TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (02/25/89)
TeXhax Digest Friday, February 10, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 11
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
Mailing problems
Announcement for the 4th European TeX Conference
First report from the TUG DVI driver standards committee
Public Domain TeX for VMS TeX.
The Last Word (from me) on TeX and Mac-generated figures
Draw files for TeX
Single spaced contents
Re: TEX and METAFont
Calcomp to PostScript, HPGL to PostScript, definition of eps.
Post-script question
Incompatibility of dvipsps and DEC LN03R Scriptprinter
Tex82 on 386i; some problems & questions
WEB and CWEB sources
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 89 12:03:47 PST
From: mackay@cs.washington.edu
Subject: Mailing problems
Apologies for the flood of Apparently-to headers on the last
two issues of TeXhax. We hope that the problem is only the
intrusion of a single newline at the head of TeXhax89.9 and
TeXhax89.10. To the many postmasters etc., who were kind
enough to help us out with advice, our heartfelt gratitude.
To the small vituperative handful who seem to forget that
much of the work on mail digests and software distribution
is dependent on time volunteered by people who may not be
experts at all levels of systems maintenance, we murmur
"Gently, brother---gently, pray."
Now, if we can only solve the BITNET bottleneck.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
TeX89, the 4th European TeX Conference, will take place at Karlsruhe
University, FRG, from Monday, September 11, to Wednesday,
September 13, 1989. The conference will be organized by
Anne Brueggemann-Klein, Department of Computer Science, University
of Freiburg, and Rainer Rupprecht, Computing Center,
University of Karlsruhe.
Following the tradition of last years' conferences, contributions
are welcome from all areas of TeX, Metafont, and related subjects.
Likely themes might include:
* document structures (LaTeX, SGML, ODA,...)
* non-technical TeX (humanities, music, exotic languages,...)
* other technical areas (chemistry, physics, biology,...)
* difficult jobs with TeX, LaTeX,...
* graphics and TeX
* TeX training
* TeX as part of a larger system (user interfaces,
tools, environments,...)
* TeX as a production tool
* fonts to use with TeX (Metafont and other systems)
* TeX and PostScript
* Macro packages
* public domain TeX vs. commercial TeX
Besides traditional paper sessions, discussion groups on special
subjects and exhibitions will be organized. In a special session
at the end of the conference, highlights of the discussion groups
will be presented to the general audience. Conference proceedings
will be published after the conference.
Various workshops and participatory seminars will be offered
before and after the conference. Proposals for topics and
voluntary tutors are welcome.
The conference fee will be approximately DM 280,--. The fee includes
registration materials, lunches, social events and a copy of the
conference proceedings.
A second circular containing a preliminary program will be out
by March 31, 1989.
RETURN UNTIL FEBRUARY 28, 1989
Name ________________________________________________________
%----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 89 18:43:47 CST
From: Don Hosek <U33297%UICVM.BITNET@uwavm.acs.washington.edu>
Subject: First report from the TUG DVI driver standards committee
**********************************************************************
* First report from the DVI driver standards committee *
**********************************************************************
The TUG DVI driver standards committee has been working on the
development of standards for device drivers since the fall of 1988.
This article is a first report on our status to the membership of TUG.
At the time of this writing, we are in the midst of discussion of
\special standards for device drivers. By the TUG meeting this August,
we should have a preliminary report on this topic available for
distribution to all interested parties. We welcome all input from
members of the TeX community; if you have any suggestions, comments,
etc. regarding the issue of \special handling, we would appreciate it
if you could send these to Robert McGaffey (Internet:
McGaffey%Orn.Mfenet@Nmfecc.Arpa) for distribution to the members of
the committee.
The members of the committee are: Robert McGaffey, chair, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory; David P. Babcock, Hewlett-Packard; Elizabeth
Barnhart, TV Guide; Stephan v. Bechtolsheim, Integrated Computer
Software Inc.; Nelson Beebe, University of Utah; Jackie Damrau,
University of New Mexico; Donald Goldhammer, University of Chicago;
Don Hosek, University of Illinois at Chicago; David Ness, TV Guide;
Thomas J. Reid, Texas A&M University; David Rodgers, Arbortext, Inc.;
Brian Skidmore, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.; Glenn Vanderburg,
Texas A&M University; and Ralph Youngen, American Mathematical
Society.
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Date: Sun, 5 Feb 89 12:30 PST
From: Don Hosek <DHOSEK%YMIR.BITNET@uwavm.acs.washington.edu>
Subject: Public Domain TeX for VMS TeX.
