Subject: TeXhax Digest V89 #52 From: TeXhax Digest Errors-To: TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu Maint-Path: TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu To: TeXhax-Distribution-List:; Reply-To: TeXhax@cs.washington.edu TeXhax Digest Friday, May 19, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 52 Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay %%% The TeXhax digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group %%% %%% in cooperation with the UnixTeX distribution service at the %%% %%% University of Washington %%% Today's Topics: Tenth Annual Meeting Outputing ASCII formfeed via \immediate\write Re: Suggestion: Submissions to TeXHax in TeX source code Stephen Hawking is a TeX user Re: TeXhax V89 #42 (centre the last line of a paragraph; \crcr) Re: Problem with code Re: Questions about LaTeX-environments Tex for Ultrix Re: PS and TeX Re: PS and TeX Graphics in TeX, Virtual memory ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 89 09:25:42 PLT From: Dean Guenther Subject: Tenth Annual Meeting Keywords: TeX, meeting This year's annual TeX Users Group conference has the biggest program yet. Don Knuth is our keynote speaker, presenting his paper "The Errors of TeX". If you would like more information about this year's meeting or would like a registration form, you may call the TeX Users Group office at 401-751-7760 (Eastern Time) or send an electronic note to TUG@MATH.AMS.COM. TeX Users Group Ten Years of TeX and METAFONT Stanford University August 20--23, 1989 Updated Program as of April 25, 1989 Sunday -- August 20 12:00 - 2:00pm Registration Font Forum 1:00 - 1:30 Introduction to METAFONT -- Doug Henderson 1:30 - 2:00 From Character Set to Font -- Pierre MacKay 2:00 - 2:30 Opening Pandora's Box -- Neenie Billawala 2:30 - 3:00 Order into Chaos: Typesetting Factal Images -- Alan Hoenig 3:00 - 3:15 Break 3:15 - 3:45 Design of Oriental Characters with METAFONT -- Don Hosek 3:45 - 4:15 Thai Languages and METAFONT -- Bob Batzinger (Thailand) 4:15 - 4:45 A METAFONT-like System with PostScript Output -- John Hobby 4:45 - 5:15 Migration from Computer Modern Fonts to Times Fonts -- Ralph Youngen, Daniel Latterner, and William Woolf 5:15 - 5:45 Fine Typesetting with TeX Using Native Autologic Fonts -- Arvin Conrad 7:00 - 10:00pm Dinner at the Sino Restaurant* Monday -- August 21 7:45 - 9:30am Registration 8:00 - 8:30 Introduction to TeX and TeX Systems (for New Members) -- Bart Childs and Alan Hoenig 8:30 - 9:00 Introduction to TUG and TUG Officers and Staff Keynote Address 9:00 - 11:30 The Errors of TeX -- Don Knuth 11:30 - 1:00pm Lunch** 1:00 - 2:30 Elections/Business Meeting 2:30 - 2:45 Break 2:45 - 3:00 Report from the Driver Standards Committee -- Robert McGaffey 3:00 - 5:00 Output device manufacturer/exhibitor presentations:*** ArborText, Inc.; Blue Sky Research; Computer Composition Corp.; K-Talk Communications; Kinch Computer Co.; Micro Publishing Systems; Personal TeX; TeXnology, Inc. Orientation 5:00 - 5:15 Things to do in and around Palo Alto -- Ginger Brower 5:15 - 5:30 Organization of the Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions for Sites (DG, CMS, MVS, CDC, UNIX, VMS, etc.) to be held during and after the Wine & Cheese 5:30 - ??? Wine & Cheese -- hosted by Personal TeX, Inc. Tuesday -- August 22 TeX Training 8:30 - 9:00am Of the Computer Scientist, by the Computer Scientist, for the Computer Scientist -- Michael Doob (Canada) 9:00 - 9:30 Mastering TeX with Templates -- Hope Hamilton 9:30 -10:00 TeX and its Versatility in Office Production -- Jo Ann Rattey-Hicks 10:00 -10:30 TeX for the Word Processing Operator -- Robin Kubek 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 11:30 Site coordinators' status reports:**** VAX (VMS) -- David Kellerman; UNIX -- Pierre MacKay; Small Systems -- Lance Carnes; IBM VM/CMS -- Dean Guenther; IBM MVS -- Craig Platt; Data General & Cray -- Bart Childs; CDC Cyber -- Jim Fox. 11:30 - 1:00pm Lunch** General Applications 1:00 - 1:30 TeX in Mexico -- Max Diaz (Mexico) 1:30 - 2:00 TeX for 30,000 -- James Haskell, Wally Deschene and Alan Stolleis 2:00 - 2:30 TeX Enslaved -- Alan Wittbecker Graphics