On Mar 9, 2011, at 11:48 AM, Philipp Stephani wrote: > Am 09.03.2011 um 15:51 schrieb William Adams: > >> On Mar 9, 2011, at 5:38 AM, Frank Mittelbach wrote: >> >>> Now you can say that if somebody starts of the document with >>> >>> \usepackage{expl3,xparse,template} >>> >>> say then everything will be fine whether or not the document will be produced >>> by ordinary 2e format or 2x. >>> >>> But history will tell us that what is likely to happen is that people start >>> writing documents that will not \RequirePackage/\usepackage >> >> Would it be possible to build the format in such a way that the packages in question are built into it, but not activated unless such line(s) were present in the document? > > I thought about this issue, but how should this be done on the technical level? Once you have defined a TeX macro, there is no way to "deactivate" it. I had the hope that it would be possible to require either \NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2x} or \usepackage{expl3...}, but I don't think there is a simple way to do this. Okay, how about one defines all the macros using in-accessible names, then the \usepackage call \lets them to the proper, accessible names? This should still give the desired time-savings while requiring that \usepackage be called. William -- William Adams senior graphic designer Fry Communications Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.