TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (03/27/89)
TeXhax Digest Wednesday, March 1, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 18
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
Crudetype version 2 now available
Re: Obtaining boldface greek symbols in math mode
Needed: any information concerning Singhalese Fonts
Removing TeX commands before spell checker.
Re: Needed: a spell checker that can be used with TeX or LaTeX
Document preparation/fundamental difficulties with TeX
Conflicting settings for \strutbox in LaTeX
LaTeX citation styles
Problems with LaTeX and figures
Classified document markings
Re: tabs in LaTeX source files
Making SliTeX work with PiCTeX
Umd-dvi previewers don't work on Sun 386i
Memory for LaserWriters
Needed: information on certain drivers
Quoting pages of TeX in TeX
Defining macros with defaults in TeX
Plain TeX vs LaTeX wars
Needed: university seal metafontised
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 89 16:13:38 GMT
From: Dr R M Damerell (RHBNC) <damerell@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Crudetype version 2 now available
Keywords: Crudetype
This is now available. By the time you get this message, I hope that it
will be available at Aston and at Washington. The most important changes
are:
Change files for Unix (by P.King, Heriot-Watt University) Primos (J.Warbrick,
Plymouth Poly). A changefile for NOS-VE is in preparation, but I regret to
say that the author has been unwell recently, so this may be delayed.
Many of the changes are actually improvements to the basic program; in
particular Crudetype can now read a command line (if the system allows).
So you can invoke it by something like:
(RUN) crudetype (qualifiers) (dvi-file)
instead of having to answer a tedious questionnaire. I decided that these
improvements should be in the program, and a lot of very VMS-specific code
ought to be in the VMS changefile. All previous changefiles are therefore
obsolete, but I hope that V.2 will be stable and I hope the system interface
is much cleaner than before.
This software is offered free, AS IS with absolutely no guarantee. Neither
the authors nor their institutions accept any liability for failures, or
for any consequential loss or damage however caused.
Mark
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Montag, 27. Februar 1989, 16.54 Uhr und 46 Sekunden MET
From: XITIJSCH%DDATHD21.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU
Subject: Re: Obtaining boldface greek symbols in math mode
Keywords: math mode, boldface greek symbols
The statement of Pierre MacKay
``Almost everything you need in boldface is potentially available in
LaTeX. Cmmib? and cmbsy? are declared, but commented out in lfonts.tex.
If you need them, [...] uncomment all the relevant lines [...]''
is not completely correct. The outcommented lines have nothing to do
with the fonts LaTeX uses -- in them are only the fonts mentioned which
{\it may} be preloaded in lplain.fmt. In the current version of LaTeX
only bold math types in (math) text size in documentsize 10, 11, and 12pt
are declared, if they shall be used in sub/superscripts, too, every
\boldmath in the definitions of \xpt, \xipt, etc, has to be altered.
Also note, that in the sizes below 10pt bold math is not implemented.
It must be defined similar to the one in \xpt. By the way, this will
{\it really} look ugly. Jan Tschichold, one of the most important
typographers in this century, wrote once that bold types should only
be used on places where the reader should start with his reading but
never for emphasizing---his eye would stumble across the bold letters.
Only if the bold math types are used very often in different TeX runs
the procedure Pierre MacKay describes might be followed
to get the run a little bit faster. (But I don't know if this
minimal speedup is it worth to alter lfonts.tex...) Obviously, this
doesn't concern his remarks on the creation of the fonts. They
must be available in every case.
Everybody who wants to know more about the usage of fonts in LaTeX
should read the comments in the beginning of lfonts.tex. My article
``LaTeX fonts and suggested magnifications'' in the last TUGboat may
serve as an introduction to the principles and show what fonts are used
by LaTeX.
Joachim
P.S.: The late reaction is due to the receipt of TeXhax #9/89 at 27 Feb.
Also I don't know the question -- perhaps it was in those TeXhax's
I'm still missing. There seems to be much trouble with the distribution
on Bitnet.
