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Bio for Karl Berry

TeX biography: First contact in 1982. Subsequently, many installations at many organizations (not to mention many readings of the TeXbook and Metafontbook). Co-author of TeX for the Impatient, one of the first comprehensive non-Knuthian books on TeX.

I was the maintainer of the Unix port of TeX (i.e., Web2c) for several years in the 1990's. Along with Web2c, I developed kpathsea, a freely redistributable library for path searching and variants of three DVI drivers that use it; Eplain, a macro package that extends plain TeX; modes.mf, a collection of Metafont modes and adaptations; a list of short fontnames for portable use within TeX across platforms; and assorted minor projects. Currently, I am the maintainer for GNU Texinfo, a TeX-based documentation format, and contribute to TeX Live.

Besides such programming projects, I've also produced the usual books, articles, collections, and ephemera, studied typeface design, and co-written several articles on reading research and mathematical analysis of type.

For TUG, I serve on the technical council and various committees, co-sponsored the creation of the TeX Development Fund in 2002, and became president in 2004. I am also one of the system administrators for the TUG servers.

Outside of TeX and TUG, I try to play a little piano every day (Bach and earlier, plus Arvo Pärt), read anything good I can get my hands on (some favorite authors: Donald Westlake, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Daniel Quinn), and try to live a quiet life.