TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (08/24/89)
TeXhax Digest Monday, August 14, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 75
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
Announcing LaTeX-help@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Simple LaTeX Questions and Etc.
AMS-TeX + LaTeX
Squeezing spaces from write token list
Special purpose tabular
Problem with TeX and LaTeX on SUN
Re: TeXhax Digest V89 # 71 (LaTeX environment)
Why the kludge in lfonts.tex?
MILSTD font usage
Explicitly terminating control string names
Problem with BibTeX...
\narrower does not work (p. 100 of the TeXbook)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1989 8:54:41 PDT
From: Max Hailperin <mxh@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Announcing LaTeX-help@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Keywords: LaTeX, help
I've succesfully organized the volunteer corps of LaTeX question
answerers suggested in TeXhax volume 89 number 63, thanks to the
benificence of 16 (so far) like-minded other TeXhaxers [more are
welcome] and of our local system administrators. I enclose below the
"Users' Guide to LaTeX-help" which announces our service.
Unfortunately, while the target audience posts their questions to
TeXhax, many of them don't read it. Therefore, I'm a bit at a loss
for how to reach them. I am submitting this to TeXmag and TUGboat as
well. Any of you who knows of additional good means for further
distributing this "Users' Guide" is encouraged to do so.
Some people have worried that hiding these questions and answers from the
public eye will destroy a valuable source of information. To help avert
this problem, we are taking the following steps:
1) Routine questions and answers will be collected for publication as a
"Common LaTeX Questions with Answers" document, which will be announced
in TeXhax.
2) Especially interesting questions will be posted to TeXhax together with
their answers.
3) Questions which the volunteer can't answer will be forwarded to TeXhax.
Users' Guide to LaTeX-help
%------ ----- -- ----------
All sites with LaTeX should have one or more LaTeX experts to help users.
Those experts communicate with each other about difficult problems through
various forums, including the TeXhax mailing list.
Lately, many sites have installed LaTeX without having, acquiring, or
developing a LaTeX expert. Many simple LaTeX questions from those
sites have been posted directly to TeXhax. Unfortunately, the publication
schedule of TeXhax is such that there are no replies for a long time, and
then many redundant replies. Additionally, the situation is self-worsening
as the redundant questions and answers further clog TeXhax.
Therefore, a number of TeXhax subscribers have formed a volunteer LaTeX
question answering corps. LaTeX users with questions should take the
following steps:
1) Read the manual very carefully, including a careful check of the index.
Most questions are answered there.
2) Check whether anyone locally can answer your question. Consider
not only paid systems staff but also more experienced users. Similarly,
if you paid a commercial company good money for LaTeX, you should demand
customer support from them--after all LaTeX is available for free.
3) See if you can work it out yourself, and in the process build LaTeX
expertise, by use of careful test cases, tracing mode, examining the
LaTeX source files, etc. Don't go crazy if you're a non-programmer, but
give it a shot.
4) If all of the above fail, *don't* send mail to TeXhax. Instead, send
mail to LaTeX-help@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU . Your mail will automatically
be forwarded to a member of the volunteer corps, in a round-robin
rotation. You should hear back shortly, either with a solution to your
problem, a request for additional information, or the remark that it
exceeded the volunteer's abilities and has been forwarded to other
experts, including further volunteers and the TeXhax mailing list. If you
don't hear anything after waiting a reasonable period, write to
LaTeX-help-coordinator@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU with as much
information about your original mailing as you have, and I'll try to
track down how it got lost.
Please do not abuse this service. We volunteers have lots of work of
our own to do, and will not continue volunteering if the burden is
excessive. Make sure you try steps 1-3 before step 4, and always be
eager to help others locally who are a step behind you. Also, join TUG
(the TeX Users' Group) if you haven't and avail yourself of their classes and
publications to develop in-house LaTeX expertise.
If you have any questions or comments on this, please write to
LaTeX-help-coordinator@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU -- not directly to the
current person holding that position, as it may change.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 89 08.55 EDT
From: wconley@nmsu.edu
Subject: Simple LaTeX Questions and Etc.
