TeXhax Digest Tuesday, February 16, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 16 [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]TEXHAX16.88 Editor: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: Looking for 8 pt caps-and-small-caps font Re: day field in bibliography BibTeX for TeXtures New BibTeX file extensions, and having a single TeX.exe VMS and AppleLaserWriters Missing reply Figures in LaTeX? Update for Tex on Decnet/span error in metafont 1.3.. DVItoVDU Availability WARNING: PCTEX V2.1 /i + /z option Different file types for LaTeX, etc. Re: file extensions macro for dropping and enlarging the first letters of a paragraph ? under-twiddle ? Unix to VAX VMS DVI file transfer BiBTeX, previewer, SliTeX ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 15:04:21 EST From: agw@convent.columbia.edu (Art Werschulz) Subject: Looking for 8 pt caps-and-small-caps font Hi. The font cmcsc10 is a ten-point caps-and-small-caps font. I am trying to find cmcsc8, an eight-point caps-and-small-caps font. For example, this font is typically used in the "References" section of a math paper for the name of an author. (See any of the AMS journals.) Anybody out there know where I can find cmcsc8.tfm and cmcsc8.{pk,gf,pxl}? Thanks. Art Werschulz ARPAnet: agw@columbia.edu USEnet: ... seismo!columbia!agw BITnet: agw@columbia.edu CCNET: agw@garfield ATTnet: Columbia University (212) 280-3610 280-2736 Fordham University (212) 841-5323 841-5396 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 16:35 EST From: (John Lavagnino) Subject: Re: day field in bibliography Not every scholar in the world is a computer scientist, and those of us in the humanities (for example) frequently deal with articles in daily or weekly publications. I have hundreds of them listed in my own bibliography files. I don't mind the small amount of work required to add a "day" field to the bibliography styles on my own, but I have to disagree with claims that "it rarely comes up and when it does a kludge is good enough." Too much like the old assumption that "you don't really need those silly accents." John Lavagnino Brandeis University ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 15:09:11 PST From: eastman@Csa3.LBL.Gov (Jack Eastman) Subject: BibTeX for TeXtures Anybody out there have or know of a version of BibTeX that will run on the Macintosh in conjunction with Addison-Wesley's TeXtures and their LaTeX? A-W doesn't provide BibTeX and doesn't even claim they will in the future. James Eastman Physics Division Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory eastman@csa2.lbl.gov ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 16:12:28 EST From: gil@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Gil Neiger) Subject: New BibTeX I have ported the new version of BibTeX from score. Where can I get the changes necessary to run this in a UNIX (VAX, SUN) system? - Gil Neiger gil@svax.cs.cornell.edu ------------------------------ From: Jonathan_Thornburg@mtsg.ubc.ca Subject: file extensions, and having a single TeX.exe In TeXhax V88 #14, Eric Berg explained how TeX file type defaults are set in TeX (the program) itself, and hence aren't amenable to easy changing for LaTeX, SliTeX, etc. In particular, he pointed out that > Currently, > the results of running LATEX.EXE are identical to those of running -TeX > with the command > TEX &lplain > which loads the LaTeX .FMT file instead of the Plain .FMT. I'd just like to add that we and I suspect many other sites do exactly that -- on our system the command "latex" *is* defined to be the same as the command "tex &lplain" (both run the same program). I don't think we ever got around to bringing IniTeX or VirTeX up... If this is as widespread as I suspect, it further argues against any changes to the file type defaults, unless TeX (the program) is changed to allow this to be specified as a run-time option. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 12 Feb 1988 11:08:33 NZT From: CCC032U@aucc4341 Subject: VMS and AppleLaserWriters We at University of Auckland have a LaserWriter + and at the moment run it off a IBM VM/CMS system through a series1 ( IBM 7171 ). This arangment is inherently unsatistfactory since there is no way to respond to the various messages that the laserwriter sends back. We have a vax cluster on site and what we would like is a vms printer symbiont (PMB or SMB) to drive an intelligent postscript printer. Has anybody done this? We are critically short of staff so we dont have the resources to do it ourselves. University of Otago ( also in New Zealand) have system which uses a batch queue and jobs that allocate the printer as a dedicated device to control spooling to their laserWriters. We may use their system if we cant get anything else. Could you please reply to me direct. I get the digest at the end of a long chai n of redistribution links. If I get any thing useful I will send it back to texhax. Thanks. Russell Fulton ; internet ccc032u@aucc1.aukuni.ac.nz post Computer Centre, University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand. ------------------------------ Date: 12-FEB-1988 09:31:26 GMT From: ABBOTTP%aston.