[comp.text] refer and troff and TeX questions

grosen@ucsbcsl.UUCP (Mark Grosen) (04/30/87)

I have a couple questions about refer, troff, and TeX.

1.  I am using refer with my own reference database.  When I use
refer and troff to produce a paper, refer messes up with the
sorting of the references.  I use the following command line:

	refer -sA+D -l3,2 -p mybase | troff -ms

Several of the references are out of order at the end of the
document.  refer gives no error messages.  When I sortbib
the whole database, everything comes out fine.  Any ideas?

2.  Is there a way to do something like floating keeps, only
forcing the keeps to always come out at the top of the next page?
I am using .KF/.KE, but I want my figures not to be surrounded
by text.

3.  How do you get extra space at the top of a page before
actually printing something?  I tried .rs, but no go.  Playing
with the header margins causes problems.

4.  Is there a way to use a refer database with TeX?  Now that
I have this nice big database of references, it sure would be
nice to use it with TeX!

Thanks in advance.

Mark Grosen        UUCP:{ucbvax,sdcsvax,pyramid}!ucsbcsl!grosen
ECE Dept.
Univ. of Calif.
Santa Barbara, CA  93106

ken@rochester.UUCP (05/01/87)

Here are two possible ideas:

There is a program called r2bib on the Unix TeX tape that does a
N% conversion where N is close to 100 for some types of references.

There is a program called tib, advertised in the TeXHax mailing list,
that does for TeX what bib does for *roff. The formats of the
keys are close but not identical. We have tib here but I have had
no experience using it since my papers aren't that big yet.

	Ken

sridhar@usceast.UUCP (05/06/87)

In article <481@ucsbcsl.UUCP> grosen@ucsbcsl.UUCP (Mark Grosen) writes:
>I have a couple questions about refer, troff, and TeX.
>
>4.  Is there a way to use a refer database with TeX?  Now that
>I have this nice big database of references, it sure would be
>nice to use it with TeX!
>

Since the output of refer is simply a bunch of troff commands, I use a sed
script to convert them into calls to TeX macros. I even have a little shell
script that runs refer with the bibliography file, runs sed and creates a TeX
input file. I can mail these things to you if you want. 

I have another version of the macro file to use with LaTeX; the latter is what
I usually use.

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