TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (05/09/89)
TeXhax Digest Monday, April 10, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 35
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
Re: IBM PC based DVI driver for the 3812
Journals accepting TeX Sources?
German spell checker available ?
RE: PD spell checker for VMS
Nested ifs (second round)
Re: Width of columns and \halign
Questions about LaTeX-environments
LaTeX footnotes...using letters or numbers as identifiers
Dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX
Problems with errata.tex
Available for FTP: texsun for sun 386, etc
Bugs in Chen's makeindex Program
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 89 13:32:31 PLT
From: Dean Guenther <GUENTHER%WSUVM1.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Re: IBM PC based DVI driver for the 3812
Keywords: dviware, IBM PC
> Can anybody tell me whether there is an IBM PC based DVI driver for the
> 3812? ...
Gustaf Neumann has a PC driver that goes to a LaserJet or 3812. His
address is NEUMANN@AWIWUW11.BITNET -- Dean
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Apr 89 16:43 +0100
From: Igor Metz <metz@iam.unibe.ch>
Subject: Journals accepting TeX Sources?
Keywords: TeX, journals
Is there anybody out there who has an up to date list of all Journals
accepting TeX/LaTeX/AMSTeX sources?
Thanks for any feedback,
Igor Metz X400: metz@iam.unibe.ch
Institut fuer Informatik ARPA: metz%iam.unibe.ch@relay.cs.net
und angewandte Mathematik UUCP: ..!uunet!mcvax!iam.unibe.ch!metz
Universitaet Bern
Switzerland Phone: (+41) 31 65 49 02
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1989 19:39:53.25 GMT+1
From: <gatzka%DTUPEV5A.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU> (Christoph D. Gatzka)
Subject: German spell checker available ?
Keywords: spell checker
Does anybody know of a GERMAN spell checker or GERMAN dictionary in machine
readable format ? (Please answer directly, since I do not subscribe to this
list, to gatzka@dtupev5a.bitnet)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 89 14:03:27 EDT
From: Jim Walker <N410109%UNIVSCVM.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: RE: PD spell checker for VMS
Keywords: spell checker, VMS
K. Sankara Rao asks about PD spell checkers for VMS. Two come to mind:
There is a program from Vassar, available from DECUS. I don't know
much about it, other than the fact that it has some special provisions
for TeX and LaTeX.
Also, it happens that I wrote a spell checker myself, which I call
SPELT. It has some TeX features, like ignoring control words unless
you really want them checked, and ignoring stuff in math mode, and is
written in WEB. I have posted this in the VAX forum on CompuServe.
I suppose I could also send it by e-mail, although someone will have
to remind me of the ins and outs of sending large files through the
net.
I don't know of a spell checker that is directly integrated with TPU,
but you can fake it pretty easily. You can define a keystroke that
will save a buffer to a file, spawn a subprocess to check the file, and
read the file back into the editor. With a little more TPU programming,
you can allow the user to select a range of text, which will be saved
to a temporary file and checked, and read back in if changes were made.
--- James W. Walker, Department of Mathematics,
University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208
BITnet: N410109@univscvm
P.S. There is also a free spelling checker from Denison University.
I would not recommend it, since parts of it have "broken" in
recent releases of VMS, and source code is not available.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 22:18:58 CDT
From: svb@cssun.tamu.edu (Stephan v. Bechtolsheim)
Subject: Nested ifs (second round)
Keywords: LaTeX, nested conditionals
I had submitted a question along the following lines:
> Assume the following nested ifs:
> \if [1]...
> then text 1
> \if [2] ...
> then text 2
> \else
> else text 2
> \fi [2]
> \fi [1]
> Now assume that instead of \if [2] there is a macro
> \IfSomething which, when expanded, delivers a conditional.
> Everything is fine as long as \if [1] is true because
> then \IfSomething is expanded. But if \if [1] is false
> then \fi [2] will terminate the \if [1] and it's all wrong.
>
> Is there anyway to define a macro \IfSomething in such a way
> that TeX will recognize it as a potential conditiona'' when
> conditional text is being skipped?! How do you solve this problem?
>
I answer on this list because of the large number of replies I got
(over 10!). I obviously didn't express myself clearly enough:
Assume you would like to define a macro \ifeven:
\def\ifeven #1{%
\ifodd#1\relax
\let\result = \iffalse
\else
\let\result = \iftrue
\fi
\result
}
If you use this macro in a nested conditional then you are
in trouble because when an \ifeven call is skipped TeX does
not recognize that a conditional is behind \ifeven''.
