu LaTeX Fonts]

Hi all,

I have created a beamer themes which depends on Ubuntu font.
Get it from here:
https://github.com/raden/beamer-ampang

On Linux or if you have Cygwin

git clone git://github.com/raden/beamer-ampang.git beamer-ampang-read-only

Result:

https://github.com/raden/beamer-ampang/blob/master/ampangcolor.png
https://github.com/raden/beamer-ampang/blob/master/ampang-color-inside.png


Also, committed to Google Code:
http://code.google.com/p/ampang-beamer-theme/

Git pull:
git clone https://code.google.com/p/ampang-beamer-theme/

English Translation of ChinaTeX’s Interview

I’ve finally gotten round to translating ChinaTeX’s interview with me (originally in Chinese) into English. It’s not a word-for-word translation, but I made sure the main points are preserved.

Fixing the Biolinum Font in Beamer

The libertine package provides L^aT_eX support to the Linux Libertine and Linux Biolinum fonts. The package release dated 2011-06-06 contains a bug, in which the ex unit value of the san serif font, Linux Biolinum, is not set correctly. This causes problems if the libertine package is used in a beamer presentation:

Notice how the heights of the headline and footline coloured boxes are almost zero. The same thing happens to the itemized and enumerated list markers, too.

A bug report has been filed with the LinuxLibertine project, but it’s still open at the time of writing.

In the meantime, Ulrike Fischer and Robin Fairbairns have provided an interim solution by resetting the ex value in the .fd files. Here’s what I did following their suggestions.

Locate the Biolinum .fd files, which should be in $TEXMF/tex/latex/libertine/ . I usually work with T1 encoding, so I homed in on the files t1fxb.fd, t1fxbf.fd, t1fxbj.fd, t1fxbjo.fd and t1fxbo.fd. (All these files, because sometimes I want the old-style numbers fonts.) I then added the code in red below for each m-n series-shapes:

\DeclareFontShape{T1}{fxb}{m}{n}{
<-> \fxl@@scale fxbr-t1
}{\fontdimen5\font=\fontcharht\font`\x}

I didn’t bother with the \DeclareFontShape of other series-shapes, as the above seems to have fixed the problem for me:

So hopefully this’ll help anyone else who’s run into a similar predicament. Thanks again to Ulrike and Robin for the solution.

ChinaTeX Interview

As you may guess from the name, ChinaTeX is a T_eX resources website from China. They’ve done a good job rounding up T_eX resources from around the Web, and translating them to Chinese for the benefit of Chinese users. Their latest endeavors over the weekend was to provide video tutorials.

Recently ChinaTeX approached me for an e-mail interview. We talked mainly about how I came to know, love and use L^aT_eX in book design and typesetting. Thanks for the interview, guys! 有空再来坐坐、交流，谢谢！

Cyberjaya, an MMU Beamer Theme

And here’s Cyberjaya, a Beamer theme based on Multimedia University’s (MMU) colours. (Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia is where MMU’s main campus is located.)

Screenshots and download link:

Brief example using the theme:

\documentclass[compress]{beamer}
\usetheme{Cyberjaya}

\author{This is Me}
\title{This is My Presentation}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[plain,t]
\titlepage
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{First Frame}
My content
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Gelugor, a USM Beamer Theme

Just last week, I had another Beamer-related inquiry from a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sain Malaysia (USM). Was it possible to have a Beamer theme modelled after USM’s Powerpoint template?

I came up with Gelugor over the weekend. (Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia is the town where USM’s main campus is located.)

Screenshots and download link:

Brief example using the theme:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Gelugor}

\author{This is Me}
\title{This is My Presentation}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[plain,t]
\titlepage
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{First Frame}
My content
\end{frame}

\ThankYouFrame

\end{document}