TH Darmstadt
Institut f\"ur Theoretische Informatik
Joachim Schrod
Alexanderstr. 10 Bitnet: XITIJSCH@DDATHD21
(Please try again if I don't answer ---
D-6100 Darmstadt our Bitnet connection is very instable...)
West Germany
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 89 19:39:34 MEZ
From: Tim Doherty <NAO02%DMSWWU1A.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Needed: any information concerning Singhalese Fonts
Keywords: fonts
Help!
In TUGBoat 9/2 pp. 131--151 there was a rather impressive list of all
different kinds of language fonts presently available to the TeX
community. Sorry to say, the one we need wasn't listed.
Some colleagues of mine here at the University of Muenster are preparing
a didactically oriented Singhalese--German vocabulary/dictionary for
publication. They have come to realize --- due in part to some
persuading on my side --- that TeX/LaTeX is the only real way for a
language scientist (not only mathematicians!) to live.
Dumb luck! One of the columns has to be typeset in Singhalese
characters. Now my plea: Does anybody out there have METAFONT source
code or fonts or the like for anything resembling Singhalese? Is anyone
working on this or even have it planned? Does anyone know of anyone
else who fits this description? We'll take anything, no matter how
preliminary, provisional, or crude it may be.
Reply:
Tim Doherty Bitnet/EARN: NAO02@DMSWWU1A.BITNET
Altorientalisches Seminar der WWU
Rosenstrasse 9
D-4400 Muenster
BRD (West-Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 89 17:50:13 PST
From: charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer)
Subject: Removing TeX commands before spell checker.
Keywords: TeX, spell checker
For people with UNIX the following shell script (call it spelltex) works
well.
#! /bin/sh
if test -f $1.spell
then sed 's/\\[a-zA-Z]*//g' $1.tex | spell | sort | comm -23 - $1.spell
else sed 's/\\[a-zA-Z]*//g' $1.tex | spell | more
fi
It strips out of the specified file all strings of the form "backslash
followed by zero or more upper and lower case letters" and then runs
the result through the UNIX spell program.
USAGE:
spelltex foo
spell checks the file "foo.tex". If there exists a file "foo.spell"
containing correctly spelled words, sorted in the standard collating
sequence (i.e. output of "sort"), none of these words appear in the
output of "spelltex". This is for use in making a stop list of things
that no pattern matcher could detect as TeX or LaTeX syntax. Such a
list can be made by
spelltex foo > foo.spell
when foo contains no spelling errors.
For British spelling change "spell" to "spell -b" in both lines of the
shell script.
Sorry about the lack of a "man" page. I don't do troff.
Charlie Geyer
Department of Statistics
University of Washington
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89 09:14:43 -0700
From: corbet@stout.UCAR.EDU
Subject: Re: Needed: a spell checker that can be used with TeX or LaTeX
Keywords: TeX, LaTeX, spell checker
> From: Joachim Schambach <JSCHAMBA%KENTVM.BITNET@uwavm.acs.washington.edu>
> Is there something like a spell checker that can be used with TeX or
> LaTeX? Or maybe a modification of an existing spell checker from
> a wordprocessor? ...Jo Schambach
Try ispell. It can be ftp'd from prep.ai.mit.edu.
Jonathan Corbet
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Field Observing Facility
corbet@stout.ucar.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 05:02 EDT
From: Paul Davis <davis%scrsu1.sdr.slb.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Document preparation/fundamental difficulties with TeX
Keywords: TeX, documents
From: mdk@arbortext.com
I saw your posting in TeXHax, and am interested in knowing if you
are familiar with "The Publisher" from ArborText, Inc.
>What we want is a WYSIWYG system that uses TeX's algorithms for
>line-breaking, alignment and mathematics, offers us `batch' mode
>processing . . .
