TeXhax Digest Monday, March 2, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 15 This weeks Editor: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: DVI driver family update TeX-related programs VMS change file PLAIN TeX macros Logo composition Dissertation style requirements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 25 Feb 87 11:54:32-MST From: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Subject: DVI driver family update To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU X-US-Mail: "Center for Scientific Computation, South Physics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112" X-Telephone: (801) 581-5254 Since the 13-Jan-87 TeXHaX announcement of the availability of my DVI driver family, several dozen sites have acquired it via mail. We now have inward Internet ANONYMOUS FTP working. To use it, login to UTAH-SCIENCE (Internet number [128.110.192.2] if your host tables are not up-to-date) with FTP and get the file 00README.TXT. It tells how to retrieve everything else, including non-TeX software too. To make updates via FTP easier, FTP command files and directory listings are maintained in alphabetical and chronological order and can be used to restart a failed transmission, or get the latest stuff. For Unix sites, a compressed tar file is maintained and periodically updated; you do have to check the chronological directory listings to make sure you also get anything newer. For those to whom we have shipped tapes or floppy disks, I have kept a record of EMAIL addresses when they were supplied, and have now send out 4 messages to the list. Would everyone who got the software by any means, and have not received these messages, please send me your EMAIL address so you can be added to the list. It is not reasonable to fill up TeXHaX with driver details. We continue to find problems with VAX VMS C (not the drivers), and there have been a number of bug/misfeature workarounds added since the original posting. Would you believe that something as simple as printf("%s",string); can trash the stack and abort the job! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 87 10:26:15 pst From: Kamal Al-Yahya To: texhax-request@score Subject: TeX-related programs Hello, I have two packages that are TeX-related. Both of them should be on the unix-tex (@washington) distribution tape by now. But since they are not unix-specific, I would like to announce them through TeXHax. I am also wondering if you can make them available for ftp from score since we don't have inward ftp here. If you can, I will send them to you first and then I can announce them and tell people how to get them. The two packages are: 1. textools: mainly four programs: texmatch: checks for mismatches in TeX/LaTeX documents. texeqn: extracts displayed equations in TeX/LaTeX documents detex: strips TeX/LaTeX commands (different from another detex) texexpand: inserts \include and \input files. 2. tr2tex: a one-program package. It is a translator from troff to LaTeX. I announced this program through unix-tex few months ago when it was preliminary and there was a big response to it. It now has reached a good stage that I stopped calling it preliminary. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 10:10:20 GMT From: Ian Moor To: texhax-request@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Subject: VMS change file I have a copy of the Unix distribution tape and would like to obtain the VMS change file for TeX either by mail or FTP ( I expect it would take about 3 months to obtain the VMS tape based on experience of obtaining other software from the states) Could you please let me know of a site with the file on line or mail it to me. Many thanks ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 87 18:12:32 PST From: zar@Xhmeia.Caltech.Edu Subject: PLAIN TeX macros To: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu X-ST-Vmsmail-To: ST%"texhax-request@score.stanford.edu" (does anyone reading this list use standard PLAIN TeX?) I have a few very simple macros made for PLAIN TeX to produce memos, automatic TOC, automatic references, automatic equation numbering, and DEK's letter format macro. If there are any PLAIN TeX users who want this or can share some goodies with me, I'd like to hear from you. A final major request: does anyone have a macro to infinitely split a page into an infinite number of columns (not that I need an infinite supply of columns--just more than 4)? TG Zar (a.k.a.Dan Zirin ZAR@CITCHEM -- Bitnet ZAR@XHMEIA.CALTECH.EDU) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 87 14:46:32 EST From: Stephen Gildea To: "Benjamin J. Woznick" In-Reply-To: Benjamin J. Woznick's message of Wed 11 Feb 87 9:52:16 PST Subject: Logo composition >I am converting our project from a troff world to a LaTeX world, and >find that there are certain things I can't figure out. Probably the >hardest thing that I have hit