Keywords: VMS TeX
Some time ago, I realized that there isn't anybody "minding the store" for the
PD VMS TeX distribution. You see the problem is that VMS site coordinator is
David Kellerman, who maintains his own commercial (although reasonably priced)
VMS TeX distribution. This is what inspired my "HMC implementation" project:
the need for a well documented/maintained VMS TeX. However, the plans to
produce a distribution tape have been put on hold somewhat while I go on a
previously unforeseen leave of absence from HMC to the land without a VAX. My
move, however, still doesn't change the need for a better VMS TeX. To deal with
this, what I would like to do is to put a group of VMS TeX people together to
develop a really good version of VMS TeX for the public domain (complete with
extensive documentation). Aside from a group of people to aid with development,
I would also like to find somebody who can supply me with a VMS account on some
computer that is on the internet (preferrably the NSFnet so that you'll be
"close" to my site where I'll be doing most of my work.
If you have any interest in participating in this project, please send me a
note at U33297@Uicvm.Uic.Edu (bitnet: U33297@Uicvm.Bitnet).
-dh
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 89 18:06:39 -0800
From: munson@renoir.Berkeley.EDU (Ethan V. Munson)
Subject: The Last Word (from me) on TeX and Mac-generated figures
Keywords: TeX, Mac-generated figures, Cricket Draw, Adobe Illustrator
About two months ago I posted a message to the TEXHAX mailing list for
help on how to include Macintosh generated illustrations in TeX documents
which use the psfig macro package. Many events have intervened, but I
think that I finally have an answer that is sufficiently correct to
post publicly. I know of four basic approaches of which I consider
only three effective. They are:
1) MODIFY THE LASERPREP FILE (Ineffective): Several people reported
success with this method, but I couldn't duplicate their results. You
can save the PostScript which normally goes to the LaserWriter by
holding down Command-K while requesting printing. The resulting file
contains a long prologue stored in the LaserPrep file in the system
folder and printing commands generated by the application program.
The basic approach here is to save the prologue separately and edit it
so that it will work correctly with programs like dvi2ps.
As I said above, several people told me they had done this
successfully, but I was never able to. There appears to be a conflict
between what dvi2ps does and what the LaserPrep file does. Also, we
have a DEC PostScript printer here which cannot accept some of the
LaserWriter/68000-specific commands which appear in the LaserPrep file.
2) USE PS-FROM-MAC (Close but no cigar): PS-from-Mac is a Mac
application which converts MacPaint and MacDraw files into plain
printer-independent PostScript. It was written by Alec Dunn of the
University of Sydney. He sells it for a reasonable price. In
general, it works like a charm. You run PS-from-Mac on your file and
get a PostScript file which can be included "as is" in a TeX document.
I don't know if it can read MacDraw II files, but I think MacDraw II
can output the old file format, so it shouldn't be much of an issue.
The problem is that MacDraw documents do not come out precisely as you would
expect. Some of the differences are not important. For example, the Mac
prints arrowheads with rounded backs. PS-from-Mac arrowheads are
triangles. A more important problem is that some objects get
positioned differently than they appear on the screen. I tried to put
rectangles around individual 10 pt words. When the screen said the
word looked centered in the box, the printed result had the box
shifted downward. If you are including a Mac figure in a TeX
document, you are likely to be picky about positioning, so I think
this is a serious problem.
3) CRICKET DRAW PLUS SOME GYRATIONS (Effective but many steps):
Cricket Draw allows you to save a drawing as a PostScript file using
its own printer-independent prologue. Unfortunately, there is still a
fair amount of massaging required. The steps are:
1) Create your figure.
2) Turn the entire figure into one group by using the Select All and
Group menu options.
3) Flip the figure vertically using the Reflect on X menu option.
This is necessary because Cricket Draw, like most Mac applications,
put its image in the fourth quadrant of the Cartesian plane. If you
don't flip the figure it comes out upside down.
4) Open a new PostScript window, and use the Generate PostScript menu
option to create a PS version of your figure. Save this PS file using
the "Complete" option, which appends the Cricket Draw prologue.
5) Transfer the file to the UNIX box (use a file transfer program
in text mode)
6) Determine the bounding box of the figure by using the program bbfig
which is part of the dvi2ps distribution.
7) Edit the PS file to make the Bounding Box comment correct. If you
figure include text, you must also change some font names.
For some reason, Cricket Draw uses names like \_______Symbol
for the fonts. If you strip off the non-printing part of the
font names, things will work. Obviously, this could be done by
a simple sed script.
8) You are now ready to go. Just include the file in your TeX document
using psfig.
Well, this series of steps is a pain, but frankly, most of it doesn't
take that long. Also, Cricket Draw is not very expensive and is
designed for precisely the kind of drawing you are likely to want in a
figure in a paper.
4) USE ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR (Effective and easy): Adobe Illustrator
files are PostScript files. You construct your figure and save it.