[ goes on to describe the wonders of The Publisher ... ]
Dear Ms. Kesler
thank you for your e-mail. I have seen and used The Publisher, and I
regret that I do not believe it meets the challenge of document
preparation for the 1990's.
Specifically:
1) it is NOT a WYSIWYG system. As far as I know, VorTeX is the
only piece of software based on TeX that approaches this
capability.
2) The Publisher is NOT a re-implementation of TeX's superb
typesetting algorithms, and as such, does not deal with
some of the fundamental difficulties that TeX's approach
present, to wit:
a) No concept of `ink on a page' - TeX deals in empty
rectangular boxes of specified dimensions, and knows
nothing about their contents. This has important
consequences for the inclusion of figures, and doing
many of the tricks currently handled with ease by
Mac-based DTP systems.
b) No optimisation of pagination.
c) The confused and confusing notion of one language
being used for macro definition (as in text replacement),
and for building style files.
Im my opinion, only a complete rewrite of TeX, that takes its algorithms
for hyphenation, paragraph-setting, kerning/ligatures, mathematics
handling, and general goodies, but places them in the context of a system
which provides a REAL programming language as well as a simple macro
definition facility, and moves on towards assimilating the lessons Don
Knuth might have learnt had DTP been in existence when he began work
on TeX, will meet the requirements of the 1990's.
If ArborText are interested in sponsoring a group of TeX fiends
(including myself) so that we can continue work on the TinT project
(TinT is not TeX), we'd be happy to hear from you.
yours etc.
Paul Davis
Paul Davis at Schlumberger Cambridge Research
<davis%scrsu1%sdr.slb.com@relay.cs.net>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 12:15:20 PST
From: KARNEY%PPC.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA
Subject: Conflicting settings for \strutbox in LaTeX
Keywords: LaTeX, \strutbox
\strutbox is defined twice in lfonts.tex (11 Nov. 86) and in conflicting
ways! In \@setsize, \strutbox is set according the UNSTRETCTED
\baselineskip. But \@setsize then immediately calls one of the size-
setting macros, e.g., \xpt, which calls \@setstrut, which resets \strutbox
according to the STRETCHED \baselineskip.
What is the "right" definition of \strutbox? (I vote that it be set
according to the unstretched \baselineskip so that it tracks the point size
but in independent of \baselinestretch. This is what the comments on
\@setsize imply should happen.)
Whatever Leslie Lamport decrees to be the correct definition, perhaps
lfonts.tex can be revised to be more consistent?
Charles Karney
Plasma Physics Laboratory Phone: +1 609 243 2607
Princeton University MFEnet: Karney@PPC.MFEnet
PO Box 451 ARPAnet: Karney%PPC.MFEnet@NMFECC.ARPA
Princeton, NJ 08543-0451 Bitnet: Karney%PPC.MFEnet@LBL.Bitnet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 89 17:18:13 -0600
From: Jay H Beder <beder@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Subject: LaTeX citation styles
Keywords: LaTeX, citation
Our installation (using Berkeley Unix) has several optional documentstyles
and bibliographystyles in addition to those offered in standard LaTeX. The
"apalike" style, based on the American Psychological Association's guidelines,
is closest to what I want, but there is one feature I would like to include.
That is a second citation command (say, \cite*) that would produce only the
date. The current style (when \cite is invoked in the apalike style) gives
the name and date as the entire key, so that one can now write
... as is known (Smith, 1980) ....
What I would like to be able to write is
... Smith (1980) has shown ....
I would appreciate any suggestions as to how this might be done. Thank you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 89 12:44:41 PST
From: Darrell Long <darrell@midgard.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Problems with LaTeX and figures
Keywords: LaTeX, figures
Why is it that LaTeX likes so much to put figures on a page by themselves?
For example, if I need 4 inches of space for a figure I (sometimes) have to
tell LaTeX I want 2 inches and it will give me the 4 that I ask for. If I
ask for 4 inches, it will give me an entire page.
Is there a magic formula that I know about? I am using figure*.
