TeXhax Digest Tuesday, June 28, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 59 Moderator: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: Re: TeXhax Digest V88 Verbatim and alltt BibTeX for CMS Three Column Style for LaTeX GFtoPXL on CMS New BiBTeX Styles Any trip tested versions of TeX running under Xenix Dview Dvi previewer TeX for a PC without hard disk TeX88 European Conference and Courses --- LAST CHANCE!! BUG in TeX Metafont problems in VMS I got the LaTeX blues. . . . TeX on VAX under VMS Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #56 (LaTeX notes) Mirror-image fonts Hyphenation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 88 00:19 EDT From: Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V88 PiCTeX Problems: 1) Why do plot, put, and rule each have a wrong and different x-coordinate? The axes and labels come out fine, but not the data. 2) Has anyone developed error-bar plotting macros, which take the central position and the errors and plot a the data and errors? 3) How can I get a manual? reply if possible via internet to dph@astro.psu.edu. (David Huenemoerder) ------------------------------ Date: 16-JUN-1988 09:14:47 GMT From: ABBOTTP%aston.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK To: TEXHAX <@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK:TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu> Subject: Verbatim and alltt When using verbatim the system runs out of space on my PC. When using alltt the problem goes away except that I have \ characters in the text and do not wish to edit it. Has anyone produced an `allverbatim' style i.e. works like verbatim but does not run out of space. Peter 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, 16 Jun 88 08:37:54 PLT From: Dean Guenther Subject: BibTeX for CMS The CMS changes file for BibTeX 0.99 is now available. You can FTP it and all the rest of the BibTeX files (be sure to get them all) from on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU. The new 0.99 files will also be on the next CMS distribution tape, whenever I can get to cutting one that is. Dean Guenther TeX IBM VM/CMS Site Coordinator Washington State University Pullman, Wa. 99164-1220 phone: 509-335-0411 BITnet: GUENTHER@WSUVM1 ------------------------------ Date: 16-JUN-1988 17:18:23 GMT From: ABBOTTP%aston.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK Subject: Three Column Style for LaTeX I have just acquired the triple column format viz: % ******************************************************** % This is the triple column format. * % Tomas Rokicki, 29 September 1984 * % ******************************************************** This alters the output routine and when using with LaTeX I then get the following. ......... \vmargins=\dimen105 \leftcolumn=\box25 \middlecolumn=\box26 ) (C:\TEX\TEMP.AUX) ! Undefined control sequence. \pagebody \leftline #1->\@@line {#1 \hss } ...lobal \setbox \leftcolumn =\columnbox \global \let \lmr =M \else... \unhbox \leavevmode ->\unhbox ...... Is there a LaTeX equivalent for triple column output. Peter 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, 16 Jun 88 12:33:42 CDT From: Don Hosek Subject: GFtoPXL on CMS A brief quote from GFtoPXL CMS-CHAN: > Important remark: in large parts of the TeX community, there is a > belief that a PXL file must always consist of exactly 128 characters. > There are even driver programs that try to find the pxl directory at > exactly 128*4+5 words from the end of the pxl file. This belief is > wrong. The last but one word of the pxl file is the pointer to the > beginning of the directory, so it is easy to calculate the number > of characters that are defined. This change file allows GFtoPXL to > convert up to 256 characters, and the resulting directory is as > small as possible. I discovered this little comment to be false recently while working on a CMS Change file for PXtoPK; to quote the documentation on the PXL format: >The Font Directory follows, occupying a fixed position with respect to the >end of the file (in words 517 through 6 from this end), and assigns 4 >words for each of the potential 128 different glyphs that could be >contained in this particular font in the order of their assending ascii >values (not in the order that the glyphs appear in the raster section, >which may be entirely arbitrary). This means that the first four words are >for the ascii zero glyph. All four words reserved for any missing glyphs >are set to zero. and later, >@ When we get to this section we have all of the esential information >needed to write the |4*max_glyph_no| words of the font directory and the >last five words of the |pxl_file|. I think that this makes it rather clear that the PXL format requires a pointer for *every* character code