There is already a Bounding Box comment, so you just transfer the file
to the UNIX box and include it in the TeX file. Wait a minute. One
trivial problem. I don't have a copy of Illustrator '88 available,
but our plain Illustrator files have a Bounding Box comment that looks like
%%BoundingBox:91 -394 272 -235
when psfig expects a space after the colon, as in
%%BoundingBox: 91 -394 272 -235
Otherwise, it works like a charm. My complaint with Illustrator is
that it is primarily intended for graphic artists, which I am not. As
a result, there is no round-corner rectangle (of which I am quite
fond) and line-drawing and spline-drawing use the same tool, which I
find confusing. Finally, Illustrator costs about twice as much as
Cricket Draw.
CONCLUSION: For me, only Cricket Draw and Illustrator are acceptable
solutions. I haven't been able to get the LaserPrep solution to work
at all. PS-from-Mac is a good idea but is just inaccurate enough to
require multiple passes to get a figure right.
Cricket Draw presents a cheap solution that requires some elbow-grease.
I think that most of the file editing on the Mac can be automated, but
a run of bbfig will always be required.
Illustrator files require almost no postprocessing but it is an
expensive program and may not be as easy for you to use as Cricket Draw.
Ethan Munson
munson@renoir.berkeley.edu
...ucbvax!renoir!munson
My thanks to Steve Strickland for coming up with the Cricket Draw
method and to Glenn Reid of Adobe for getting it through my thick head
that Illustrator would work just fine.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 89 10:37:58 EST
From: dave@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Dave Bloom)
Subject: Draw files for TeX
Keywords: Macintosh "Draw", dvi2ps
Hi there.
My organization uses TeX for user documentation, and we use dvi2ps
to do the DVI-to-PostScript translation. We need to be able to in-
clude Macintosh "Draw" files (of the 'macdraw' or 'cricketdraw'
variety).
Though Cricketdraw claims to have a 'complete' postscript save mode
(which in theory resolves all the references), There is always a
problem with "no currentpoint" and "undefined: UseCricketErr".
I've also tried printing macdraw and cricketdraw drawings to disk
(complete with laserprep file), but who can edit those things to
make them work with dvi2ps?
The Question: Have you come across a way to generate includable draw
files with either of these packages? If not, is there a package that
DOES work?
Thanx for your time. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Dave Bloom
UNIX Systems Programmer
Rutgers Newark (CCIS)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 89 18:10:07 +0100
From: rutgers!hp4nl.nluug.nl!dutrun!duteca!marcel@beaver (Marcel J.E. Mol)
Subject: Single spaced contents
Keywords: single spacing, TeX
In the book style the contents is double spaced. But I want the contents
single spaced. I looked in the contents macros of latex but did not
manage to make them single spaced.
Can anybody help?
Marcel
#########################################
# Marcel J.E. Mol # They hate you if your're clever
# Delft, University of Technology # And they despise the fool
# The Netherlands # Till you're so f------ crazy
# UUCP: marcel@duteca.UUCP # You can't follow the rules.
# duteca!marcel #
######################################### - Lennon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Feb 01 07:02:45 1989
From: microsoft!roberth@beaver
Subject: Re: TEX and METAFont
Keywords: METAFONT, PC
I got your 'address' from one of the other guys here at MS as a possible
source for a version of the MetaFont program working on a PC, or
mungable to do so.
I am a support engineer for PM here at Microsoft, and my desire, is to
try to find a program that will allow me to make a vector definition of
a font, and then produce bitmap representations of this font for various
point-sizes, and display resolutions. My near term goal, is to just get
a good fixed pitch font into PM, but if the tools I utilize/develop work
well for that, I would then like to port these tools into PM as fully
functional graphical apps. I had read several years ago about Donald
Knuth's TEX and METAFont programs, and although I have never had the
opportunity to use them, I have from time to time made use of some of
the algorithims relating to these programs that he has published.
If there is any information that you might be able to provide for me, I
would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks
Robert B. Hess
882-8080
____________________________________________________________________
/ Robert B. Hess, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA. \
----------------------------------------------------------------------
roberth@microsof.beaver.washington.EDU
roberth%micosof@uw-beaver.ARPA
{decvax, decwrl, sco, sun, trsvax, uunet, uw-beaver}!microsof!roberth
----------------------------------------------------------------------
...my opinions are strictly my own, and not those of my employer...
\____________________________________________________________________/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 89 08:37:13 NZD
From: Russell Fulton <ccc032u@aucc1>
Subject: Calcomp to PostScript, HPGL to PostScript, definition of eps.
Keywords: Calcomp, PostScript, HPGL, eps
Does any know of an implementation of the CALCOMP graphics subroutines (
sometimes known as Industry Standard Plotting Package or ISPP) that emit
Postscript? We have quite a lot of software at our university that use the
ISPP routines and it would be very nice to be able to include the output
in TeX documents.
Alternatively an HPGL to Postscript converter would do the trick.
Both of these bit of software are reasonalbly straight forward to write but are
definitely non-trivial and unfortunately I don't have the time...