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK Subject: Missing reply In TeXhax V88 #08 I asked a question about floating of figures and tables to the bottom of a page in twocolumn mode. I have just read V88 #14 and so far have not seen a reply. The attached was sent by Leslie Lamport and appears to have gone into a black hole. Peter %% I don't recall seeing it either. Malcolm Computing Service JANET abbottp@uk.ac.aston Aston University ARPA pabbott@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Aston Triangle or abbottp%uk.ac.aston@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Birmingham B4 7ET UUCP ...!ukc!aston!abbottp U.K. BITNET abbottp%uk.ac.aston@ac.uk Tel (+44) 21 359 5492 Date: Thu, 28 Jan 88 09:04:10 pst From: Leslie Lamport Cc: ABBOTTP , ken@edu.rochester.cs Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #08 Peter Abbott asks if there are any plans to allow double-column figures and tables to appear at the bottom of a page in two-column style. It shouldn't be a hard to modify LaTeX's output routine to do this--the changes could be made by imitating the code for single-column figures. It was a rather arbitrary decision of mine not to bother. The modified output routine could be included as a style option. If anyone cares to write it, I'd consider including it as the standard output routine. Ken Yap asks if its worth the bother of stripping the comments from .sty files. My guess is that it's not worth it for short files--such as style options--but it is for the complete style files, such as article + art10. People running on PC's should be able to test this pretty easily--just create two LaTeX files consisting only of \input{foo.sty} or \input{foo.doc} and see how long each of them takes to type out the "*". To compare with the time needed for a major style, use the two statements \input{article.doc} \input{art10.doc} and similarly for the .sty files. Also, note that the LaTeX standard distribution now contains a file latex.dif that contains the results of running the Unix diff program to compare successive versions of files. E.g., it contains comparisons of the 3 Jan versus the 20 Jan versions of latex.tex and the 20 Jan versus the 15 Jan versions (or something like that). This should make it easy for hackers at Unix sites to update their versions without having to FTP large files. It would be nice if that file were maintained in the Rochester repository. Leslie Lamport ------------------------------ From: PHTGERMO%CNEDCU51.BITNET%CERNVAX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 11:12 N Subject: Figures in LaTeX? I have a problem with figures in LaTeX. Normally they take all the page width, but if they are very small, we would like to have them lets say flushleft | THIS IS A with the running text continuing | SMALL FIGURE on the right as shown here. Is |_____________ there any simple way to do that? If not I would appreciate to know if somebody has written a special document style which incorporate this kind of feature. Thanks in advance, Jean-Francois Germond University of Neuchatel Switzerland PHTGERMO@CNEDCU51.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 13:07 N From: Subject: Update for Tex on Decnet/span The TeX-depository for vax/vms available on decnet/span in Italy includes now also: [tex.clark] Programs to produce halftone outputs. Vax/vms change file to increase Tex memory Tpu interface (supplied by Adrian Clark) [tex.usa.dvidis] Programs to display dvi files on vaxstations (vms) (supplied by Jerry Leichter) [tex.usa.textyl] Curve drawing postprocessor (by John Renner, modified by Jerry Leichter for vms) For further information send a decnet/span message to: 39003::fisica Max Calvani ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 88 08:33:00 EST From: "DARREN STALDER" Subject: error in metafont 1.3.. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Has anyone gotten the mf.web and mf.vms-changes to work and produce mf.exe. I get the following error when I try to run pascal (on VMS 4.7) on mf.web and mf.vms-changes. (straight for score) 06132 0 1 IF READYALREADY=314159 THEN GOTO 1;{14:}BAD:=0; 1 %PASCAL-W-UNINIT, (1) READYALREADY has not been initialized %PASCAL-W-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 1 diagnostic Torin/Wolf/Darren Stalder Internet: DSTALDER@GMUVAX.GMU.EDU Bitnet: DSTALDER@GMUVAX ATTNet: 1-703-323-3569 UUCP: (dolqci | uunet!pyrdc)!gmu90x!dstalder SNAIL: PO Box 405/Fairfax, VA 22030/USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 10:30:10 est From: Chris Kantzes Subject: DVItoVDU Availability Is there a version of DVItoVDU for VMS out there anywhere which is available for ftp copy? We got our TeX distribution with our Talaris laserprinter and unfortunately it didn't include DVItoVDU. We would have a hard time justifying the ordering of another VMS copy of TeX just to get DVItoVDU. Thanks. Chris Kantzes Arpanet Address : kantzes@ge-rsd.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 14:01:58 MET From: cmb%DERRZE0.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Subject: WARNING: PCTEX V2.1 /i + /z option Hi TeXfellows, this is a warning to everybody using PCTeX Version 2.1: Don't specify the /i (INITEX) and /z option simultaneously on the TeX commandline, if the /z option specifies a RAM-disc. The format produced sometimes has corrupted font preload info. PCTEXs INITEX doesn't warn you, if this happens, but you sure will recognize (the (d)effects, not necessarily the reason) if you later run that format (it complains about missing chars, about overfull boxes and and and...). If you don't believe it: try to generate SliTeX using the SliTeX version as is it resides now in the standard distribution at SCORE.STANFORD.EDU and enter the options as mentioned above. The /z option works quite ok, if you don't specify it during INITEX but for later runs of the generated format... - Clemens Beckstein c/o University of Erlangen Martenstr. 3 IMMD 6 D-8520 Erlangen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 11:35 EST From: "Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)" Subject: Different file types for LaTeX, etc. TeX itself does not define the particular file types that \input and friends default to, nor can it, since file types may vary from system to system and, in fact, there may BE no analog to the notion of a "file type" on some systems. File specification defaults are purely system-specific. Further, there isn't even anything in the TeX definition that says they are constant! I contend a correct implementation of TeX COULD provide for some means for changing the defaults. If that means were entirely external to TeX - the specification of some environment variable, for example - the result wouldn't really be any different from the way the TeX INPUTS directory is found today. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be too useful either; what WOULD be useful would be a way to change the defaults FROM WITHIN TEX. That means could NOT rely on a new primitive, if the result were still to be called "TeX". However, there's a simple hack: The argument to \input or \openin or \openout is already a string that is meaningful only to the surrounding system environment. It could be used to pass additional data - such as a default file type - to the system. All that's needed is a way to distinguish such data. I suggest that a leading "&" is a good marker - TeX already has a built-in bias against file names that start with an "&", since TEX &PLAIN means something rather different from TEX FOO. To be more concrete: \input &default:.ltx could be interpreted as resetting the default file type for all subsequent \input's to .ltx. It wouldn't actually read anything. LaTeX could issue such a call. It should be possible to do similar things with \openin or \openout; the default set would apply only to the particular channel. Why the "default:" string? The same mechanism could be used to pass other information - for example, protection information when creating a file with \openout. An &reset call should be provided to put everything back to the "factory defaults". (Maybe this stuff should be subject to nesting, but (a) implementing that requires changes to much more than the OS interface; (b) it doesn't seem like a useful thing to do anyway.) -- Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 10:39:59 CST From: William LeFebvre Subject: Re: file extensions > The dificulty with implementing this is that the part of TeX which > knows about file names and such is in "TeX--The Program"...However, in > order to implement different default file types for (say) LaTeX, it > would be necessary to prepare a WEB change file, run Tangle.... Couldn't the extension be taken from a macro, and default to "tex" if that macro isn't defined? Then lplain.tex and