The \let\ifeven = \iftrue or so does not work because that
would redefine the macro \ifeven.
In other words there is no way in TeX to say
\LookAtThisTokenAsConditional\ifeven
and TeX would assume that \ifeven generates a conditional.
One solution is to make the whole conditional including the <true>
and <false part> of the conditional into a macro:
\def\ifeven #1#2#3{%
\ifodd#1\relax
#2%
\else
#3
\fi
}
Thank you for taking the time answering.
Stephan Bechtolsheim
P.S. I had submitted this questions mainly to confirm for myself
that I am not missing anything here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 22:18:59 CDT
From: svb@cssun.tamu.edu (Stephan v. Bechtolsheim)
Subject: Re: Width of columns and \halign
Keywords: LaTeX, columns
Does anybody know of a STRAIGHT FORWARD way to get the width
of a column in a table built with \halign?
Thank you.
Stephan Bechtolsheim
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 89 15:36:01 -0200
From: uunet!eutrc4!rcpt@entropy.ms (Piet Tutelaers)
Subject: Questions about LaTeX-environments
Keywords: LaTeX, environments
I have some questions regarding environments in LaTeX:
a) Why does the following environment definition not work?
1:\documentstyle{article}
2:\begin{document}
3:\newenvironment{showinput}{\begin{quote}%
4:\begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}}
5:
6:\begin{showinput}
7:\newenvironment{showinput}{\begin{quote}%
8:\begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}}
9:\end{showinput}
10:
11:\end{document}
This is TeX, C Version 2.93 (preloaded format=lplain 88.12.7) 11 APR 1989 15:18
. . . . . . . .
! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
l.8 \begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}}
? h
I've deleted a group-closing symbol because it seems to be
spurious, as in `$x}$'. But perhaps the } is legitimate and
you forgot something else, as in `\hbox{$x}'. In such cases
the way to recover is to insert both the forgotten and the
deleted material, e.g., by typing `I$}'.
b) Is it possible to create a generalized environment in which each line of
text can be processed by a macro? Suppose we have an environment `gedicht'
to create verse's in which each line is numbered:
\newcounter{line}
\newcommand{\oneline}[1]{\addtocounter{line}{1}%
\makebox[1cm][r]{\arabic{line}}~#1 \\}
\begin{gedicht}
\oneline{Een schoon en fleurig huis, een tuin met ranken langs de muren}
\oneline{een beker flonkerende wijn en vruchten in de schaal}
\oneline{geen al te talrijk kroost, geen last en geen schandaal}
\oneline{een trouwe vrouw die helpt het huisgezin besturen}
\end{gedicht}
I would prefer, of course, the following:
\begin{gedicht}
Een schoon en fleurig huis, een tuin met ranken langs de muren
een beker flonkerende wijn en vruchten in de schaal
geen al te talrijk kroost, geen last en geen schandaal
een trouwe vrouw die helpt het huisgezin besturen
\end{gedicht}
(The first stanza of the poem ``Het Werelds Geluk'', made by Christoffel
Plantin, translated into Dutch by Ward Ruyslinck. Plantin was a
famous French typographer, living from 1548 to 1589 in Antwerpen.)
It is not difficult to think of other examples:
\newcommand{\donothing}[1]{}
\begin{comment}
A large piece of
text
you
want to comment out
\end{comment}
instead of:
\begin{comment}
\donothing{A large piece of}
\donothing{text}
\donothing{you}
\donothing{want to comment out}
\end{comment}
or:
%A large piece of
%text
%you
%want to comment out
c) The LaTeX document, as far as I have seen, does not explicitly forbid
spaces between the arguments of the \newenvironment:
\newenvironment{nam}[args]{begdef}{enddef}
^? ^? ^? ^?
Where are spaces allowed and where not, and why?
I hope somebody can answer my questions.
uucp: rcpt@eutrc4.UUCP | Piet Tutelaers Room RC 1.90
bitnet: rcpt@heithe5.BITNET | Eindhoven University of Technology
phone: +31 (0)40 474541 | P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, NL
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 21:48 BST
From: Jan-Ameij%UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU:AMEIJ@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK,
Engineer Extraordinaire <AMEIJ%VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: LaTeX footnotes...using letters or numbers as identifiers
Keywords: LaTeX, footnotes
Does anyone there know how LaTeX decides whether to use a letter or a number as
the identifier for a footnote? My document contains footnotes within minipages,
generated with the two part \footnotemark[1]...\footnotetext[1] method, but
whereas the mark is a numeral, the text is identified with a letter. The Latex
manual is not a great deal of help (even after I manage to find the pages the
index tried to refer to but didn't quite!).
