mark@motown.altair.fr (Mark James) (05/02/91)
I'm responsible for a 300-page user manual that's getting more and
more stable, as our product does likewise. So instead of reprinting
the whole thing with each new version, I'd like to print only those
chapters that have changed. In order not to screw up the pagination
and the index of the whole thing, I'd like to switch from LaTeX's
standard sequential page numbers to the format n-m, where n is the
chapter number and m is the page number within the chapter. I did:
\renewcommand{\thepage}{\thechapter-\arabic{page}}
and reset the page number with each chapter. Everything works except
the index (I use Scott Simpson's "index" program). The \index
commands generate the appropriate page numbers in the .idx file, but
the "index" program chokes on that format when creating its .ind file.
So my questions are:
1. Is there another indexing program (makeindex, indexor, etc.) that
handles arbitrary page number formats? Does anyone have any
experience from which I might profit?
2. This suggests that other aspects of TeX/LaTeX might also depend
upon sequential, numeric page numbers. For example, how are page
numbers stored in .dvi files, so that programs such as dvips know
where to find page 137 when I give the "-p 137" option? What
horrors await me as I proceed with this effort?
In my two years of reading comp.text.tex, I recall no one expressing
the slightest interest in this subject, so e-mail responses are
probably most appropriate. If I'm wrong on that, let me know and I'll
post a summary. Thanks for any advice.
--
=== T. Mark James ==== opinions, errors etc are my own ===
=== mark@bdblues.altair.fr ==== "I'm stupid enough to try anything
=== +33 (1) 39 63 53 93 ==== once." -- The `Bag Man'
================================ Univ. of Washington, 1968marcel@cs.caltech.edu (Marcel van der Goot) (05/04/91)
Mark James (mark@motown.altair.fr) asked about page numbers: > This suggests that other aspects of TeX/LaTeX might also depend > upon sequential, numeric page numbers. For example, how are page > numbers stored in .dvi files, so that programs such as dvips know > where to find page 137 when I give the "-p 137" option? What > horrors await me as I proceed with this effort? When TeX (and therefore LaTeX) ships out a page to the dvi file, one of the things it stores are the values of registers \count0, ..., \count9. If these are non-zero, their value is also displayed on your screen as [1], [1.2], etc. Programs that work on dvi files get the page number by assuming that \count0 contained the pagenumber. Indeed, in plain TeX, \pageno is equal to \count0. Exactly how that number is interpreted depends on the program; e.g., if you tell a program to find page 137 it will probably look for the first page with \count0=137, but a program might also just take the 137th page, regardless of the number stored as \count0. However, the characters you print on the page to be interpreted by the reader as ``page number'' do not need to correspond to the value stored in register \count0. So, for instance, one could reserve a new counter \mypage which holds the pagenumber that is printed, and is different from the value in \count0. Then the dvi file will look just as if \count0 was the pagenumber. Unfortunately, although that method might solve your problems, it probably requires changing the \output routine. That is a lot easier in plain TeX than in LaTeX. Whether you want to do that depends on how experienced you are with TeX/LaTeX. If you can just store every chapter in a separate file, the problems with selecting a page in dvi drivers would go away, since each page number occurs only once. But probably this method gives you bigger problems in return, if you want to have references in one chapter to another chapter. Sorry, no instant solutions here; hope it helped anyway. Marcel van der Goot .---------------------------------------------------------------- | Blauw de viooltjes, marcel@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu | Rood zijn de rozen; | Een rijm kan gezet | Met plaksel en dozen. |
plaut@sc2a.unige.ch (05/06/91)
In article <2155@seti.inria.fr>, mark@motown.altair.fr (Mark James) writes: > > I'm responsible for a 300-page user manual that's getting more and > more stable, as our product does likewise. So instead of reprinting > the whole thing with each new version, I'd like to print only those > chapters that have changed. In order not to screw up the pagination > and the index of the whole thing, I'd like to switch from LaTeX's > standard sequential page numbers to the format n-m, where n is the > chapter number and m is the page number within the chapter. -- I think that the simpliest way to do it is to go through LaTeX with the whole document but to PRINT only the pages you are interested in. If you use DVILN03 or DVITOLN3, the command would be DVITOLN3 filename /s=x /n=y where x is the Startpage and y the Number of pages to be printed. Good luck. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | Olivier Plaut. University of Geneva. Geneva, Switzerland | | INTERNET: plaut@sc2a.unige.ch BITNET: plaut@cgeuge52 | -----------------------------------------------------------------
flowers@memstvx1.memst.edu (Harry Flowers) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May6.111959.418@sc2a.unige.ch>, plaut@sc2a.unige.ch writes: > In article <2155@seti.inria.fr>, mark@motown.altair.fr (Mark James) writes: >> >> I'm responsible for a 300-page user manual that's getting more and >> more stable, as our product does likewise. So instead of reprinting >> the whole thing with each new version, I'd like to print only those >> chapters that have changed. In order not to screw up the pagination >> and the index of the whole thing, I'd like to switch from LaTeX's >> standard sequential page numbers to the format n-m, where n is the >> chapter number and m is the page number within the chapter. > > -- > > I think that the simpliest way to do it is to go through LaTeX with > the whole document but to PRINT only the pages you are interested > in. I modified the book style to form a manual style. I believe it's now distributed as part of the standard LaTeX package. It does the n-m numbering as well as supporting page ranges to print. The documentation (changes from book style) are in the top of the manual.sty file; for page selection you are referred to the bottom of the same file. It uses a Knuth hack from TUGboat.