modernnewspaper

modernnewspaper is a modern, Unicode-first LaTeX package for creating newspaper-style documents. It is designed as a clean, stable, and extensible alternative to the legacy newspaper package, with first-class support for multilingual content and modern typographic workflows.

This package is suitable for both print and digital newspapers, newsletters, and bulletins.

✨ Features

• Unicode-first (XeLaTeX / LuaLaTeX)
• Clean front-page newspaper masthead
• Inner-page custom headers
• Volume, issue, date, and website metadata
• Multi-column layouts (2, 3, or more columns)
• Article system (headline, byline, dateline, body)
• Unicode-safe drop caps (works in columns)
• Column-safe images (no floating conflicts)
• Right-to-left (RTL) support for Arabic and similar scripts
• Multilingual support (Myanmar, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, English, etc.)
• Open-source and LPPL licensed

📦 Requirements

• XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX
• pdfLaTeX is not supported

Fonts (important)

To display non-Latin scripts correctly, appropriate fonts must be installed. Recommended free fonts include:

• Myanmar: Noto Serif Myanmar
• Arabic: Amiri
• Devanagari (Hindi): Noto Serif Devanagari
• Chinese: Noto Serif CJK

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install fonts-noto fonts-noto-cjk fonts-amiri

🔧 Installation

Option 1: Local (recommended)

Copy modernnewspaper.sty into the same directory as your .tex file.

Option 2: User installation

Install into your local texmf tree:

~/texmf/tex/latex/modernnewspaper/

🚀 Quick Start

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{modernnewspaper}

\SetPaperName{Modern Newspaper}
\SetPaperSlogan{Informing the future}
\SetPaperLocation{Yangon, Myanmar}
\SetPaperWebsite{https://example.com}
\SetPaperVolume{1}
\SetPaperIssue{5}
\SetPaperDate{\today}

\begin{document}

\MakePaperHeader

\BeginNewsColumns{3}

\begin{article}
\headline{Hello World}
\byline{Editor}

\DropCap{U}nicode text works across scripts:

မြန်မာစာ · العربية · हिन्दी · 中文 · English
\end{article}

\EndNewsColumns

\end{document}

Compile with:

xelatex example.tex

or:

lualatex example.tex

📰 Section Banners

Newspaper-style section banners can be created with rules above and below centered text:

\SectionBanner{World News}

This produces:

--------------------
     World News
--------------------

📘 Documentation

• Full manual: docs/manual.tex
• Example file: example/example.tex

🗺 Roadmap

Planned improvements:

• Automatic font switching per script
• Running headers and page numbers
• Newspaper class file (modernnewspaper.cls)
• Theme presets
• CTAN submission

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

You can help by:

• Reporting bugs
• Suggesting features
• Improving documentation
• Submitting pull requests

Please keep changes compatible with LPPL and focused on layout stability.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL) v1.3c.

See the LICENSE file or: https://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt

👤 Author

Laitei

• GitHub: https://github.com/Laitei40
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laitei.fb

⭐ Status

This project is under active development. Current version: v0.2.1