Please reply directly, as only the odd TeXHaX manages to get through these days
Jan Ameij,
Oxford University Department of Applied Metaphysics.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 14:46:17 GMT
From: prlb2!kulcs!kulesat!kulmath!vanroose@uunet.UU.NET (Peter Vanroose)
Subject: Dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX
Keywords: Dutch, hyphenation, TeX
In the previous TeXhax issue, Theo de Klerk (klerk%ijsapl.DEC@decwrl.dec.com)
asks:
> To implement a proper version of LaTeX on our machines, I'd like
> to know if there is any dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX available
> anywhere in netland.
Some time ago, I constructed the file HYPHEN_NEDERLANDS.TeX , which works
fairly well. It is even a lot smaller than HYPHEN.TeX; this is not so
stange, because the splitting rules in dutch are rather strict and consistent.
The only caveat is, that compound words (and those are in principle unlimited
in dutch) are sometimes not splitted right. This of course can be cured by
inserting `\-'s in the text itself. Fortunately, this is not happening
too much. It can be remarked that newspapers seem to have the same
``compound word splitting'' problem with their automatic splitter.
Installation:
Replace the file HYPHEN.TEX by the one given below.
Run initex on the preferred format (e.g. PLAIN.TEX or LPLAIN.TEX).
Rename the output .FMT file : e.g. PLAIN.FMT ---> PLAIN_NEDERLANDS.FMT
Replace the original HYPHEN.TEX.
Define the commands nTeX as ``TeX &plain_nederlands'',
nLaTeX as ``TeX &lplain_nederlands''.
Peter Vanroose
Department of Mathematics,
K.U. Leuven, Belgium.
VANROOSE@kulmath.uucp
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 89 21:59:28 PDT
From: Darrell Long <darrell@midgard.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Problems with errata.tex
Keywords: errata.tex
Hi. I was trying to print the errata.tex file and had some problems. The
complaint is that there are unmatched $'s, but they're there, I looked. It
may be UNIX that is the culprit here, since there is a \ just before the
end of the line before the error.
Perhaps this is yet another macro mystery that I have not yet been initiated
into. Can someone clue me in?
Thanks, DL
midgard [50]% tex errata
This is TeX, C Version 2.98 (no format preloaded)
(errata.tex (/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/manmac.tex) [1] [2] [3]
! Missing $ inserted.
<inserted text>
$
<to be read again>
\par
l.247 ...\\{save\_ptr})\gets\\{insert\_token};\par
?
[4] [5] [6] [7]
Runaway argument?
{top\_skip\_code)$; \quad $\{\,$now $\\{temp\_ptr}=\\{glue\_ptr}(q)\,\ETC.
! Paragraph ended before \\ was complete.
<to be read again>
\par
l.607
?
! Missing $ inserted.
<inserted text>
$
<to be read again>
\par
l.607
?
[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Runaway argument?
1/23/89) \ninepoint \noindent {\bf labels}$(5,6)$; \ \\{zero\_width};\ETC.
! Paragraph ended before \bugonpage was complete.
<to be read again>
\par
l.1002
?
[14] [15]
Output written on errata.dvi (15 pages, 45804 bytes).
Transcript written on errata.log.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 21:11:43 CDT
From: grunwald%flute.cs.uiuc.edu@a.cs.uiuc.edu (Dirk Grunwald)
Subject: Available for FTP: texsun for sun 386, etc
Keywords: texsun, SUN 386
The most recent revision of the set of TeX tools, primarily
previewers, that I've written and/or maintained is available for
anonymous FTP. I am unable to handle individual requests, because I'm
interviewing and am thus out of town a great deal.
The FTP site is a.cs.uiuc.edu. The file name is ``pub/TeX/uiuctex2.0.tar.Z'',
a compressed tar file.