from 0 to max_glyph_no (127 for standard PXL files); the current CMS-CHAN for GFtoPXL stops writing the glyph directory after writing the pointer for the character with the highest ASCII code. In most fonts this is 127, so there is no problem, but in the logo* fonts, the glyph pointer ends after character 84 ('T') causing the font to be rejected by PXtoPK. I am changing the CMS-CHAN for GFtoPXL to conform to the documented format for PXL files and forwarding the result to Dean Guenther. As for those individuals who choose to modify the PXL format for their own use, they should change the PXL id byte or some such to indicate the change. Better yet, use PK files. They're *much* better. -dh ------------------------------ From: toms@ncifcrf.gov Subject: New BiBTeX Styles Is there an easy way to find out if the files available by ftp in Rochester contain one that does what I want? Do I really have to wade through gobs of stuff on a foreign computer to find it? Why do we need 500 styles? Since shapiro-btxbst-0.98.doc doesn't do quite what I need, will I be forced to write my own TeX code even though I'm a beginner? What about all those beginners out there who would never even consider writing code and will hate LaTeX because of this? This is a dishonerable state of affairs for such a fancy type setting system. A better solution is needed. One solution is to have a bunch of nice neatly packaged switches, that can be flipped inside the document itself: reference inline / superscripts / author-year / author-year fused (etc) brackets / parenthesis (etc) alphabetization of bibliography unalphabetized/alphabetized listing order of author namess first last / last, first position of year titles / no titles (I had to write a program to do this!!!) boldface / not bold volume number The list could go on. perhaps the question of order would be better addressed by the order of requests. A single function that did this might look like: \bibform{ last, first, (year) journal {\em bf}, page-page. } (This is the form I need, by the way---do you know if it exists?) Since I didn't put 'title' in the list, it wouldn't put the title EXCEPT for books (which must always have a title of course). The punctuation would be as given in the bibform, so if I wanted brackets around my year I'd simply: \bibform{ last first, [year] journal {\em bf}, page-page. } The citations would be defined by something like: \citeform{(\superscript)} Wouldn't it be nice to simply say these simple lines IN YOUR TeX FILE? Are there any TeXhackers out there who could do this? Tom Schneider National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Mathematical Biology Frederick, Maryland toms@ncifcrf.gov ------------------------------ From: munnari!munmurra.oz.au!alw@uunet.UU.NET (Alex Warman) Subject: Any trip tested versions of TeX running under Xenix Date: Thu, 16 Jun 88 19:56:26 +1000 I would appreciate details of any implementations of TeX running on Xenix; must be properly trip tested of course. Is it in Pascal or C? Is it public domain or for money, and from whom? thanks, Alex Alex Warman ACSnet: alw@munmurra.mu.oz TeXworks, Pty Ltd Internet: alw@munmurra.mu.oz.au 157 Danks Street UUCP: uunet!munmurra.mu.oz!alw Melbourne, Victoria, 3206 BITNET: alw%munmurra.mu.oz@uunet.uu.net Australia ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 01:25 CDT From: Daniel Keizer Subject: Dview Dvi previewer I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but I can't recall it on TeXhax before, so ... there is a public domain dvi viewer for the pc supporting CGA,EGA and a Toshiba I believe. It comes with an example and enough PXL files (6 or7 i believe) to run the sample. It is rather good (at least to me as this is the first previewer I have used). I found it by doing a dir on the files on the simtel20 fileserver through rpicicge. The file is as such: PD:DVIEW.ARC and the HP2TEX font converter is there as: PD:HP2TEX.ARC To get them from BITNET, send mail to LISTSERV@RPICICGE with the /PDGET PD:xxx.yyy I specified ( UUENCODE after the filename as I have problems receiving straight binary files on this node. I am not sure of the whereabouts for the source for dview, but I think it might be around somewhere. All I need to do now is load some fonts down from our VAX. Anyone have a straight-forward way to download them? I tried with kermit and also turned the FILE TYPE BINARY on, and it won't work (Kermit 3.3.111) Do I have to convert them on the VAX before I can download them?, or what am I missing here? (I sure hope that we have the proper fonts for the use of this DVIEWER). BTW: With all this hoopla re: ctex and tex-in-c etc. I downloaded my copy of CTEX from the mainframe to my pc and tried to get it working ... no go on MS DOS. COmpiles OK, Links OK (so