zebra

A writing revision toolkit for LaTeX. The current release focuses on inline note-taking, providing macros (\todo, \comment, \fixed, \note, \placeholder) for collaborative writing. Notes are colour-coded, numbered, and marked in the margin. A summary table and clickable note list are appended at the end of the document. The final option suppresses all notes for clean output.

Migration: This package was previously distributed as zebra-goodies.
The old name still works but prints a deprecation warning.

Options

• draft / final: show or suppress notes. Default: draft.

  \usepackage[final]{zebra}
  

• sort: order of the detailed note list. none (default, document order) or type (grouped by note type).

  \usepackage[sort=type]{zebra}
  

• pagelinks: enable or disable clickable page-number links in the detailed note list. Default: enabled. Set pagelinks=false to disable them. The alias nopagelinks is also accepted.

  \usepackage[pagelinks=false]{zebra}
  

• font-expansion: control microtype font expansion, which usually improves the appearance of the document. Disable it if it conflicts with your engine or another package by setting font-expansion=false. The alias nofont-expansion is also accepted. Default: enabled. microtype remains loaded when expansion is disabled.

  \usepackage[font-expansion=false]{zebra}
  

• unnumbered: turns off note numbering. Inline markers become [todo: ...] (no number), the margin symbol carries no number, the end-of-document detailed note list is omitted (the summary table remains), and \zebraref falls back to \ref. Useful as a workaround if numbered notes interact badly with a particular class; the summary table count is then an upper-bound estimate. Default: disabled.

  \usepackage[unnumbered]{zebra}
  

Take Notes

\todo[<who>]{bla bla}
\fixed[<who>]{bla bla}
\comment[<who>]{bla bla}
\note[<who>]{bla bla}
\placeholder[<who>]{bla bla}

If a short name clashes with another package, use the prefixed form:

\zebratodo[<who>]{bla bla}
\zebrafixed[<who>]{bla bla}
\zebracomment[<who>]{bla bla}
\zebranote[<who>]{bla bla}
\zebraplaceholder[<who>]{bla bla}

Refer to Notes

Labels may be placed inside note bodies with the usual \label command. Standard \ref returns the note number, while \zebraref prints the note type together with the number.

\todo{\label{zebra:intro}revise the introduction}

See Todo~\ref{zebra:intro} on p.~\pageref{zebra:intro}.
See \zebraref{zebra:intro} for the full reference.

Labels inside notes are unavailable in final mode because the notes themselves are suppressed.

Notes can appear inside moving arguments such as \section and \caption. To ensure stable numbering, add a \label inside the note — the note is then counted once regardless of how many times the heading appears (TOC, running headers, etc.). Notes without a \label in moving arguments are still safe but may receive a separate number in each context.

Define New Notes

\colorlet{mycyan}{cyan}
\zebranewnote{question}{mycyan}              % uses default symbol
\zebranewnote{question}{mycyan}[$\diamond$]  % custom symbol for this type

\question[who]{what's this?}

Customise Existing Types

Use \zebrasetup to change the colour or symbol of any note type after loading. Accepted keys:

• color/<type>=<colour> — override the colour of a note type.
• symbol/<type>=<symbol> — override the margin symbol of a note type.

\zebrasetup{color/todo=red}                 % red todos
\zebrasetup{symbol/fixed=$\surd$}           % tick mark for fixed notes
\zebrasetup{color/todo=red, symbol/fixed=$\surd$}  % combine several keys

Limitations

• Use \label for notes in \section, \caption, and similar moving arguments; unlabelled notes there may be counted again in contents lists or running heads.
• A labelled note and an unlabelled note with the same type, author, and body may be treated as the same replay. Add a label, vary the text, or avoid identical note bodies.
• Identical unlabelled notes on the same source line, such as \todo{x}\todo{x}, collapse to one note.
• In final mode, labels inside notes are unavailable. In unnumbered mode, the detailed list is omitted and summary counts are only an upper-bound estimate.
• \zebranewnote expects command-name-safe note names and colours already known to xcolor; invalid values are left to TeX or xcolor errors.

Author

Ruini Xue <xueruini@gmail.com>

License

Copyright (C) 2016-2026, Ruini Xue

This work may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL), version 1.3c. The latest version of this license is at:

http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt

This work is "maintained" (as per LPPL maintenance status) by Ruini Xue.