TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (02/23/90)
TeXhax Digest Monday, February 19, 1990 Volume 90 : Issue 19
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
Metafont
DVI to Imagewriter DA?
Request info about Psfig/TeX macro
***Call for papers SGML-TeX90, Groningen 31 Aug 1990***
New version of tpic available
Relative font sizing in LaTeX
Printing LaTeX on HP Laser
FWEB (Krommes) vs. FWEB (Avenarius & Oppermann)
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Date: Sat, 3 Feb 90 16:46:16 EST
From: "Shawn E. Koppenhoefer" <sekoppenhoef@rose.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Metafont
Keywords: METAFONT, Kanji
Hi.... i want to be able to print Kanji characters... i'm led to believe
that i need something called Metafont. Is this true...
If so, then what is it and where can i get it?
I am currently using SbTeX.
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Date: Fri, 02 Feb 90 18:31:38 EST
From: Alan Stein <STEIN%UCONNVM@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: DVI to Imagewriter DA?
Keywords: dviware
This question has probably been asked before, and I suspect that the
answer is no, but is there a desk accessory available that will take a
DVI file and print it on an Imagewriter?
The question comes up because I have TeXtures and OzTeX, with not enough
memory to run LaTeX through TeXtures. As things stand, when I want to use
LaTeX, I process it through OzTeX and then have to import the DVI file
into TeXtures for printing on the only printer connected to my Mac Plus,
an Imagewriter II.
Alan H. Stein | stein@uconnvm.bitnet
Department of Mathematics |
University of Connecticut | Compu$erve 71545,1500
32 Hillside Avenue | GEnie ah.stein
Waterbury, CT 06710 | SNET (203) 757-1231
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Date: Thu 1 Feb 90 08:50:46-PST
From: YU%SMD.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU (HARRY YU - LOCKHEED LESC, HOUSTON,
TEXAS)
Subject: Request info about Psfig/TeX macro
Keywords: Psfig, TeX
We are looking for the Psfig/TeX 1.2 macro package, as documented by
Trevor Darrell/Mike Bridges, May 1980. We would appreciate receiving a copy,
or any information in how to get a copy. We are running a VAX 8650 under
VMS 5.1. Thanks in advance.
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Date: Fri, 2 Feb 90 12:14 B
From: <CGL%HGRRUG5.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: ***Call for papers SGML-TeX90, Groningen 31 Aug 1990***
Keywords: announcement
Organizing Committee:
NTG: C.G. van der Laan
T.A. Jurriens
SGML: J. Maasdam
J. Bleeker
CALL for PAPERS
SGML & TeX Conference
Groningen, 31 Aug. 1990
This one-day conference starts -- after coffee, welcome etc. -- with a
survey about the relationship between SGML and TeX, now and in the future.
During the day we have two parallel streams (with 1/2 and 3/4 hour talks)
and for those wandering around there will be a vendor booth, a book stand,
a selling point for TeX `gadgets', and copying facilities for PD (TeX)
programs and of course an information booth.
The closing session will be about Electronic Publishing in the future with
a wink to SGML and TeX.
To celebrate the joint happening we will end with a nice `cocktail' party
offered by Elsevier and Samson Publishers.
Authors are invited to present a `paper' related to the theme -- SGML and
TeX -- and Electronic Publishing in general. We also welcome papers which
not exclusively address the preparation and printing phase of the
lifecycle of a document, e.g., papers discussing the interaction between
descriptive mark-up and database applications, reusable parts of documents,
and not to forget papers dealing with descriptive mark-up and Hypertext.
The conference language is Dutch (unless non-native) but transparencies
are in English.
TeX, LaTeX, Metafont (TUG-like) courses as well as SGML courses are held
the days before and after. Conference and course program will follow in
due time along with registration forms.
Submission abstracts: C.G. van der Laan (CGL@RUG.NL)
Landleven 1, 9700 AV
Groningen, The Netherlands
before 1 May 1990. Notice of acceptance 1 June 1990.
