TeXhax@CS.WASHINGTON.EDU (TeXhax Digest) (01/03/91)
TeXhax Digest Wednesday, January 2, 1991 Volume 91 : Issue 1
Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay
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Today's Topics:
fix for nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 leaving a space
Postscript, Metafont
TeX/Postscript driver
The mtex music font and MF2.7
Ker-mit-choo!
Portuguese hyphenation
xxencode
TeX for Coherent
Russian Latex
Cree syllabics
Infinite Loop
OzTeX question
gftodvi
Word processor-> TeX
LaTeX to RTF translation
DVIPS for PC
Index help
Making/modifying Metafont mode_defs
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Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 09:52:51 -0800
From: att!ihlpa!danj1@cs.washington.edu
Subject: fix for nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 leaving a space
Keywords: TeX, nroff, fix
>From George_L_Sicherman@ATT.COM to me, Sun Dec 30 11:10 EST 1990
GLS> By the way, the nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 is leaving a space after
GLS> each occurrence, even in phrases like _The TeXbook._ You ought to use
GLS> a string instead of a macro.
I will note this down, fix it locally here at ATT.COM, and even
attempt to report it to someone@labrea, as it's all their fault :-) -Dan J.
(hmm, and here's the fix:)
.\" --fixed spaces... [only tested with nroff], Dan Jacobson 12/1990:
.\" .ie t .ds TX \fRT\v'+0.3m'E\v'-0.3m'X\fP \" for troff
.ie t .ds TX \fRT\v'+0.3m'E\v'-0.3m'X\fP\" for troff
.\" .el .ds TX TeX \" for nroff
.el .ds TX TeX\" for nroff
.\" to use, type \*(TX
and that someone turns out to be Texhax, 'cause that's the best
"person" I came up with.
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364
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Date: Tue, 1 Jan 91 09:55:02 +0200
From: Rama Porat <rama@shum.huji.ac.il>
Subject: Postscript, Metafont
Keywords: Postscript, Metafont
Is there a public domain converter from Postscript fonts to
Metafont?
Thanx a lot! Rama. -- rama@shum.huji.ac.il
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 1 January 1991 12:55:11 CST
From: "Uri N. Peled
Subject: TeX/Postscript driver
Keywords: dviware, PostScript, TeX
Could anyone please let me know about the following problem?
I have a 386-based machine with 8Meg RAM and an HP Laserjet IIP printer
with 512 KB memory. I run Mathematica and can generate postscript or
encapsulated postscript files with graphics. I also run PCTeX to
generate papers. Is it possible to imbed the postscript file in a TeX or
LaTex file and be able to print it on my printer or view it on the
screen? I am thinking of something like PSFIG that runs for our laser
printers at school. If not, will purchasing additional memory for the
printer help? Is any software available on ftp or commercially?
Thank you very much for any information you may have.
Please answer to:
Uri N. Peled
U32799@UICVM (Bitnet)
U32799@UICVM.UIC.EDU (Internet)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 12:04:11 CST
From: drl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: The mtex music font and MF2.7
Keywords: fonts, mtex, MF2.7
Has anyone made the music font from mtex by Andrea Steinbach and
Angelika Schofer with the new MF? I had trouble this font with the
last MF (< 2.0) so when I built MF 2.7 (from the web2c 5.8a dist), one
of the first things I tried was the music font. It still fails the
same way: downward stems with flags do not have flags and a few other
characters also seem to be drawn wrong.
Any help would be appreciated.
David
David Linn, System Manager/Postmaster |INET: drl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
Vanderbilt University School of Engineering|Phone: [+1] 615-343-6164
Post Office Box 3241, Station B |Disclaimer:
Nashville, TN, USA 37235 | I speak only for myself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 09:33:20 PST
From: rousu@sicbm.boeing.com (DWIGHT ROUSU, 657-4235,MS82-26)
Subject: Ker-mit-choo!
Keywords: Kermit
Computer: Vax VMS
Recent items on TeXhax regarding Kermit and FTP lead me to come out of
the hacker's closet with these questions;
With all these archives and mailservers available,
I can get ASCII `e-mail'ed files nicely. Thank you kindly.
For various reasons, including institutional caution of computer viruses
(even from respectable univ. archives), FTP of (executable and binary) files
from external sources is difficult.
Kermit is a more available procedure, though slow.
USMailed mag tape is a more bothersome, costly source I may have to resort to.
Immediate question: Is there a way to get Vax VMS .exe files from these
respectable archives using Kermit, IF one so desired?
Structural questions: What procedures DO the various archives use to
vacinate against viruses? Could they characterize
the degree to which they perform this function?
If they don't vacinate, could cognizati of the
protection business provide virus checkers to them
so we can have safe TeX? Can we talk?...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 08:27:39 PLT
From: Dean Guenther <GUENTHER@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU>
Subject: Portuguese hyphenation
Keywords: TeX, hyphenation, Portuguese
> Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 12:54:31 GMT
> From: Carlos Lourenco <CARLOS%UXLIPL.LIP.RCCN.PT@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
> Subject: Help with hyphenation in Portuguese or French.