Keywords: LaTeX, questions, helping, courtesy
I have been tracking the comments regarding the "too simple" questions
being submitted to TeXhax, and am concerned about the level of ego and
snobbery involved. I have been using LaTeX since the beginning, and
have taught a couple of hundred people how it works. I have also found
the TeX Users Group and most of the practitioners helpful and
congenial. This includes a pre-book call to a helpful LL who answered
my question with grace and ease.
Lighten up you folks who know it all. A few "easy" questions from
people trying to get along with LaTeX are not going to break your
disk. Keep in mind that while the LaTeX book does describe the system,
not everyone understands what is being said at the first or second
(...) reading. If you don't like simple questions then don't read
them. Or better yet, if you have the time to complain you have the
time to be useful. Take the few seconds to answer the question.
Walt Conley
wconley@nmsu.edu
wconley@nmsuvm1 (BITNET)
Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003
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Date: Thu 10 Aug 89 14:38:34-EST
From: bbeeton <BNB@MATH.AMS.COM>
Subject: AMS-TeX + LaTeX
Keywords: AmSTeX, LaTeX
Some time ago, an inquiry was posted regarding combined versions
of AMSTeX and LaTeX, as mentioned in the March Notices of the
American Mathematical Society. Here are more details, including
the present status of those projects.
The American Math Society has commissioned the preparation of an
AMS-TeX-like sub-style to be used with LaTeX. This will permit authors
to take advantage of such LaTeX features as automatic numbering of
sections and equations, symbolic cross-references, and many others,
while at the same time having available the special mathematical
formatting of AMS-TeX.
Testing is underway now, and we expect it to be ready for distribution
in early fall. For compatibility with LaTeX, there will be a few
differences in syntax between the new LaTeX AMS-TeX style file and the
original AMS-TeX; although the syntax will be different from that of
AMS-TeX, it should look familiar to current users of LaTeX. The general
principle has been adopted that LaTeX usage will be employed in cases
of syntax conflict between AMS-TeX and LaTeX; style conflicts will be
resolved on the basis of editorial acceptability.
There will also be style files suitable for formatting journal articles
and books using the AMS-TeX sub-style; these will be based on the AMS'
"house style", although, for technical reasons, the style files to be
distributed will not include all the fine details necessary to generate
a paper or book in one of the Society's own publications.
At present, AMS will accept only electronic manuscripts prepared with
AMS-TeX. After release of the LaTeX style files, manuscripts prepared
using one of these styles will also be accepted for publication by the
Society, subject to the usual technical acceptance and referee
procedures. A formal announcement will be made when the project is
nearer completion.
Mike Spivak is separately preparing an expanded version of AMS-TeX with
LaTeX-like features, which he is calling LAMS-TeX. The syntax will be
different from that of LaTeX, but it should look familiar to present
users of AMS-TeX. Some of the new features are automatic numbering of
sections and equations, and symbolic references to any numbered feature
or to items in a bibliography. Spivak has released a beta test version
of this package, and full release is probable sometime in the fall.
When the Math Society's production procedures can be expanded and
modified to accommodate LAMS-TeX papers, these will also be accepted;
an announcement will be made at an appropriate time.
Barbara Beeton
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Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 23:37:35 MDT
From: carlos@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Carlos A. Felippa)
Subject: Squeezing spaces from write token list
Keywords: macros, TeX write command, token list expansion
Consider the macro definition
\def\writedef#1#2{\immediate\write16{\def\ #1{#2}}}
[This is a simplified form of a more complicated macro I am
using to prepare an indexed database.] Then
\writedef{macroname}{macrodefinition}
writes the line
\def \ macroname{macrodefinition}
What is the simplest way to get rid of the blanks before
and after \ in the output line?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 11:43:55 EDT
From: Sean Boisen <sboisen@BBN.COM>
Subject: Special purpose tabular
Keywords: tabular, environment
I'm trying to define an environment for writing BNF-type grammar
descriptions. Seems to me what i want is something like a tabular
environment with two columns. My first pass is this:
\begin{tabular}{r@{\ $\rightarrow $\ }l}
Now the problem: if the right-hand side of an expression doesn't fit on a
single line, i want it wrapped without getting extra production
arrows, i.e. something like
a --> this | that | the-other-thing | yet-another-thing
| one-more-thing
b --> quit
NOT
a --> this | that | the-other-thing | yet-another-thing
--> | one-more-thing
b --> quit
And besides i don't want to have to specify line breaks in the text.