(Please supply: Title talk, full name, (e-mail) address, followed by the
the abstract, (1 page at most), preferably in LaTeX article style)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 90 14:52:38 -0800
From: Tim Morgan <morgan@ICS.UCI.EDU>
Subject: New version of tpic available
Keywords: tpic
What is tpic?
Tpic is derived from the pic preprocessor which is part of the
Device Independent Troff distribution from AT&T Bell Labs.
Unfortunately, this means that you may have tpic only if you are
source licensed for pic. Tpic diverged from pic around 1984.
I understand that there is a newer version of pic, but I haven't
seen it so most of its features are not included in tpic2.
Tpic's output consists of \special and other TeX commands. The
\special commands are passed by TeX into the .dvi file, so any
dvi processing software must support the tpic \special's in order
for you to get any useful output. Tpic is mainly of interest
to those who already use pic and wish to use the same text-based
graphical language to describe figures to be included in TeX or
LaTeX documents. Many of the changes in tpic which have been made
over the last couple of years were suggested or implemented by
others, too many to name here, but all the feedback is certainly
appreciated.
How do you get tpic?
If you got tpic from ics.uci.edu via ftp, you may obtain
tpic2 in the same way. If you received tpic on tape, or
you don't have tpic at all right now, I would ask you
to wait awhile before requesting the new version, so
that I have time to receive bug fixes or improvements from
other users and incorporate the changes into the distribution.
If you don't have tpic and want to get it, I request that you
mail me a photocopy of the first page of your DWB or Ditroff
license from AT&T to verify your source license. If you've
previously sent this to me, then I should still have it on
file and you should note this in your request.
What's new in tpic2?
The bad news, as some preliminary users have already discovered, is
that I've had to extend the set of \special commands that tpic
generates. This requires slightly modifying existing dvi
drivers that understand tpic1's \special's. The change is
fairly simple, however; dvi driver writers who are interested
should contact me for further information. Here is a list
of some of the more important improvements:
There is a new version of the manual in tpic/LaTeX format instead
of pic/ditroff format. It contains almost all of the pic manual,
plus discussions of the extensions that tpic makes beyond pic.
Shading is now done with a new attribute of each object called "fill",
which takes an optional argument between 0 and 1. 0 implies completely
white, and 1 implies completely black. The default is a new predefined
variable called "fillval" which defaults to 0.5, for a medium gray shading.
The keywords "shaded", "white", and "black" have been retained for
backward compatibility.
Invisible objects can now be shaded: only the shading shows up in the
output.
Circles, ellipses, and arcs can now be dotted or dashed. Dotted or dashed
circles, ellipses, and boxes can now be shaded. Splines can also be dotted
or dashed, but this takes special driver support.
Calculation of arrowheads on arcs in most cases has been improved.
Arrowheads are now solid triangles instead of just two lines.
The .ps and .baseline commands can now be given without an argument, in
which case the corresponding parameter reverts to its previous value.
You can now use {} like [], but it doesn't push a new lexical level.
Thus, things defined inside {} can be referenced from outside.
You can now do conditional subpictures like this:
if <e> then | tpicture | else $ fpicture $
where | and $ are arbitrary characters, as with define. <e> is an
expression using C relational operators, constants, variables, and
functions. There is a host of new unary and binary functions, such
as sin(), cos(), pow(), etc., from the C math library.
Tpic is now compatible with output from grap (I'm told).
Invisible objects now contribute to TeX's idea of the size of the picture.
This makes it easy to center text inside invisible boxes, for example.
The radius of an arc is now accessible as XX.rad, where XX is the symbol
for some arc.
Tim Morgan
UC Irvine ICS Dept.