> Keywords: TeX, hyphenation, Portuguese, French
>
> I am using TeX to write texts in the PORTUGUESE language and,
> most of the time, the words are incorrectly hyphenated. I am
> not a TeXnician, although I use TeX quite often, and I don't
> know how to make a portuguese version of the hyphenation
> algorithm, paterns and so on.
I'll send you a copy of the Portuguese hyphenation table Pedro d Rezende did
in 1987. -- Dean Guenther
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 09:15:12 MST
From: cbiemes@noao.edu (Chris Biemesderfer)
Subject: xxencode
Keywords: xxencode
In issue 73, Pierre asks about a North American source for xxencode.
I got mine from wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the misc/unix subdirectory.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 1990 09:24:00 -0500
From: SCHROEDER@UTORPHYS
Subject: TeX for Coherent
Keywords: TeX, Coherent
Has anybody ported TeX to the operating system Coherent, by Mark
Williams Co.? Coherent is a unix-clone that sells for $99.00. Conversely,
does anybody know a reason why TeX couldn't be ported to Coherent?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From LaTeX-help
> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 14:30:42 -0500
> From: dbb@cs.duke.edu (Donald B. Bliss)
> Message-Id: <9012131930.AA08690@romeo.cs.duke.edu>
> To: LaTeX-help@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
> Subject: Russian Latex
>
> Hello.
> I am looking for a full blown russian version of Latex. In other words
> something that will allow me to see the russian as I type it. Commands
> can be English or Russian as long as I can see the russian text as I type.
> I am also looking for a Polish version so any info on that would also be
> appreciated.
> Thank you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 10:48 EST
From: William Cowan <William_Cowan@carleton.ca>
Subject: Cree syllabics
Keywords: METAFONT, Cree
Does anyone know of any metafont production of Cree syllabics?
William_Cowan@carleton.ca
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 17:27:10 EST
From: toms@ncifcrf.gov
Subject: Infinite Loop
Keywords: LaTeX, infinite loop
Hi fellow Texnicians!
If LaTeX cannot find a file when I
\input definitions.tex
it asks me for another file. That's fine. If I give it a good name, it
is happy and we proceed. If I give it a bad name, I'm asked again:
! I can't find file `definitions.tex'.
l.4 \input definitions.tex
Please type another input file name:
If I have made a mistake and want to stop at this point, I can't! Well, I know
that I'm supposed to say 'nul' and it will fall out of the loop, but IT DOES
NOT TELL ME that that is an option. So that is my first point: LaTeX should
tell the user what options are available at this point.
Next, if I try to kill the program with control-c, it ignores me. Worse,
if I type a control-d, IT GOES INTO AN INFINITE LOOP. I have to kill the
program remotely, which is difficult, since LaTeX takes maybe 80% of the
cycles of the machine to run the loop!
Has this been fixed? I have:
This is TeX, C Version 2.95 (no format preloaded)
(x.tex
LaTeX Version 2.09 <4 Aug 1988>
Tom Schneider
National Cancer Institute
Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201
toms@ncifcrf.gov
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 14:55:15 -0500
From: furuta@cs.UMD.EDU (Richard Furuta)
Subject: OzTeX question
Keywords: OzTeX
Does OzTeX have a mechanism by which multiple directories can be bound to
the list searched for TeX input files? We have many locally-produced LaTeX
style files and find it convenient to keep them separated from the
system-defined ones. As near as I can make out from the OzTeX configuration
files, only a single directory is permitted to be specified for searching
for \input files that aren't in the current area.
Thanks.
--Rick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 11:49:18 EST
From: "Bradley D. Keister" <keister@poincare.phys.cmu.edu>
Subject: gftodvi
Keywords: gftodvi
Given the release of SBMF for PC's...is there a PC version of GFtoDVI
available?
Brad Keister
Physics Dept.
Carnegie Mellon U
keister@poincare.phys.cmu.edu (internet)
keister%poincare.phys.cmu.edu@CARNEGIE (BITNET)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 11:02:19 +0200
From: Malki Cymbalista <VUMALKI%WEIZMANN@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Word processor-> TeX
Keywords: Microsoft Word, TeX, converter
Does anybody know of a program that converts any Pc word processing
package to TeX. I know that one exists for WordPerfect. I am
especially interested in Word to TeX.
Thanks. Malki
Bitnet: vumalki@weizmann
Internet: vumalki@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 06:59:29 EST
From: IL Gibson <guelph2%watdcs.UWaterloo.ca@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: LaTeX to RTF translation
Keywords: LaTeX, RTF
I am looking for a program that might translate LaTeX input
files into Microsoft's RTF format. The objective is to use
LaTeX text files for other procedures that require RTF
as input. The translation probably would not be perfect and
would be useful even if it only dealt with a subset of LaTeX
commands. Any help would be appreciated. Ian Gibson.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 1990 11:35:36 GMT+1
From: kuhnle@ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de
Subject: DVIPS for PC
Keywords: PC-TeX, Novell clusters, Postscript
We (at the AIT Tuebingen) are running PC-TeX on our Novell Cluster. This
cluster is connected with a DEC LN03R Postscript Laserprinter.