Applications 2:30 - 3:00 Methodologies for Preparing and Integrating PostScript Graphics -- Tom Renfrow 3:00 - 3:40 TeX pic -- Design and Implementation of a Picture Graphics Language in TeX a la pic -- Rolf Olejniczak (West Germany) 3:40 - 4:00 Break and organization of Topical Birds-of-a-Feather (Topics to be decided at this time.) Database Applications 4:00 - 4:30 TeX at Mathematical Reviews -- William Woolf and Daniel Latterner 4:30 - 5:00 Lexicography with TeX -- Jorgen Pind (Iceland) 5:00 - 5:40 Automated Database Publishing -- Two Case Studies -- Alex Warman, Alun Vaughan, and Tim Kelly (Australia) 5:40 - ??? Topical Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (LaTeX, graphics, fonts, etc.) 6:30 - 8:00 10th Anniversary ``Mexican Fiesta'' Dinner -- sponsored by the TeX Users Group 8:00 - ??? Social Hour/Party Time -- hosted by ArborText Wednesday -- August 23 Help Sessions 8:30 - 9:30am TeX Help Session -- Barbara Beeton 9:30 -10:15 WEB Help Session -- Wayne Sewell 10:15-10:30 Break General Information 10:30 - 11:00 The State of TeX Users Groups in Europe -- Malcolm Clark (England) 11:00 - 11:30 Keeping an Archive Dust Free -- Peter Abbott (England) 11:30 - 1:00pm Lunch** TeX Tools 1:00 - 1:30 TeX reation -- Playing Games with TeX's Mind -- Andrew Greene 1:30 - 2:00 Table Generation Techniques used in the Cellular Package -- John Pittman 2:00 - 2:30 Indexing TeX's Commands -- Bill Cheswick 2:30 - 3:00 DVI File Processing Programs -- Stephan von Bechtolsheim 3:00 - 3:15 Break 3:15 - 3:45 Using WordPerfect 5.0 to Create TeX and LaTeX Documents -- Anita Hoover 3:45 - 4:15 TeX Macros for COBOL Syntax Diagrams -- Mary McClure 4:15 - 4:45 Coordinating a Procedural Language and Text Editor to Create an Efficient and Workable PC Interface for TeX -- Brad Halverson and Don Riley 4:45 - 5:00 General wrap-up and closing -- Bart Childs et al. * Reservation required. Formerly known as the China First Restaurant. ** Working lunch for the Board of Directors. *** Tentative listing based on previous participation. Representatives are scheduled to be available throughout the meeting. Exhibit rooms will be open from 8:30 am Tuesday, until 5:00 pm Wednesday. **** Tentative listing based on previous participation. An IBM PC and Apple Macintosh will be available so that members may exchange software. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 May 89 15:38:41 EDT From: PORTER Subject: Outputing ASCII formfeed via \immediate\write Keywords: ASCII, \immediate\write How can I get \immediate\write to output the ASCII code for , rather than what appears to be the token display format of ^^L? I have changed the catcode of ASCII 12 to ``letter'', so I don't get the run-away argument stuff (^^L is catcoded active, defined as \par), but I still don't get ASCII 12. (\catcode`\^^L=11). Mike Porter mike@vax1.acs.udel.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 22:54:55 CDT From: Don Hosek Subject: Re: Suggestion: Submissions to TeXHax in TeX source code Keywords: TeX, submissions Yes, it would be nice, but it would require a lot of work on the part of the moderators, and I don't think it would be fair to them to put this extra load on them (I'm grateful enough that they've induced some consistency into the Subject: lines and added meaningful keyword: headers.) And then there' the question of whether or not people want to read TeXhax as a TeX document or not. I suspect not. Back when I started TeXMaG, I put out a survey to see whether people would prefer straight text or TeX source. straight text was overwhelmingly preferred (I usually go through TeXhax at home, and even if I wanted to, printing is not generally an option. It's far easier to read straight text on my monitor screen then to wade through TeX source (especially for weird listings and such). And don't forget there are many people who have to PAY for their laser printing (I've heard prices as high as $.20/page). In short, while at the surface it's a nice idea, it has far too many disadvantages to be worthwhile. dh Don Hosek | Internet: U33297@UICVM.UIC.EDU 3916 Elmwood | Bitnet: U33297@UICVM.BITNET Stickney, IL 60402 | DHOSEK@YMIR.BITNET Work: 312-996-2981 | UUNet: dhosek@jarthur.claremont.edu ERASE * SCRIPT * | JANET: U33297%UICVM.UIC.EDU@UK.AC.EARN-RELAY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 May 89 11:15:00 CST From: "DAVE CARGO" Subject: Stephen Hawking is a TeX user Keywords: TeX, general The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking gave a public lecture in Minneapolis on May 16th. One of the things he mentioned in his opening remarks when he was discussing how he did his work was that he used TeX to do his equation writing. His voice synthesis computer and its menu interface are apparently well adapted to providing the character streams appropriate for writing equations in TeX. They would probably be much less adaptable for writing equations in symbolic form. This is just an example of how TeX serves to enable a severely disabled but remarkable man, much to our benefit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 MAY 89 18:07:57 BST From: CHAA006%vaxb.rhbnc.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Reply-To: Royal Holloway and Bedford New College <"Philip Taylor"@vaxb.rhbnc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: TeXhax V89 #42 (centre the last line of a paragraph; \crcr) Keywords: TeX, paragraphs, \crcr Anne Brueggemann-Klein's solution to the "center the last line of a paragraph" problem is brilliant; I wish I'd thought of it ! Anne asks if there are any real-world applications for negative shrink terms; I once used them in a similar context, where I had a series of entries which after line-folding would occupy one or two lines; the first line was to be set left-justified with no hyphenation and no stretch/shrink; the second was to be set right-justified with the same criteria. It's very similar to the problem posed, but I just couldn't make the quantum leap necessary to derive Anne's solution. Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Incidentally, Stephan von B. has re-phrased his question "why do people [e.g. Knuth] terminate the PREAMBLE of \halign s with \crcr ?", to which I haven't yet seen any response. In a private communcation to S v. B, I suggested that it might be because [Knuth] anticipated \cr being re-defined, or perhaps even re-defined it himself; searching through PLAIN.TEX, I found two such re-definitions: one in \m@ketabbox and one in \bordermatrix. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 23:04:20 CDT From: Don Hosek Subject: Re: Problem with code Keywords: LaTeX The problem is due to the way that LaTeX deals with optional arguments: Essentially if LaTeX is parsing an optional argument it will define a macro to read it with \something[#1] Since square brackets have no special meaning, LaTeX will interpret the first square bracket that appears as the closing argument to parameter number 1. (Reading the chapter on macros in the TeXbook may elucidate somewhat better than I can at 11:04). Anyway, the quick way to avoid the problem is to do something like \section[{blah blah [1] blah}]{yuk yuk yuk} Note the extra curly braces inside the square brackets. dh Don Hosek | Internet: U33297@UICVM.UIC.EDU 3916 Elmwood | Bitnet: U33297@UICVM.BITNET Stickney, IL 60402 | DHOSEK@YMIR.BITNET Work: 312-996-2981 | UUNet: dhosek@jarthur.claremont.edu ERASE * SCRIPT * | JANET: U33297%UICVM.UIC.EDU@UK.AC.EARN-RELAY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 10:37 N From: "SCHOEPF@DMZNAT51.BITNET" Subject: Re: Questions about LaTeX-environments Keywords: LaTeX, environments In TeXhax #35 Piet Tutelaers asks: >> a) Why does the following environment definition not work? >> >> 1:\documentstyle{article} >> 2:\begin{document} >> 3:\newenvironment{showinput}{\begin{quote}% >> 4:\begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}} >> 5: >> 6:\begin{showinput} >> 7:\newenvironment{showinput}{\begin{quote}% >> 8:\begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}} >> 9:\end{showinput} >> 10: >> 11:\end{document} On p.168 the LaTeX book says: ``A verbatim or verbatim* environment may not appear in the argument of any command.'' The reason behind this lies in the way the verbatim environment reads the text in its body. Actually it is looking for the STRING `\end{verbatim}'. Since this string appears on line 8 of the above file the verbatim environment ends there and closing brace is considered spurious. I'm currently writing a style file that will allow to use verbatim and verbatim* as indicated in this example. >> b) Is it possible to create a generalized environment in which each line of >> text can be processed by a macro? ... Yes, it is. The basic idea is to make the end-of-line character active and to define a macro whose only parameter is delimited by this character, i.e. something like (don't take it too serious, I did not test it): {\obeylines \def\oneline#1~~M{\addtocounter{line}{1}% \makebox[1cm][r]{\arabic{line}}c#1\\}} You then have to define an environment that automatically inserts this macro before every line. I see several ways to do it but at the moment I'm not sure which one is the best. >> It is not difficult to think of other examples: >> \newcommand{\donothing}[1]{} >> >> \begin{comment} >> A large piece of >> text >> you >> want to comment out >> \end{comment} >> >> instead of: >> \begin{comment} >> \donothing{A large piece of} >> \donothing{text} >> \donothing{you} >> \donothing{want to comment out} >> \end{comment} The style file I mentioned above will also implement such a comment environment. >> c) The LaTeX document, as far as I have seen, does not explicitly forbid >> spaces between the arguments of the \newenvironment: >> \newenvironment{nam}[args]{begdef}{enddef} >> ~? ~? ~? ~? >> Where are spaces allowed and where not, and why? In most cases spaces TeX skips spaces before arguments. LaTeX usually skips spaces also before optional arguments. For a detailed discussion you should refer to chapter 20 of the TeXbook. Rainer Sch\"opf Inst. f. Physik Univ. Mainz --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 16:31:49 EST From: rhb%NBS.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Richard Beeler, R-E-WP5, ERL, Boulder, CO, 303-497-6841) Subject: Tex for Ultrix Keywords: TeX, Ultrix Greetings. I am in the process of converting four MicroVaxes from VMS to Unix. We are currently running Tex under VMS and wish to continue running it under Ultrix. Do you know where we can get Tex to run under Ultrix? I would appreciate any assistance you can give. Please respond to me at RHB@NBS.BITNET thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 May 89 12:01:39 +0200 From: hanche@imf.unit.no Subject: Re: PS and TeX Keywords: PostScript, TeX In TeXhax 89 #42, Henry Crapo writes Too bad that the definitions in Postscript aren`t kept from one page to the next in a TeX document. It seems that one cannot simply declare PS subroutines once and for all at the beginning of an article, like one does with TeX macros. Is this true? Does TeX issue a save/restore bracketing each output page? TeX does nothing of the sort. TeX has never heard of PostScript, save and restore. But you friendly PS driver possibly does. I use Beebe's dvialw, and it does issue a save/restore pair around each PS file included via a \special command. Not around pages, though. Other PS drivers may do it differently. Is there any clever way around this problem? Yes, what works for me is this, in the included PS file: %% Escape from surrounding save/restore restore /mumble { foo bar } def save %% Now we're ready for that restore... Of course, this is dirty and horrible and not only device dependent, but device driver dependent which is worse. But it is effective. Harald Hanche-Olsen Division of Mathematical Sciences hanche@imf.unit.no The Norwegian Institute of Technology hanche@norunit.bitnet N-7034 Trondheim-NTH NORWAY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 17:25:21 -0400 From: rjchen@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Raymond Juimong Chen) Subject: Re: PS and TeX Keywords: PostScript, TeX Henry Crapo asks: > Too bad that the definitions in Postscript aren`t kept > from one page to the next in a TeX document. It seems > that one cannot simply declare PS subroutines once > and for all at the beginning of an article, like one > does with TeX macros. Part of the problem is that part of the behaviour is dictated by the rules for Encapsulated