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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 15:23:02 EST
From: Bernie Cosell <cosell@WILMA.BBN.COM>
Subject: Relative font sizing in LaTeX
Keywords: LaTeX, font sizing
One continual annoyance to me is that LaTeX does absolute font sizing,
and so if you have some \newcommand that uses the sizing commands to
achieve some graphic effect, you'll discover that your chapter heads
and footnotes and such are pretty screwed up [in a recent case, I
wanted a fake small-caps-san-serif font, and so I used {\small\sf
NOWISTHETIME}, which did just what I wanted in the running text, but
was an unmitigated disaster in the chapter heads]. I think that the
following is a significant improvement: \smaller and \larger changes
the point size *relatively* by one slot, and so I made my definition:
{\smaller\sf NOWISTHETIME}, and it all magically works. The
definitions are:
\makeatletter
\def\smaller{\ifx\@currsize\Huge \protect\huge \else
\ifx\@currsize\huge \protect\LARGE \else
\ifx\@currsize\LARGE \protect\Large \else
\ifx\@currsize\Large \protect\large \else
\ifx\@currsize\large \protect\normalsize \else
\ifx\@currsize\normalsize \protect\small \else
\ifx\@currsize\small \protect\footnotesize \else
\ifx\@currsize\footnotesize \protect\scriptsize \else
\protect\tiny
\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi}
\def\larger{\ifx\@currsize\tiny \protect\scriptsize \else
\ifx\@currsize\scriptsize \protect\footnotesize \else
\ifx\@currsize\footnotesize \protect\small \else
\ifx\@currsize\small \protect\normalsize \else
\ifx\@currsize\normalsize \protect\large \else
\ifx\@currsize\large \protect\Large \else
\ifx\@currsize\Large \protect\LARGE \else
\ifx\@currsize\LARGE \protect\huge \else
\protect\Huge
\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother
__
/ ) Bernie Cosell
/--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Sys & Tech, Cambridge, MA 02238
/___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 90 16:45:47 AST
From: "Marc E. Beland UPEI C.C." <BELAND%UPEI.CA@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Printing LaTeX on HP Laser
Keywords: LaTeX, printing
Hello,
I have a member of the faculty here who is using LaTeX,
and wishes to print on legal (14") paper on a Hewlett-Packard
Laser Jet II+. He has set all header and footer spaces and skips
to 0pt, and even with a \textheight of 12", the most he can get
printed is 10.5" of text. He is sending the proper init code to
the printer to have it request and accept the longer paper, but
the output is split across two pages. When previewing the
document with DVI2VDU, all seems well and LaTeX even reports that
it processed but one page.
Are there hidden switches I haven't found, a limitation in the
printer driver, or some other bit of wisdom a guru would care to
enlighten me with? I read the TeX/LaTeX list on a regular basis,
but you may E-mail me direct, if only to save me some
embarrassement should the solution be trivial and/or evident.
Thanking you all, I remain
Marc Beland
BELAND@UPEI.CA
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Date: Sun, 4 Feb 90 15:52:24 EST
From: krommes%SS01.PPPL.GOV@CCC.NMFECC.GOV (John Krommes)
Subject: FWEB (Krommes) vs. FWEB (Avenarius & Oppermann)
Keywords: FWEB
In November I submitted a message about FWEB, a WEB system for
Fortran/Ratfor/C. Response to that has been good, and the system is in
production on a variety of machines around the world. It is most solidly
debugged for VAX/VMS and SunOS/Unix, but has also been (marginally) tested
on the Macintosh and DECstation. An IBM-PC version will be available
shortly.
The initial message described a beta-test version. The more thoroughly
debugged and portable version 1.00 is now available. Please see the end of
this article for directions about obtaining a copy of the system.
In the January, 1990 issue of SIGPLAN NOTICES Avenarius & Oppermann (AO)
describe their own version of a WEB system for Fortran. That we've chosen
identical names is unfortunate, and eventually we'll have to do something
about that. Meanwhile, here's a brief discussion (based solely on the
information from that article) of what I perceive to be the differences
between these two pieces of software.