WAIT, don't flame me yet! I know about the p{} argument to tabular,
which would put the right hand side of the rule into a parbox and
solve all my problems. *The real problem* is that i don't know the
width of the parbox in advance: i don't want to pick some arbitrary
number, because then i have to twiddle it all the time. Seems like the
information is all there to calculate it: the difference between the
width of the text and maximum side of any left hand side of a rule
plus the size of the arrow. How do i turn that prose into something
LaTeX can act on? What i think i want is something equivalent to:
\begin{tabular}{r@{\ $\rightarrow $\ }p{\asbigaspossible}}
but i don't know where to get that \asbigaspossible value. I guess
the real magic that tabular uses comes from \halign in TeX: what i
want is a smarter environment that will calculate the maximum size of
the left column, then use that information to figure out how big to
make the parbox on the right. But my command of TeX isn't up to it:
any suggestions?
Sean Boisen -- sboisen@bbn.com
BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA
Disclaimer: these opinions void where prohibited by lawyers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 89 13:14:27 EDT
From: chaotl@eng.umd.edu (Chuan-Lung Chao)
Subject: Problem with TeX and LaTeX on SUN
Keywords: TeX, LaTeX, SUN
We have a strange thing happening with Tex and LaTeX in our Sun.
In Servers, we get the following message when we try to invoke TeXor LaTeX:
Segementaion fault (core dump)
But in all clients ( They share same /usr/local/tex file system, exactly, they
share totally same thing about TeX) TeX is working fine. Anything wrong about
server's kernel or something else ???
We would really appreciate any advice.
Jason Chao
Staff of OSL at U. of Maryland ( College Park )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 16:43:12 PDT
From: lamport@src.dec.com (Leslie Lamport)
Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V89 # 71 (LaTeX environment)
Keywords: LaTeX, environment
Steve Fisk writes:
How can I define an environment "nothing" so that nothing between
\begin{nothing} and \end{nothing} is output. For instance, I
would like
this is text \\
\begin{nothing}
here is something\\
here is more \\
\end{nothing}
this is text
to produce this output:
this is text
this is text
It is trivial to write a command to do this; how do I turn the command
into an envrionment?
This seemingly simple request is actually a nice exercise in moderately
advanced TeX hacking. The best way to do it depends upon what can come
inside the "nothing" environment. If the environment contains only
text, then the best approach is to typeset the contents of the
environment in a box (using TeX's \setbox command), then throw away the
box. Doing this requires figuring out how to turn an environment into
a TeX \hbox or \vbox. To see the trick, look at the definition of the
LaTeX "minipage" environment (in latex.tex).
If the environment may contain commands, like \typeout or \setcounter,
that could have effects even if the text containing it is never
printed, then another approach must be taken. In this case,
\begin{nothing} must expand to a macro whose argument is delimited by
the \end{nothing}--a macro that simply throws away its argument. To
see how this is done, look at the definition of the "verbatim"
environment, which works this way.
Leslie Lamport
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 89 21:52:03 EDT
From: jorgnsn@qucis.queensu.ca
Subject: Why the kludge in lfonts.tex?
Keywords: lfonts.tex
At the top of ``LFONTS - Version of 11 November 1986'' are the lines:
% This file contains the following kludge: 8pt and 9pt versions
% of \sc call magnifications of amcsc10 instead of cmcsc10.
% Search for KLUDGE to find for both instances.
What's the point of the kludge? Why not just shrink cmcsc10, the way
that ``LFONTS - Version of 6 May 1986'' did? Is the shrunk AM font
thought to look better? I don't have the AM fonts on hand now--is it
worth getting them instead of just switching back to using cmcsc10?
Email me your answers, and I'll mail a summary back to the net if there
seems to be general interest.
Thanks
John Jorgensen
jorgnsn@qucis.queensu.ca
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 89/08/07 at 17H07M01 (French time)
From: UCIR001%FRORS31.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Bernard GAULLE at CIRCE)
Subject: MILSTD font usage
Keywords: MILSTD
Hi folks,
Who know how to use the MILSTD font? Is there any macro package with
a sample test?
