[comp.text.tex] TeXhax Digest V90 #49

TeXhax@cs.washington.edu (TeXhax Digest) (06/06/90)

TeXhax Digest    Sunday,  June 3, 1990  Volume 90 : Issue 49

Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay

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Today's Topics:         

                            Unretex--where is it?
                            Is letter.sty broken?
                           re :Postscript previewer
                             LaTeX, multicolumns
                           Re: LaTeX, multicolumns
          FIXDATE - LaTeX option to fix the date on a document

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Date:    Thu, 24 May 1990 13:32:42 MDT
From: SYSMANAGER@MEEDIV.LANL.GOV (Jim A. Whitfill)
Subject: Unretex--where is it?
Keywords: Unretex

The TeXhax Digest V90 #45 mentions the MS-DOS program, UNRETEX. Where can this
file be obtained?

Thank You,

Jim A. Whitfill    Mechanical & Electronic Eng. Division     (505) 667-9282
whitfill@meediv.lanl.gov       		     Los Alamos National Laboratory

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 9 May 90 8:55:53 EDT
From: Bernie Cosell <cosell@BBN.COM>
Subject: Is letter.sty broken?
Keywords: TeX, letter.sty

I use letter.sty fairly regularly and I"ve noticed a problem from time to
time with incredibly bad page breaks right before the closing, but I never
worried all that much about it.  Well, I happened to push on it some day and
now I'm really quite confused, and more to the point I think that letter.sty
is broken somehow.... perhaps someone can help me understand what is
happening.

What I've noticed, with annoying regularity, is that the last page of
my letters consist of *one* line of text from the last paragraph.  Now,
I can partly see this if the pages work out badly: is it worse to have
a 'widow' from the last paragraph on the closing-page, or to have the
last page of the letter have *NOTHING* except the closing.  Clearly
this is a tough one, and I'd say that in general, putting SOME part of
the letter on the last page, even if it is just a widow from the last
paragraph, is preferable to having _no_ 'letter content' on that page
at all.

Well, in the best of real editorial tradition, rather than a \pagebreak
to force TeX's hand, I decided to do some rewriting.  I looked at my
letter and it ended with a three-line paragraph, of which two appeared
on the penultimate page and the last line of the paragraph appeared on
the closing page.  OK.  So I added some text to that paragraph [so it
is now four-lines long] and I added some text to the paragraph before
it, and I figure: it should be OK now, right?  TWO lines on the closing
page won't look all _that_ bad.  So I rerun the thing and guess what:
it juggles the penultimate page to *fit*more*on*it*. and _still_ moves
just one line to the next page.

My best guess: the "make the last page less naked" logic can _only_
grab one line of text.  An unfortunate shortcoming of TeX if true, I
think, since obviously it would have worked out _much_ better in
general if it'd try very hard _never_ to steal just one line.  If it
_is_ true, however, then I mostly understand what is happening: my
penultimate page is really rather underfilled, and what TeX _really_
wanted to do was break the page in the middle of the closing, and so it
is already a bit heroic that it went to all of that bother, as it was,
to keep things more-or-less shipshape.  On the other hand, I'd really
like to believe that the page-breaking algorithm really had enough info
to figure out that an extra line or two of shortness-badness on the
previous page was MORE than outweighed by having the last page be less
ugly.  I'm hoping that someone will be able to come up with a clever
way to modify the \closing stuff to make it a bit cleverer about the
page split it forces....

Thanks
  /bernie\

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 May 90 08:54:00 EDT
From: Albert (A.) Cohoe <COHOE%BNR.CA@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject:  re :Postscript previewer
Keywords: PostScript, Previewer

I've been looking at Postscript previewers for X11, and have found
the following information. My impressions so far are that most of
these are meant to display a single page of Postscript and (depending
on the design intent) to allow the user to issue Postscript commands.
ScriptWorks seems to be the only one that I've found with the set of
features required to view documents, but I have been unable to get the
time to test it thoroughly. For the moment, the search continues.

Credit to:   <dalton@geop.ubc.ca>
 subject:    re:postscript previewer

There is a previewer available for FTP from 192.48.96.2 in the directory
comp.sources.unix/volume12/postscript
I didn't really explore all of the features of this previewer. I
originally wanted a previewer which would preview a TeX file
and show the included PS graphics as well. However, this program
didn't work on the output of ArborText's dvi2ps program, while it
did work for simple graphics files.

     A better solution might be to use the xps and xtex programs
available in the X-windows distribution or from:
                           130.235.48.4
and possibly in the Unix TeX distribution at
                           128.95.1.4
You may want to follow certain newsgroups, possibly comp.text, comp.graphics,
comp.sources.x, comp.sources.unix, etc. for new releases and updates


Credit to:   <jrv@sdimax2.mitre.org>
 subject:    PostScript previewer?

Try GhostScript, which you can get via FTP from wsmr-simtel20.army.mil:

directory pd1:<msdos.printer>
files    gs13doc.arc
         gs13exe.arc

(There's a third file with the C source code, but I forgot its name.)