splain.tex could define that macro so that it is def-ed after virtex loads the .fmt (thus it would be defined in the dumped version). I haven't looked at "TeX: the program" close enough to be able to tell off the top of my head how possible this would be, but it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult. HOWEVER: I think this change is significant to warrant a change to the TeX source itself, instead of just something that the change file slaps in. It should be part of standard tex. Another problem that no one has mentioned yet......it is a sad fact that most operating systems, unlike Unix, allow a very limited number of characters in the "extension" field (that is, everything after the "."). In most cases, that limited number is 3. Thus the logical "standard" extension for Unix, "latex", could not be used on, say, a TOPS-20 machine. It would have to be something like "ltx". Do we really want to do that? Unix users can get around this whole problem by creating an intelligent "Makefile" that understands .latex and .slitex, to wit: __________ .SUFFIXES: .dvi .latex .slitex .tex .tex.dvi: tex $< .latex.dvi latex $< .slitex.dvi: slitex $< __________ Now you "make foo.dvi". You could even add a printing rule: foo: foo.dvi lpr -d $< Now you just "make foo". William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University ------------------------------ Subject: macro for dropping and enlarging the first letters of a paragraph Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 10:30:17 PST From: David G. Cantor % This macro is for dropping and enlarging the first letters of a % paragraph, as in certain books. Use it in the following way \bigfirstletter{\largefont O}nce upon a time . . . % where{\largefont} is some previously defined large font. The % argument may be one or more letters. It has been tested with Plain % TeX. \def\bigfirstletter#1#2{{\noindent \setbox0\hbox{#1}\setbox1\hbox{#2}\setbox2\hbox{(}% \count0=\ht0\advance\count0 by\dp0\count1\baselineskip \advance\count0 by-\ht1\advance\count0by\ht2 \dimen1=.5ex\advance\count0by\dimen1\divide\count0 by\count1 \advance\count0 by1\dimen0\wd0 \advance\dimen0 by.25em\dimen1=\ht0\advance\dimen1 by-\ht1 \global\hangindent\dimen0\global\hangafter-\count0 \hskip-\dimen0\setbox0\hbox to\dimen0{\raise-\dimen1\box0\hss}% \dp0=0in\ht0=0in\box0}#2} % Here is an example: \hsize 3.5in \font\rf times at 12pt \font\largefont times at 48pt \rf \bigfirstletter{\largefont I}N THE beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. % dgc % David G. Cantor % Internet: dgc@math.ucla.edu % UUCP: ...!{ihnp4, randvax, sdcrdcf, ucbvax}!ucla-cs!dgc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 13:41:06 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Meyer Subject: ? under-twiddle ? One of my colleagues like to use an under-twiddle (or under-tilde) as part of his notation. (On the blackboard he uses this notation for vectors, and wants his notes to look the same). Does anyone have a good method of putting a tilde under a character. I'm not a TeX-hacker, and though my simple efforts "work" they are far from perfect (let alone elegant). I'm looking for something that will work like \underbar. Please respond directly to me -- our local distribution of TeXhax seems to be broken. Many Thanks, --Mike Meyer mikem@andrew.cmu.edu Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon U ------------------------------ Date: Fri 12 Feb 88 12:11:11-MST From: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Subject: Unix to VAX VMS DVI file transfer I have just made some experiments with transfer of DVI files from Unix to VAX VMS and to TOPS-20. With Unix ftp mode "tenex" (NOT "binary"), such files transfer without problems to TOPS-20, because like Unix, it views files as streams of bytes that end at the last byte. To VAX VMS, either "binary" or "tenex" modes should be used. VAX VMS regrettably imposes a record structure (fixed blocked binary, variable, Fortran carriage control, stream, etc.) on all files, which results in the foolishness that binary files (i.e. any file in which `record's do not exist) are 512*n bytes long. This is not actually necessary, since the VMS file system maintains a count of the number of blocks, and the offset of the last used byte in the last block, from which a correct byte count can be reconstructed. Setting the offset correctly unfortunately takes additional system calls; it does not happen automatically when you write such a file. In fact, it is even worse, because unless you write a multiple of 512 bytes, the close operation will signal an error and the output file will be lost. There is code in my DVI drivers