I would prefer implementations that produce encapsulated PostScript but am
willing to hack a program that produces straight Postscript.
This brings me to another point, does anybody know where I can find a definitio
n of 'Encapsulated PostScript'? I have the red and blue books from Adobe and
have the green one on order. (I have not had a chance to look at the green book
, so if it is in there could somebody let me know an I will stop looking.)
I have written to Adobe last year but got no reply.
Russell Fulton
Organisation: "Computer Centre, University of Auckland
Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand"
telephone: "+64 9 737-999 X 8955 (GMT +13,nzdt)"
fax: "+64 9 32467"
internet: "rj.fulton@aukuni.ac.nz"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 89 05:24:01 PST
From: jdp@ucrmath.UCR.EDU (John dePillis)
Subject: Post-script question
Keywords: PostScript, plain TeX
How can I incorporate a post-script file (graphic)
into my plain TeX file? The dvi output goes to a
PostScript-conscious apple laser.
Many thanks,
John de Pillis
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 89 14:17:01 est
From: fuzzy%aruba.dnet@wpafb-avlab.arpa (john s karabaic)
Subject: Incompatibility of dvipsps and DEC LN03R Scriptprinter
Keywords: dvipsps, Scriptprinter
We have had trouble with printing to an LN03 Scriptwriter via the dvipsps
program. Basically, the printer just hangs unless you go into the Postscript
output produced by dvipsps and remove the word ``note'' from the following code
in the header to the output:
/@start % - @ start - --start everything
{ note initmatrix
72 Resolution div dup neg scale % set scaling to 1
310 -3005 translate % move origin to top
Mtrx currentmatrix pop
} def
Like I said, take out the word ``note'' or replace it with
/note
{
} def
before the start code and everything works fine. We have no problem printing
to our Apple Laserwriter with the straight output from dvipsps. We have no
problem printing to anything with dvi2ps.
I know this isn't a Postscript forum, but this is sort of a LaTeX question. If
anyone could direct me to a Postscript mailing list, I'd appreciate it.
In the meantime, does anyone have any clue about this problem?
||Lt John S. Karabaic || arpanet: ||
--------------------------- fuzzy%aruba.dnet@wpafb-avlab.arpa ||
||Paper mail: ------------- --------------------------------
||Bldg 22, Room S-108 || phones: |"A large and liberal discontent:||
||AFWAL/TXI || 513 255 5800|These are the goods in life's ||
||ASD AI Applications Office || 513 255 5537| rich hand,/The things that ||
||WPAFB, OH 45433-6543 || AV 785 5800 |are more excellent." Wm. Watson ||
|| It's not just a job. It's an indenture. ||
These opinions are mine and I cannot confirm or deny whether anyone else holds
them.
Internet: roy%rphroy.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 89 11:24:50 EST
Message-Id: <8901301624.AA01089@psaips>
Subject: Tex82 on 386i; some problems & questions
Keywords: Initex, Virtex, SUN 386i
1) I have successfully compiled initex and virtex on a Sun 386i.
I need some fonts, however. The fonts are apparently byte-swapped.
Dvipage shows something almost readable when sampled, but unreadable
when unsampled. Anyone have a solution to this problem?
2) Metafont fails to compile on the 386i. An assembler error occurs during
the compilation of mf4.c (aline 7332: syntax error). Turning off the
-O optimization allows the compilation to complete, but then the link
fails - can't find libsuntools, shared library versions, or some
such message.
I don't understand why this fails when dvipage works - it also uses the
suntools library.
(Update on point 2)
The failed link was due to a misspelling of the libraries in the
distribution makefile. The ctex makefile had "suntools" and "sunwindows"
instead of "suntool" and "sunwindow".
4) Is there a Sun color previewer that uses pk fonts? (Or are gf fonts
what one should use - what are gf fonts? And where is the new dvipage
which uses gf fonts? I'd prefer not to fill the disk with pxl fonts.)
5) Is there yet a dvi driver for Epson LQ printers?
It would be helpful if someone could point me to a tutorial on fonts ---
pxl vs pk I understand --- but not gf, and the rudiments of building
a font set with metafont, if I can get it to compile.
David Huenemoerder Penn State Dept. of Astronomy
internet: dph@astro.psu.edu (128.118.30.150)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 89 06:03:55 pst
From: Sridhar Ramakrishnan <sridhar%hpclada@hp-sde.sde.hp.com>
Subject: WEB and CWEB sources
Keywords: WEB, CWEB
I am looking for the WEB and CWEB sources (i.e., the WEB files that
contain the corresponding source code). All I currently have is
Knuth tech report on WEB (1983), and the executables for tangle and weave.
Would appreciate any pointers. Thanks in advance. Please send any
response to me at
sridhar%hpclove@hplabs.hp.com
Sridhar Ramakrishnan
(408) 447-6309
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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