The tools include:
texsun:
Now includes support for Sun 386i. The most complete version,
with scrollbars, menus, whole nine yards. Supports tpic specials,
outlines bounding boxes of \psfig, marking pages for printing, etc.
iptex/imagen1:
This is a re-work of the original imagen1. Changes were made
to use a ``common core'' for the print loop, shared with texsun and
texx. Additional options have been added as well. Support tpic
specials.
texx:
This is the version as distributed with X11R3, but with all
patches applied. Known to work on Vax, Sun, PC/RT, and now the DEC
3100. This version is rather gross; fonts are shrunk to fit ``on the
fly''. Handles tpic specials (albeit slowly - if someone really likes
texx, they should look at the special code in texx2 & back-patch it)
texx2:
This is currently at version 2.8.5. texx2 is another X
previewer, but it uses resident X-11 fonts (generated by a companion
program) to display the page. Thus, it's a lot faster. It has options
similar to texsun: you can goto pages, `mark' pages for printing,
select different mag sizes, put up multiple pages, print the document
(or marked pages). This will undergo some more changes, but not until
late this summer. If someone does change this, please let me know.
BTW: if you put ``*BackingStore: whenMapped'' in your .xresources
file, scroll motion is smooth, not jerky.
Documentation for texx2 is rather sketchy, to say the least.
At least there's a README, but not much else. If someone *does* write
any thing, or improve on the code, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
dviselect, the CTeX library & other junk -- much of this is as
distribtued by Chris Torek at UMD. Dviselect hasn't changed. The CTeX
library for font routines, however, has changed, and you need the
version distributed here for these tools. It now cleanly compiles
using the Gnu C compiler, with no warning messages. Also, I went over
everything using lint once, and it's clean as far as I can tell. I've
removed some of the machine specific assembler hacks designed to fix
VAX compiler bugs; if your VAX compiler is broken, use GCC or complain
to your vendor.
Dirk Grunwald
Univ. of Illinois
Office: 72 DCL (217) 333-1925
grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 APR 89 14:20:47 BST
From: TEX%rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
Subject: Bugs in Chen's makeindex Program
Keywords: bug, makeindex
At RMCS, we have been making extensive use of Chen's makeindex program
ever since a version ported to VMS became available last year. However, we
have discovered two unrelated bugs in it. The version we are running is
defined in mkind.h as follows:
#define VERSION "portable version 2.5 [4-14-88]"
The two bugs, with their fixes, are as follows:
1) [This has been reported in TeXhax as being mended, but the version at Aston
is still faulty. The message in TeXhax didn't say how to fix it! Pehong Chen
has also reported back that this is fixed --- if so, in which version?]
Module GENIND is concerned with actually creating the .IND file. The file
GENIND.H defines macros used therein, amongst which was:
>#define PUT(S) { \
> fprintf(ind_fp, S); \
>}
Since this doesn't include an explicit format string for the C fprintf
procedure, the actual string to be printed is used as the format. Ordinarily,
this will not cause any problems, but if the string for printing includes a
percent symbol, it is assumed to introduce a C format specifier (line %d, for
example), so the percent itself doesn't get printed.
On 3rd Feb 1989, Brian HAMILTON KELLY corrected this as under, and reported it
to Pehong Chen, who, as stated above, said that it had already been fixed. But
the distributed version of makeindex on this side of the Atlantic is still
wrong, as of today's date!
#define PUT(S) { \
fprintf(ind_fp, "%s", S); \
}
2) On 15th March 1989, BHK discovered that makeindex couldn't handle unbalanced
braces, even if they were quoted with the program's current quote char. He
corrected SCANID.C as follows:\footnote{This is the output of VMS's DIFFERENCES
utility, with the new version given first in each case. Changed sections are
separated by double rows of asterisks.}
************
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5
512 if ((a == idx_aopen) &&
513 ((i == 0) || (key[i-1] != (char)idx_quote))
514 ) {
515 /* opening delimiters within the argument list */
******
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1
512 if (a == idx_aopen) {
513 /* opening delimiters within the argument list */
************
************
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5
518 } else if ((a == idx_aclose) &&
519 (key[i-1] != (char)idx_quote)) {
520 if (n == 0) {
******
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1
516 } else if (a == idx_aclose) {
517 if (n == 0) {
************
************
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5
567 if ((a == idx_aclose) &&
568 (no[i-1] != (char)idx_quote)) {
569 no[i] = NULL;
******
File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1
564 if (a == idx_aclose) {
565 no[i] = NULL;
************
This problem was notified to Pehong Chen at that time, but I've heard nothing
from him. Unfortunately, I'd lost his previous reply to me, so had to try to
find his e-mail address from an old TeXhax, so may have got it wrong.
Therefore, if he's reading this, would he please contact me!!
Brian HAMILTON KELLY
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