Thanks,
Bernard GAULLE <UCIR001@FRORS31> CIRCE-CNRS FRANCE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 8:29:35 EDT
From: Bernie Cosell <cosell@WILMA.BBN.COM>
Subject: Explicitly terminating control string names
Keywords: TeX, character
There is a real problem with using no-argument commands in running text:
the algorithm for how to terminate them is moderately complicated, and
is viewed as being mostly a total crock by less-than-experts. It'd be
great if you *always* did "\bbn\" in running text, but of course you don't:
you only do that if the \bbn has a space after it, otherwise you do nothing;
and worse, most all of us type in our text with 'autofill' on, and you
run the constant risk that your editor will break a line just after the
command [and then you need to do a *different* thing, and that'll totally
wedge your paragraph if you happen to re-line-break it as you do other
edits in it]. Also, global replaces are near-impossible [trying figuring
out how to change "Digital Equipment Corporation" to "\dec"!].
ANYHOW... all that said, the 'solution' is fairly obvious: what _I_ think
that TeX needs is a character to *explicitly* terminate a command name.
As I said, if "\bbn\" worked in all circumstances (and the second backslash
were otherwise ignored, and so you would write "\bbn\'s" and the like),
that'd be great, and that's in essence what I want. My problem is that I
haven't a clue what would be a good character to pick (all the vaguely
uncomon ones are mostly used!), and I'm not at all sure how to kludge it in.
My first idea was to pick a character and define it to be an 'active'
character, but bind it to an empty command. Thus, the non-alpha char would
terminate the command name just right, but since it is bound to be a
zero-width, do-nothing character, it wouldn't affect the output at all.
I couldn't find such a free character... Does anyone have a suggestion or
some other technique/trick for achieving the same end? [for example, I
wondered if I could hack TeX so that I could use '}' --- that is, an
unmatched right curly brace --- do to the job. "\bbn}" is a little ugly, but
if it all worked I suspect we'd get used to it].
Thanks
/Bernie\
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 17:04:39 EDT
From: geller@vienna.njit.edu (james geller)
Subject: Problem with BibTeX...
Keywords: LaTeX, Publisher, BibTeX
I am running Latex under Publisher and I have the following problem with
bibtex:
I need to format references in the reference list in the following way:
Seniorauthorlastname initial. .........
..................................
.....................................
SeniorauthorTWOlastname initial. .........
..................................
.....................................
etc. etc.
After editing the bbl file I almost got it, but I cannot
get rid of the square brackets in front of the references.
The best I am able to do is to make sure that they are empty.
So what I have looks like this:
[]Seniorauthorlastname initial. .........
..................................
.....................................
[]SeniorauthorTWOlastname initial. .........
..................................
.....................................
Can anybody help with this? I am not on this mailing list, please
reply directly.
Jim
P.S.: Where can I get bst files for journals like Cognitive Science?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 11:51:50 MDT
From: carlos@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Carlos A. Felippa)
Subject: \narrower does not work (p. 100 of the TeXbook)
Keywords: TeX, \narrower
The \narrower macro does not perform as advertised on p. 100 of the TeXbook
in the following sample text. Neither do \leftskip and \rightskip work
as advertised in the \midinsert-\endinsert construction that follows.
I am using Arbortext's Plain TeX release 2.9.7, but the same behavior is
observed in the public TeX distributed with SunOS 4.0 in directory
/usr/local/bin.
\parskip=4pt\parindent=20pt
The first paragraph. This is supposed to be followed by a
``narrower'' paragraph.
{\narrower\smallskip\noindent
``problems involving nonuniform heating and/or large
deflections [$\ldots$] in a series of
linearized steps. Stiffness matrices are revised
at the beginning of each step to account for changes in
internal loads, temperatures, and
geometric configuration.'' \smallskip}
\midinsert\leftskip=\parindent\rightskip=\parindent
\smallskip\noindent
``problems involving nonuniform heating and/or large
deflections [$\ldots$] in a series of
linearized steps. Stiffness matrices are revised
at the beginning of each step to account for changes in
internal loads, temperatures, and
geometric configuration.''
\smallskip \endinsert
The next paragraph. \bye
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