I haven't used this, but judging from the documentation you may be able to.
There is an MSDOS version (for the EGA) and a Unix version (for X Windows).

Credit to:  <graham%computer-science.manchester.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
ORTH)
Subject: PostScript previewer?

Try ScriptWorks from Harlequin, I can certainly recommend it for Suns.
Info below from the developer (which explains the level of detail):

SCRIPTWORKS

The Product

ScriptWorks is Harlequin's software package for previewing and
printing PostScript(R) descriptions of text and graphics images.
The product runs on a wide range of standard hardware platforms and
delivers monochrome, greyscale and colour PostScript images in
X-Windows(TM) and a variety of other windowing environments.

ScriptWorks is a very fast and flexible system.  The package combines
full support for the PostScript standard with proprietary techniques
for overcoming the limitations of traditional implementations.  The
result is a system which performs complex clipping, large image
handling, colour rendering and high quality font handling at
remarkable speed.

The Approach

Harlequin has incorporated sophisticated memory management techniques
into ScriptWorks to provide extra flexibility.  Traditional
limitations on the sizes of available stacks, the amount of PostScript
virtual memory and the number of permissible graphic points do not
apply.  Instead, the ScriptWorks internal memory manager extends such
facilities to cope with application requirements.  This is effective
both with and without virtual memory support from the host operating
system.

ScriptWorks has been designed to take full advantage of available
co-processors, such as floating point and graphics units.  The package
is written in conservative C (and PostScript), thus enhancing
portability and maintainability.  Through ScriptWorks, Harlequin has
shown that portability does not necessarily entail a loss of either
performance or quality.

PostScript

PostScript is a simple interpreted programming language with powerful
graphics capabilities.  Its primary application is to describe the
appearance of text, graphical shapes and sampled images on printed
pages in a way which is independent of the resolution of output
devices.

ScriptWorks is completely compatible with the PostScript language from
Adobe Systems Incorporated.  There are two key references for this
language: the PostScript Language Reference Manual by Adobe and the
Apple LaserWriter(R).  ScriptWorks essentially provides a superset of
these, removing the restrictions which each may impose and, in case of
irreconcilable conflict, ensuring that the LaserWriter industry
standard is supported.

This support for industry standards and usage has been a major
concern.  Several widely used software packages in desk top
publishing, CAD and related fields do not quite produce pure
PostScript.  ScriptWorks has been adapted to accommodate their
requirements.

Fonts

Harlequin has evaluated 'hinted' fonts from a range of vendors,
selecting a very high quality hinting system which has been integrated
into ScriptWorks.  This technology adjusts the shape of characters to
make allowances for rounding errors that occur as re-sizing takes
place onto a raster of discrete pixels.  The outcome is recognisable
and aesthetically pleasing text at different sizes, resolutions and
orientations. The effect is particularly apparent at small point sizes
or low resolutions.

Font Storage

In its standard configuration, ScriptWorks takes its fonts from disk,
allowing new fonts to be added easily to the system.  It is also
possible to save fonts described in PostScript terms with the standard
fonts. ScriptWorks employs a multi-level font-caching system to
enhance performance.  These caches may themselves be saved on disk for
further performance gains.  Thus characters of commonly used sizes
from any desired font may be permanently cached.  (A similar effect is
obtained by using ROM cache in printers.)

Previewing and Windowing

ScriptWorks supports both the previewing and printing of PostScript
pages on multiple output devices.  Previewing is best carried out in a
windowing environment, although this is not essential.  X-Windows is
the standard environment but support is also available for native
window systems such as SunTools and the Apollo Display Manager.  In
some environments, ScriptWorks can access the display's frame store
directly, thereby greatly enhancing performance.

Printing

Taking full advantage of double buffering techniques, ScriptWorks
supports Canon SX/CX laser printers.  These operate at 300 dots per
inch through a VME card supplied by De Facto Industries for Sun
workstations.  Standard configurations of ScriptWorks may be used to
compute images at user-specified resolutions of up to 600 dots per
inch.  Even higher resolutions can be handled using ScriptWorks Plus,
a separately available product, or through Harlequin's specialist
services.

Colour

From the outset, full support for colour has been designed into
ScriptWorks. For example, Harlequin's advanced error diffusion
dithering technique is employed to provide 24-bit natural colour
simulation for appropriate output devices. Care has been taken to
ensure that the product conforms to the standard PostScript
specification for colour as it has emerged.

Portability

ScriptWorks has been successfully ported to many different machines
using a variety of ANSI standard and more traditional C compilers.
Specific systems running ScriptWorks include the Sun family - Sun3,
Sun4 and Sun386i, the Apollo Domain family including the DN10000,
transputer systems, the Sony NEWS workstation, CLIPPER(R)-based Orion
machines and InterPro(R) workstations from High Level Hardware and
Intergraph Corporation respectively, and MIPS-based machines from MIPS
themselves.

Dependence on host operating systems has been kept to a minimum.
Operating systems which have been employed include both Berkeley and
System V UNIX(R) and those proprietary to specific machine vendors.