it seems), the INITEX file is 270K+ but DOS says it's too big to fit in memory (I have 640, 540+ useable thereabouts). Did I have tochange some constant first, or what? I have seen requests go by for people asking the whereabouts and availability of these TeX programs, but I have not seen too much. Could it be possible to list the whereabouts of these programs and the possibilities or receiving them to this BITNET node? Is it possible to list such things as a post-amble to the digest? Just some ideas ... Cheers Dan. ------------------------------ Subject: TeX for a PC without hard disk Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 08:48:20 +0100 From: Steve Kille I have a PC (Toshiba), with two 720k floppies, and would like to use laTeX on it. Following assumptions: - I will be able to trim down the number of style files to a fairly small number - High quality output will be made elsewhere. This is for document development only. Even dvidoc style output would be OK. - Need to print on a simple (Epson) printer Some experiments with PCTeX (which says that it needs a hard disk) have been close enough to suggest that it could be made to work. Has anyone managed to make one of the TeXs (public or commercial) work in this environment? Steve ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 13:03:31 BST From: BOOTH.CM%EXETER.AC.UK@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: TeX88 European Conference and Courses --- LAST CHANCE!! TeX88 European Conference and Courses at Exeter University (England) in July Hopefully all you TeXites will by now be fully conversant with this fine event. In case any of you have been in darkest Africa, in hibernation, or otherwise slipped through the net, this note serves as a timely reminder. The Conference is from 18th to 20th July, and includes papers on a wide range of topics, with contributors from America as well as most parts of Europe. There are also various social events to complement the pursuit of knowledge. The cost of the conference is 210 pounds sterling, including accommodation. For non-residents the fee is 120 pounds sterling. A varied range of courses and workshops are also on offer immediately before and after the conference. These comprise: 16th and 17th July: Beginning Non-Technical TeX Beginning Metafont Design of Documents 21st and 22nd July: Beginning LaTeX TeX Macro Writing Hitch Hacker's Guide to LaTeX Style Files Each course and workshop costs 125 pounds sterling (residential) or 65 pounds sterling (non-residential) There's less than a month till the start of the conference and courses, so if you haven't yet registered (tut tut) then you should do so NOW! Contact Malcolm Clark in London using one of the addresses below. If you use email, and don't get a reply within a few days, it may be that his mailer has sent the message into a black hole, which happens occasionally. If so, I'd suggest resending the email, or contacting him by other means. Details as follows: Malcolm Clark Janet: TEXLINE@UK.AC.IMPERIAL.CC.VAXA Imperial College Computer Centre Telephone: 01 589 5111 extension 4949 Exhibition Road Telefax: 01 584 7596 London SW7 2BP Telex: 929484 Impcol G U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1988 09:39 EDT From: Brian Holmes! Subject: BUG in TeX I'm not sure if anyone has addressed this bug, but here it is anyway. When using \item and \itemitem, with \bf appearing in the body, not the header, it never gets turned off. Example: \item{1)} Even though this should be in \bf{bold} this should not! All the text after \bf{bold} is also in bold. * Brian Holmes \ / _____ * * Wayne State University \/\/su | | * * Detroit Michigan ____| |____ * * | | | | * * BITNET : BHOLMES@WAYNEST1 | | | | * * INTERNET : Brian_Holmes%WU@UM.CC.UMICH.EDU | | | | * * UUCP : {UMIX|ITIVAX}!WAYNE-MTS!BRIAN_HOLMES ============= * ------------------------------ From: Karl R. Wurst Subject: Metafont problems in VMS We recently received the Stanford TeX Distribution for VMS, and are having problems with fonts. I have tried to run Metafont 1.3 from that distribution and get the following error: ! METAFONT capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=30001]. This happens with every font file that I have tried so far. How do I go about fixing this? Also included on the tape were some WEB files for converting between various font formats. However, there were no change files included. When I try to compile them, I get errors from the VAX Pascal compiler. Can anyone point me to the VMS change files for the following WEB files: GFTOPK.WEB PKTOPX.WEB PKTYPE.WEB PXTOPK.WEB I am especially interested in the PKTOPX.WEB change file, as we have an old QMS driver that requires .PXL files, and all we have are .PK files. But, of course, I would like to have all of them for future use. Any help with either of these problems woud be greatly appreciated. Karl R. Wurst Information Systems Department Central Connecticut State University WURST@CTSTATEU.BITNET ------------------------------ From: DBUERGER%SCU.