on is the conversion of the project >logo. The troff representation is P\s-3ROPHET\s0\^II, which causes >the central portion of the word to be set in rather small capitals, >with a thin space between the T and the II. In troff, this is all >very font independent, and I can use it with italic, bold, roman fonts >in various sizes (examples: 1) our page headers are set in a bold font >down a point from the body of the report, and 2) the name appears >frequently in report titles, so is cited in other reports, where it >appears in italics). This is a tricky one, all right. TeX has no general mechanism that I know of for doing relative size changes. You have to make each size changing command specify what "\s-3" would be in the new size. In this case you're in luck because the math mode scriptsize is just the size you want. As a first pass, you might try this: \def\PROPHETII{P$\scriptstyle ROPHET$\,II} %first try; doesn't work This has two problems. The minor problem is that \, produces a 1/6em space, whereas the troff \^ produced a 1/12em space, and 1/6em does look too large. But the more serious problem is that switching to math mode causes the letters to be printed in math italic, not at all what we wanted. What we have to do is save the current font before entering math mode, then restore it once we are inside. The font that math mode uses for letters is stored in the parameter \fam. Here is the final version: \newcount\prophetfam \def\PROPHETII{P\prophetfam=\the\fam $\fam=\the\prophetfam\scriptstyle ROPHET$\kern .1em II} Ah, very nice. But there is still a problem. In some distributions of LaTeX, the small boldface fonts are not loaded, and \scriptstyle for bold is the same as the normal size. This is easy to fix: edit lfonts.tex and dump out a new latex. As long as you have all the fonts you try to use, other projects that aren't interested in your logo won't mind this (almost invisible) change. Now for the question of where to put this macro definition. You're right, you don't want to modify the standard styles. Instead, create a file called prophet.sty in the macro directory, and put this definition (and any other special-purpose macros you develop) in that file. Then tell your users to start their files with some variation of \documentstyle[prophet]{article} Well, this message was somewhat longer than I had intended, but I hope it helps. < Stephen gildea@erl.mit.edu mit-erl!gildea ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 87 09:23:23 PST From: Reply-To: JMC%NOCMI.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu To: TEXHAX-REQUEST@score.stanford.edu Subject: Dissertation style requirements From: Jeremy Cook Subject: Dissertation style requirements To: "TeXhax Digest" I thouroughly aggree with the comments made by Bob Wentworth in issue 11 on the criticism of dissertation style requirements. If registars departments are still in the dark ages, the answer is not to be bloody minded about it and give them a thesis printed in \tt \raggedright. I don't see how if you take the Lamport approach you are going to get your maths formulas typeset unless you go back to the stoneage and draw them in afterwards in pencil. Surely it is better to try and educate them and give them something of a compromise. I submitted my thesis to UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) printed in twelvepoint Times-Roman font and had no complaints. I set the left and right margins up according to the regulations (to the nearest 1/72 of an inch!). True double spacing really does look hideous with a typeset document so I risked squeezing it up a bit with \baselineskip=20pt. In addition I used tenpoint font for figure captions and fourteenpoint font for chapter headings. It is not the most beautiful TeXed document you have ever seen but quite acceptable. By taking this approach and bending the rules slightly without being too risqu\'e, eventually the rules will be changed to accomodate typeset theses. Don't forget that the thesis you officially submit is the thesis that others will read while the "special" one that Lamport suggests making for friends is only going to impress those friends. -- Jeremy Cook .--------------------------. | Chr. Michelsen Institute | | Fantoftveien 38 | | 5036 Fantoft | | Bergen, NORWAY | `--------------------------' Acknowledge-To: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 09:44:45 est From: beede@tecnet-clemson To: TeXhax-request@score Has anyone gotten TeX running on a Celerity system? If so, how did you get the Celerity pc to generate code to correctly read a packed file of 0..255? It throws out values of 255 and 1. Thanks in advance. Please mail replies to me, since this is pretty specialized. Mike Beede Computer Science Dept. Clemson University Clemson SC 29631 beede@tecnet-clemson ------------------------------ % %\bye % End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------