in dviterm.h to deal with this nastiness. With the CMU/Tektronix FTP software on VAX VMS, transfer of a DVI file to VMS results in its being padded with NULs to a multiple of 512 bytes, and my DVI drivers then say something like ?hsc015$dua0:[lib0.][tex]dviimp.exe;12: FATAL--findpost(): Bad end of DVI file Current TeX page counters: [0] A new release of this FTP software has recently arrived, but has not yet been installed, so this may change. With the Wollongong FTP software on VAX VMS, the offset of the last written byte is correctly recorded, so no NUL padding is seen, and the DVI drivers will process the .dvi file correctly. It would be nice if all the VMS FTP software avoided the NUL padding, but in the meantime, it is clear that a fix is desirable for my drivers so that they ignore trailing NULs at the end of the file on VAX VMS. They already do that under VAX VMS for font files in readgf.h and readpxl.h in code that looks like: FSEEK(fontfp,0L,2); /* seek to end-of-file */ while (FSEEK(fontfp,-1L,1) == 0) { the_char = (UNSIGN16)fgetc(fontfp); if (the_char) break; /* exit leaving pointer PAST last non-NUL */ UNGETC((char)the_char,fontfp); } To implement this feature for DVI files, similar code should be installed in findpost.h. I will patch it into the next release, but in the meantime, users (at an estimated 500+ sites) who are faced with this problem may wish to implement it themselves. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 88 13:58 N From: (Johannes Braams) Subject: BiBTeX, previewer, SliTeX Dear fellow (La)TeX users, I have a couple of questions to ask you. - We are running LaTeX on a VAX with VMS 4.6, having TeX V2.0 with LaTeX V2.09 dated 19 april 1987, BiBTeX V0.98 and METAFONT V1.0. In TeXhax I have seen that for TeX there is V2.7, there is a more recent version of the LaTeX lplain (jan 1988 I believe), BiBTeX now is at version 0.99b and METAFONT has reached V1.3. All that stuff is announced to available for anonymous FTP from SCORE in various TeX-directories. My problem is, we don't have FTP and the BITnet redistribution on TAMVM1 at this moment in time only has TeXhax and some WEB sources, but that's it. Apparently they are planning to have a lot more at TAMVM1 (see the reorganisation of the LISTSERV filelists for TeX), but that didn't happen yet. When is it going to happen, or could anybody point me how to get FTP (if that can be used from BITnet at all)? I sure would like to stay up to date with all the TeX software. - How does one go about creating LaTeX.exe on a VAX running under VMS? Anybody did such a thing? - A couple of TeXhax-issues back i asked a question about the METAFONT sources for the fonts needed by SliTeX. (invisibles, amsss8, amsssb8, amsssi8) I got several replies, which told me that they are available from Stanford and that they are on the distribution tapes. Well as I pointed, I can't FTP them and they were not on the distribution tapes we got. (via DECUS I believe, one with [TEX82...] and am*-fonts and one with [DRF.TEX...] with MF-sources for cm*-fonts, but without the SliTeX fonts.) I don't like to have to keep both the cm* fonts *AND* a number of the am*-fonts around (eats lots of diskspace!) just because we like to make tose nice-looking slides with SliTeX. Can anybody help us out? - We print our LaTeX stuff on a LN03+, which is fine, but we have no way of previewing. (on one of the tapes was TXMAPPER from CNAF, but we don't have VAXstations...) What we do have are a VT240 and two VT125 terminals along with a number of VT220's and VT220-compatibles (CIT 224). We also have a LA210 printer which could perhaps be used as 'preview machine' if a driver for it exists. Does anyone out there have a previewer for TeX, runnning on one of our devices? If so, would he/she be willing to supply it to us some way or another? That's all for now, I think it's enough. I hope I get some answers from you folks. If they seem to me to be interesting to the rest of the community I will summarize for TeXhax. (If the answer come directly to me, which they seem to do most of the time. Regards, Johannes Braams PTT Dr Neher Laboratories, Phone: +31 70 435172 P.o. box 421, BITNET/EARN: BRAAMS@HLSDNL50.BITNET 2260 AK Leidschendam, PSImail(X.25):PSI%2041170358::BRAAMS The Netherlands. ------------------------------ %%% %%% subscriptions, address changes to: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% please send a valid arpanet address!! %%% %%% BITNET distribution: subscribe by sending the following %%% line to LISTSERV@TAMVM1.BITNET: %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% %%% submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------