Thanks, DL
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 89 17:59:14 EST
From: Mark D. Grover <grover@potomac.ads.com>
Subject: Classified document markings
Keywords: LaTeX. classified documents
Does anyone have experience creating documents using LaTeX which
include classified information markings that meet DoD 5220.22-M
(Industrial Security Manual) standards?
MDG
Mark D. Grover (grover@potomac.ads.com)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 09:28:02 PST
From: lamport@src.dec.com (Leslie Lamport)
Subject: Re: tabs in LaTeX source files
Keywords: LaTeX, tabs
Chris Thompson asks
Why is it, then, that on the (Stanford) distribution tapes the LaTeX
source files contain tabs while the Plain TeX ones don't?
Horrified by the thought of tabs in LaTeX source files, I searched them
out. They appear in openbib.doc, which I didn't write, and in
latex.tex. Most of the ones in latex.tex are in some picture-object
commands that were rewritten by someone else. There were a couple in
the definition of \fbox; I don't think I got that code from anyone
else, so I suspect they were typos. (If you accidentally type an "x",
you can see your mistake; that's not the case if you accidentally type
a tab.) I will remove the ones in latex.tex. Since there are no tabs
in openbib.sty, I presume that the tabs are only in the comments of
openbib.doc, so I'll leave them there.
If there are any other tabs in the LaTeX sources on Stanford, then
someone has been tampering with them.
Dominik Wujastyk asks if he is going mad. While I'm not medically
qualified to make such a diagnosis, I expect that his fears are
groundless. In the 29 April 86 release, the \arabic command was
changed to print a "0" instead of doing nothing when the counter
value equals zero.
The bug reported by Anne Brueggemann-Klein should have been fixed in
the 13 Oct 88 release.
Leslie Lamport
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89 11:21:44 GMT
From: alien%VULCAN.ESE.ESSEX.AC.UK@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Adrian F. Clark)
Subject: Making SliTeX work with PiCTeX
Keywords: SliTeX, PiCTeX, fonts
It's quite easy to make SliTeX work with PiCTeX; the only tricky part
is in ensuring that the 5-point roman font is defined, since PiCTeX
uses it for lline-drawing. Here's a complete recipe ($ represents the
machine's command-line prompt, * TeX's):
$ initex
This is TeX, version 2.95 (INITEX)
**\input splain
<various outputs from TeX>
*\font\fiverm=cmr5
*\input prepictex
*\input pictex
*\postpictex
*\dump
<various outputs from TeX>
$
This creates splain.fmt (and splain.log); but it would be a good idea
to give it a different name (I use splain-pictex.fmt, and make the
version of SliTeX `slipictex').
Adrian F. Clark
JANET: alien@uk.ac.essex.ese
ARPA: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
BITNET: alien%uk.ac.essex.ese@ac.uk
Smail: Dept. of Electronic Systems Engineering, Essex University,
Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex C04 3SQ, U. K.
Phone: (+44) 206-872432 (direct)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 89 13:40:01 -0800
From: daisy!kelem@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Umd-dvi previewers don't work on Sun 386i
Keywords: previewer
I'm having trouble with the previewers on the tex82 distribution tape.
I'm trying to get them to run on a Sun 386i, but am having problems
with both texsun and texx:
texsun: the window comes up ok, but the overview shows only a few pixels
from some of the letters. The blow-up view shows enough of the pixels to
show that the letters are being displayed reversed (like the R in "Toys R Us").
texx reports:
X Protocol error: BadMatch, invalid parameter attributes
Major opcode of failed request: 70 (X_PolyFillRectangle)
Minor opcode of failed request: 0
Resource id in failed request: 0x4077ffff
Serial number of failed request: 32
Current serial number in output stream: 179
Does anyone have fixes for these problems?
