Copyright 1993, 2011 Peter Schmitt, schmitp7 at univie dot ac dot at This shade package is released under the LaTeX Project Public License, version 1, or (at your option) any later version. It includes this README, description.tex, shade.mf, shade.tex, and the derived file description.pdf Version 1 was released March 21, 1993. License clarified in 2011. A `frequently asked question' is for ways to produce shaded boxes. Since the answers usually (just as recently) point either to PostScript \special's, PiCTeX, PSTricks, etc. it seems that a `simpler' and easier to use version is not readily available -- though I did not check this. A small and simple approach to shaded boxes is the use of a special font providing shaded rectangles, and some macros which automatically compose the desired box from these characters. Since, of course, the finest shading can be achieved by using single pixels for the pattern, the best shading pattern is *device dependent*. Furthermore, one generally defined shading pattern would imply the danger, that - because of rounding errors - at the boundaries (between two of the characters) `lines' would occur, and that the pattern would not look completely uniform. Consequently, since different fonts are to be used for different printers, the dvi file is *device dependent* in this sense, too, though the code - both for the macros and for the metafont description - is device independent.