Therefore, we are desperately searching for a dvips driver which runs
on our cluster. Currently, we are using a HP Laserjet but that printer is
much too slow for bigger documents.
Does anybody out there know where we can find a dvi2ps program, and how we can
get it (at best via anonymous FTP)? Any hints would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Volkmar Kuhnle
kuhnle @ aitxu2.ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de (preferred for mail)
psjeka1 @ zmcon2.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 09:54:49 GMT
From: toby@hce.computer-science.manchester.ac.uk
Subject: Index help
Keywords: LaTeX, index, MakeIndex
I'm currently preparing the index to a book done with LaTeX, using
Lamport's MakeIndex program (I've switched from IdxTeX). Has anyone who's
used MakeIndex before (or knows of a better tool) got any tips/caveats etc
that might help me?
Thanks
Toby
Toby Howard Computer Science Department, University of Manchester,
Lecturer Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, U.K.
janet: toby@uk.ac.man.cs.p1
internet: toby%p1.cs.man.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
earn/bitnet: toby%uk.ac.man.cs.p1@UKACRL
uucp: ...!ukc!mup1!toby voice: +44 61-275-6274
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 17:21:01 EST
From: rocky@ibm.com
Subject: Making/modifying Metafont mode_defs
Keywords: METAFONT, mode_def
I've been experimenting with the MetaFont parameters for
making fonts for the IBM 38xx printers among others. In doing so, I
have been looking at various mode definitions. (Such as in waits.mf,
devices.mf, or local.mf)
One thing that has bothered me about the way such mode_defs are
written is the way assignments to parameters are unnecessarily
hard-coded in.
For example, some mode definitions unconditionally
assign a value to variable, fontmaking. For example they contain
assignment ``fontmaking:=1'' which causes a TeX Font Metric file or
tfm to be created.
Suppose I want to generate a font using all of the setup that this
mode provides, but just do not want to generate a tfm? One could
create another mode that doesn't have the assignment, but this seems
a bit wasteful since the rest of the code in the mode would be duplicated.
Given the way many mode definitions are written, it is not possible
to change fontmaking. To see why, I review how a MetaFont run usually
works.
First a call to MetaFont is made with a base file to load.
Then one might want to do additional MetaFont instructions,
such as \scrollmode or assign the \mode_def. Next one inputs
a parameter file such as cmr10. The parameter
file calls a driver file such as roman by the comamnd ``generate
roman.'' Finally the driver often has as its last line ``bye.'' Thus
any additional commands that are given after the input of the
parameter file (such as an assignment to fontmaking) are ignored.
Usually one of the first things a driver file does is to call
mode_setup. It is here that the mode intructions are interpreted. (In our
hypothetical mode, it would be here that fontmaking is assigned.)
To allow flexible fontmaking, there is a simple fix: in the mode_def,
first test to see if a value has been defined prior and only make the
assignment if not. That is
if unknown fontmaking:fontmaking:=1;fi
Alas this doesn't work for the parameters blacker, fillin and
o_correction, since they are primitives and therefore always are
defined. A suggestion is to three more variables for these, e.g.
set_fillin, set_blacker, set_o_correction which tell if a variable
has been set. Although one now has to add an assignment to these
variables in addition to the variable they are guarding (e.g.
set_blacker := blacker := ... ) it does allow one to use mode
definitions more flexibly: one specify some of the mode
definitions parameters to change while keeping the default value
of others.
With the above in mind, here is a mode_definition for the
IBM38xx printers:...
%
% Thanks to Jim Hafner (hafner@ibm.com) for experimenting with blacker.
%
mode_def IBMD = % IBM mode for the IBM38xx's
pixels_per_inch:=240;
if unknown fontmaking: % Unless told otherwise,
fontmaking:=1; % output TFM
fi
if unknown tracingtitles: % Unless told otherwise,
tracingtitles:=0; % don't show titles in the log
fi
if unknown proofing_set: % Unless told otherwise
proofing_set:=
proofing:=0; % we're not making proofs
fi
if unknown blacker_set: % Set this value unless it has been set previously
blacker_set:=
blacker:=0; % On cmtt8 a's are already starting to fill in,
fi % so no more blacker.
if unknown fillin_set:
fillin_set:=
fillin:=.3; % This value can be checked on cmtt10's k's and z's--
fi % check the diagonal/horizontal ratio on these.
if unknown o_correction_set:
o_correction_set:=
o_correction:=.75; % I don't believe even a value of 1 is that bad.
fi
For such low-resolution devices, a single mode_def might not
suffice---parameters for some fonts look bad for others. (Screen fonts
are another case of a low-resolution device where one might consider
having several mode definitions.)
R. Bernstein
IBM Research
rocky@ibm.com
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