MultiScript(TM)

Harlequin also provides a related product called MultiScript, which is
compatible with but extends the functionality offered by
TranScript(R).  MultiScript translates and filters a variety of
printer and graphics formats into PostScript, ready for processing by
ScriptWorks or any PostScript interpreter. Both MultiScript and
ScriptWorks are available as networked or standalone systems.

Enhancements

Harlequin is committed to an extensive programme of development for
ScriptWorks which will maintain the product's position on the leading
edge of PostScript technology.  The package is being ported to an even
wider variety of platforms, displays, devices and systems.  In
particular, it is being incorporated into a PostScript imaging model
with active windowing. Integration with LispWorks(TM), Harlequin's
Common Lisp programming system and environment, is also taking place.

Further Information

For  more information about  ScriptWorks, any of the related products,
pricing or availability please contact:

        ScriptWorks Support
        Harlequin Limited
        Barrington Hall
        Barrington
        Cambridge CB2 5RG
        England

        Tel.    : +44-223-872522
        Fax.    : +44-223-872519
        Telex   : 818440 harlqn g
        Email   : <andrewt@harlqn.co.uk>
                or mcvax!ukc!harlqn!scriptworks-request

%_______________________________________________________
ScriptWorks, LispWorks and MultiScript are trademarks of Harlequin Limited.
The X Window System is a trademark of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
PostScript and TranScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems
Incorporated.
LaserWriter is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc.
UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Other brand or product names are trademarks of their respective holders.
Harlequin reserves the right to alter the specification of ScriptWorks
without notice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 	14 May 90 09:46:50+0100
From: jourdan@minos.inria.fr (Martin Jourdan)
Subject: LaTeX, multicolumns
Keywords: LaTeX, multicolumns

   Does anyone know how to produce output with more than two columns
   using LaTeX?  I've tried learning TeX, and I've even succeeded making
   three columns using TeX, but I can't seem to translate it into LaTeX
   terms.  Is there, maybe, any article in issues of TUGboat that can
   help?  Are there any .sty files that do multicolumns?  I'd appreciate
   any help or directions to help.  Thanks.

   --norvien@milton.u.washington.edu

Two-column processing is buried quite deeply in LaTeX, in particular
in the all-important output routine, and it is definitely NOT designed
for more than two columns.  So your problem seems unsolvable to me,
but maybe one of my co-helpers will have a better idea...

My advice is that if you need more than two columns, and if you know
how to do it in plain TeX, then you'd better stick to it.  Plain TeX
has roughly the same facilities as LaTeX, although it provides them in
a less usable and elegant way.

I'm sorry that I can't give you more help!  Best regards,

					Martin Jourdan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 	14 May 90 09:46:50+0100
From:   <amgreene@athena.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: LaTeX, multicolumns
Keywords: LaTeX, multicolumns

TUGboat 10(3) had an article on page 407 by Frank Mittelbach on a
LaTeX environment for [n-column] multicolumn output.  It's an
excellent article; but I haven't tried setting up the macros he
describes.  Any archive with the TUGboat files ought to have them,
though.

- Andrew Marc Greene
  <amgreene@athena.mit.edu>
  Chairman, Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
  MIT Project Athena Watchmaker

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 May 90 13:03:15 EDT
From: <harvard!yale!LRW.COM!leichter@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Subject: FIXDATE - LaTeX option to fix the date on a document
Keywords: FIXDATE, LaTeX, date

I thought others might find this little hack useful.
							-- Jerry

% Fix the date associated with a LaTeX file.  To use, include fixdate as
% a document option.  No other changes to the file are needed.
%
% The first time a file using fixdate is run through LaTeX, the current date
% is saved in a file named jobname.fix.  On later runs, the date is read from
% that file.  If you use \date in the preamble, whatever value you set will be
% written to the file the first time, but then subsequently ignored.  If you
% use \date within the body of the document, the value you give will supersede
% any value read from the file.
%
% To reset the date to "today," delete the .FIX file and run LaTeX on the
% file.
%
% Note that fixdate simply causes an appropriate call to \date to be made.
% Some style options make their own calls to \date.  (For example, they may
% wish to use a date consisting only of the current month and year.)  In that
% case, make sure that fixdate is listed AFTER any such style options.
%
% If a style obtains the date using some mechanism other than the LaTeX
% standard (the \@date command), fixdate can have no effect on it.  The
% technique used in fixdate can be extended to work with any style, but
% changes will have to be made on a case-by-case basis.
%
% The .FIX file is read or written even if you have used the \nofiles
% command.
%
% Author:  Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER@LRW.COM)
%
% Revision History
% 0.0	14-May-90 JSL	Invention

%
% We don't want to allocate input and output files for the .FIX file, as we
% only keep it open for such a short while.  We use input file 1, since that
% seems to be reserved for this kind of use (see \@input in LATEX.TEX), and
% \@mainaux for output, as the AUX file can't possibly be opened yet.
%
\openin1 \jobname.fix \ifeof1
  \immediate\openout\@mainaux \jobname.fix%
    \immediate\write\@mainaux{\string\date {\@date}}%
  \immediate\closeout\@mainaux
  \else \relax\@@input \jobname.fix\fi
\closein1

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