Thanks,
Steve Kelem (415)960-6936 internet: daisy!kelem@uunet.uu.net
Daisy Systems Corporation MS/A23 uucp: ...!uunet!daisy!kelem
700 E. Middlefield Road uucp: ...!pyramid!daisy!kelem
P.O. Box 7006
Mountain View, California 94039-7006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89 17:17:05 -0800
From: daisy!kelem@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Memory for LaserWriters
Keywords: memory, printers, LaserWriter
How much memory should Apple LaserWriters (LW+, LWIINT, and the LWIINTX)
be configured with to run TeX and psfig?
I'm running into problems with a LW IINT printing two pages of the (9 page)
psfig user's guide and then quitting.
Thanks,
Steve Kelem (415)960-6936 internet: daisy!kelem@uunet.uu.net
Daisy Systems Corporation MS/A23 uucp: ...!uunet!daisy!kelem
700 E. Middlefield Road uucp: ...!pyramid!daisy!kelem
P.O. Box 7006
Mountain View, California 94039-7006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 89 11:53:01 EDT
From: "Prof.Heinz W. Engl" <K310773%AEARN.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Needed: information on certain drivers
Keywords: dviware
could i please receive information if (and where)drivers
are available for digital equipment vt330 graphic terminals
and/or dec la75 printers?
e-mail: k310773@aearn.bitnet
thanks
heinz w. engl
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89 18:51:49 GMT
From: Sebastian Rahtz <spqr%computer-science.southampton.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
Subject: Quoting pages of TeX in TeX
Keywords: TeX
I think there was a query last week about a dvi-to-PostScript
which would allow you to include pages of previous runs as
PS figures in new documents. After some experiment, I can confirm
that at least one does, James Clark's 'dvitops'; you have to
add a BoundingBox by hand, and worry slightly about bits of the
prolog, but essentially the principle works. I haven't tested
it very much though.
Clark is on jjc@jclark.uucp in this country. Routing via ukc from
elsewhere may reach him, or see his announcement in texhax last year.
dvitops should also be in the Aston archive by the time you get this.
Clark also includes support for PostScript colours. Now if only I had
a colour printer, I could include pages of old documents in red....
Sebastian Rahtz
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 89 15:53:42 -0800
From: Phil Windley <windley@cheetah.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Defining macros with defaults in TeX
Keywords: TeX, macros
Is there a way to define macros with defaults in TeX. For example, I want
to be able to use a macro, test, for example, in the following two ways and
have it do the right thing both times:
\test{Arguement is here}
\test % no argument, so use default value.
Phil Windley | windley@iris.ucdavis.edu
Division of Computer Science | ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!windley
College of Engineering | (916) 752-7324 (or 3168)
University of California, Davis | Davis, CA 95616
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 13:41 GMT
From: Peter Flynn UCC <CBTS8001%IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Plain TeX vs LaTeX wars
Keywords: TeX
Brian Hamilton Kelly's suggestion that Plain TeX should be banned will
undoubtedly raise a few hackles. My own experience supporting TeX at our
site indicates about 50%-50% of Plain vs LaTeX users. My experience of
the digest indicates more problems in hacking LaTeX than Plain TeX!
We do in fact need both. While LaTeX may indeed solve all BHK's needs,
there are many more complex formatting requirements in the real world
than LaTeX is suited to. We've just produced a book for one user which
had an overview double-spread at the start of each chapter, which called
for a two-page \valign, not something I would relish doing in LaTeX.
Peter Flynn
PS When will the BITNET distribution be fixed? I ***cannot*** believe
that the delay is necessary, but if it is, could BITNET subscribers
at least be told what the state of play is? leaving them uninformed
is a bit much.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 13:45 GMT
From: Peter Flynn UCC <CBTS8001%IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Needed: university seal metafontised
Keywords: METAFONT
Is there an organisation anywhere who would contract to metafontise
our university seal into a TFM and PK file at mags 1 thru 5 for 300dpi.
We have mf, but i really do not have the time to learn it, and we are
getting a lot of requests for this.
Peter Flynn
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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