Fundamentally, my FWEB appears to be more ambitious in the following three
areas:
* Support for multiple languages (presently Fortran, Ratfor, and C)
* Sophisticated macro processing
* Built-in Ratfor statement translation
* The ability to mix languages in a single FWEB run is important for many
users who write, say, the bulk of their code in C but mix in some
computation-intensive Fortran. The virtues of maintaining such mixed code
in a single WEB file are that one obtains a unified index and can also
define FWEB macros that operate simultaneously on the code of all
languages. This scheme works very well in practice; we have in production a
large scientific code written partly in C, partly in Ratfor.
* The virtues of macro processing are obvious; the facility is particularly
useful for Fortran/Ratfor, but also finds application to C. [The macro
processor is ANSI-C-like (and thus superior to many extant C
preprocessors!), and also has various useful extensions such as a facility
for automatic statement numbering.)
* Built-in Ratfor statement translation provides a painless way to
efficiently write (and read!) Fortran code. It endows Fortran with a C-like
syntax, better loops, etc. This version of Ratfor is more sophisticated
than the original described by Kernighan & Plauger; the present version
translates into readable Fortran-77.
AO describe their version of FWEB as applicable to Fortran-8x. In fact,
as far as I can tell, their published example uses none of the features
that are new to Fortran-8x, such as modular definitions, derived data
types, operator overloading, the SELECT statement, etc. Some of these
extensions are nontrivial to implement; I do not know whether AO have done
this or not. In any event, the version 1.00 that I have made available does
NOT support these new features, although it typesets the example of AO
essentially as does theirs. The newer version that I use every day for
development DOES support the Fortran-8x enhancements. However, because I
want to allow time for leisurely testing of these features (and I don't yet
have a Fortran-8x compiler to thoroughly test tangled code), I plan to
release support for Fortran-8x sometime this summer.
In summary, that several independent groups have built a WEB system for
Fortran suggests that the basic idea is sound. The choice of which one to
use will depend on your needs. If you'd like to try out mine, here's how:
* For those with anonymous ftp access, the files are available from the
VAX/VMS host ccc.nmfecc.gov in subdirectory tex$root:[distr.fweb]. Obtain
the file READ_ME.FWEB for more information. A sample ftp session is
(if you can't find ccc.nmfecc.gov in your host tables, you can replace it
by its numeric address 128.55.128.130)
ftp ccc.nmfecc.gov
login anonymous
(type "guest" as password)
cd tex$root:[distr.fweb]
get read_me.fweb
quit
Note that, unlike the beta-testing version, no executable binary files are
supplied anymore; you must compile (with cc) and link the source files.
Detailed instructions are provided in READ_ME.FWEB. Bootstrap versions are
supplied for VAX/VMS, SunOS/Unix, Macintosh, and the DECstation. You should
be able to use one or the other of these versions to bootstrap FWEB onto a
new machine. Please let me know which machines you're working with and what
difficulties you encounter.
* For those without ftp access, I am distributing the source via email.
Please contact me for details, specifying whether you are a Unix or VAX/VMS
user.
Finally, a note about mail addresses. In two or three cases, I have been
unable to respond to people who contacted me about FWEB because of
difficulties with their return addresses. I have attempted to contact
each person at least three times. Therefore, if you have not heard from me,
please try again, and BE SURE TO SIGN your message with all of your known
email addresses. (The return path provided automatically is not always
adequate or correct.) It doesn't hurt to provide a real, physical address
as well! Also, please note that I have a new preferred address:
(NEW ADDRESS):
MFEnet: krommes@ss01.pppl.gov
Internet: krommes%ss01.pppl.gov@ccc.nmfecc.gov
Bitnet: krommes%ss01.pppl.gov@lbl.bitnet
(The numeric address of ccc.nmfecc.gov is 128.55.128.130.)
I will be happy to hear suggestions, bug reports, etc. Thanks for your
interest.
---John Krommes
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