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 10:58 PDT Subject: I got the LaTeX blues. . . . Someone just sent this to me. Reproduced without permission. Enjoy... The Underfull Badness Blues by Frankeye Jones (Sing to the tune of "Do Run Run") I thought I put the backslashes in I thought I did it right; But when I tried to run the thing The screen displayed this sight: "Error, error, error," it said So I've got no time to lose My line's too long and my bracket's missing I've got the underfull badness blues (a-do-run-run-run, a do-run-run) I can do most anything With Latex as a tool Make boxes, tables, Greek letters too And I can alter the size of my pool But wait! I got too excited again It's the same old, not-good-news My control sequences are in error again I've got the underfull badness blues (a-do-run-run) My life is like a Latex run With trials and errors each day The fates one minute are on my side Then they slip and slide away I lose my keys, I'm out of Scope I'm totally missing my cues The cats have fleas and the water heater burst I've got the overfull/underfull badness blues (a-do-run-run-run, a do-run-run) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 14:02:33 EDT From: Mr. Scott Bodarky (ART-UGRAD) Hi, I was hoping someone out there might be able to help me with a problem. We are working with a double column format producing indexes, but in order to get the page headers correct, we need to have the first and last word on a page listed up top. \Splitbotmark works, except when there is nothing in the right column, in which case \splitbotmark is empty and I need to use \botmark. The question is, How do I test for an empty \splitbotmark? Neither \ifx\empty\splitbotmark nor \ifx\null\splitbotmark seem to work. Thanx, Scott Bodarky ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 88 14:46 EST From: SPACIL H S Subject: TeX on VAX under VMS We've gotten the TeX VAX/VMS distribution tape and the 300 dpi VAX/VMS font tape (Stanford version, from Maria Code) for our mivroVAX II running VMS 4.6 with output to an LN03+ laser printer. Attempts to generate GF fonts (before we received the font tape) were generally unsuccesssful; only a few of the MF files could be used for generation. And now that we have the font tape, attempts to convert GF fonts to PXL fonts with GPtoPXL (for use with the LN03 driver) result in an error message to the effect that the GF font file contains an erroneous byte. Are we doing something really stupid? Steve Spacil/spacil@crd.ge.com ------------------------------ From: lamport@decwrl.dec.com (Leslie Lamport) Date: 17 Jun 1988 1211-PDT (Friday) Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #56 (LaTeX notes) Ken McGlothlen wants to make a column of numbers like | Column 1 ----------|--------- Row 1 | 32.0 Row 2 | 983.21 Row 3 | 1.1 in a tabular environment. I believe I've already indicated that the easy way to do this is \begin{tabular}{...r@{.}l...} ... & 32&0 & ... \\ ... & 983&21 & ... \\ ... & 1&1 & ... \end{tabular} I will be away for about a month, and will probably not examine a month's worth of TeXHaXes very carefully when I return. So, anyone with a question for me would do well to hold it til August. Leslie Lamport ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 16:30 EST From: Subject: Mirror-image fonts Does anyone happen to have fonts for the English alphabet in *reverse*-- that is, mirror image? A psychologist here needs to print backwards words for use in an experiment. We are running TeX on VAX/VMS. I suppose that Metafont could be used to create the fonts, but I have no knowledge of how to use Metafont. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance. Carl Spitznagel Dept. of Mathematics John Carroll University BITNET: SPITZ@JCUVAX ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 14:45:17 PDT From: John Lee Subject: Hyphenation I've noticed a tendency that TeX not consider hyphenation of the second word of a compound word, preferring instead to justify ridiculously. For example, for the sentence: This device is a new design micro-accelerometric transducer assembly capable of perpetual motion. TeX would rather: This device is a new design micro-accelerometric transducer assembly capable of perpetual motion. or This device is a new design micro- ... (Sorry for the poor examples), but the best place to have justified the line would have been to hyphenate micro-accelerometric at something like micro-accel- erometic ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------