Postscript. Separate pages must be logically independent. You should be able to extract pieces out of the Postscript, shuffle them around, duplicate some pages, delete others, reverse the order, etc., and still get a Postscript program that will run and produce the pages with the desired transformations. Hence, to have definitions on page one hang around and be used on page two is a violation of EPS rules. For what if you used a page selector to print only page two? Or a page reverser to print page two before page one? The official solution is to stick the definitions into the preamble. I am not aware of a dvi to ps converter which lets you stick arbitrary code into the preamble, but then again, what do I know? rjchen@phoenix.princeton.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 89 20:20:03 EDT From: "David F. Rogers" Subject: Graphics in TeX, Virtual memory Keywords: graphics, TeX G'day, In texhax89.42 Stephen v Bechtolshem says TeX was never intended to do graphics. TeX can be viewed in two ways: as a typesetter's language or as a programming language. Viewed as a programming language, there is no fundamental reason that TeX cannot do graphics. Saying TeX cannot or shoud not do graphics is like saying that C cannot or should not do ..... or Fortran cannot or should not do ..... etc. There are implementation considerations (limited memory) that currently restrict TeX's ability to adequately address the graphics questions. These can be easily solved (well not exactly easily but ....) by going to a virtual memory implementation. Kinch (TurboTeX) has shown this to be feasible. True, there are performance penalties. However, initial tests indicate that these penalties are not terribly significant. (I am not currently going to give exact figures because the tests are not complete.) To have the best of both worlds, I suggest the implementers consider a command line option, e.g. tex -v -- invokes the virtual memory system tex -- without the virtual memory system Using a ramdisk on a PC for the `virtual' memory, the extra penalty should be minimal and basically be limited by the `speed' of the disk controller. Dave Rogers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% The TeXhax digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group %%% in cooperation with the UnixTeX distribution service at the %%% University of Washington %%% %%% Concerning subscriptions, address changes, unsubscribing: %%% BITNET: send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@xxx %%% where xxx is the nearest geographical site in the %%% tree shown below %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L % to subscribe %%% or UNSUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% Here is the BITNET re-distribution tree as shown in a recent %%% REVIEW (The geography is guessed at from the subscription list) %%% %%% CLVM TAMVM1 FINHUTC %%% | | (Finland, UK, Scand, CERN) %%% | | | %%% TeXhax ----> UWAVM ----- MARIST ----- EB0UB011 ----- BNANDP11 %%% | (France,Italy,Spain) (Belgium) %%% | | %%% UBVM HEARN --- DEARN %%% (Netherlands) (Germany) %%% %%% Internet: send a similar one line mail message to %%% TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu %%% Please be sure you send a valid internet address!! %%% in the form name@domain or name%routing@domain %%% and use the style of the Bitnet one-line message, so that %%% we can find your subscription request easily. %%% %%% All submissions to: TeXhax@cs.washington.edu %%% %%% Back issues available for FTPing as: %%% machine: directory: filename: %%% JUNE.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU TeXhax/TeXhaxyy.nn %%% yy = last two digits of current year %%% nn = issue number %%% %%% For further information about TeX Users Group services and publications %%% contact Karen at KLB@SEED.AMS.COM or write to TUG at %%% TeX Users Group %%% P.O. Box 9506 %%% Providence, R.I. 02940-9506 %%% Telephone (401) 751-7760 %%% %%% Current versions of the software now in general distribution: %%% TeX 2.95 (2.98 coming) metafont 1.7 %%% plain.tex 2.94 plain.mf 1.7 %%% LaTeX 2.09 ( 8/10/88) cmbase.mf see cm85.bug %%% SliTeX 2.09 gftodvi 1.7 %%% tangle 2.9 gftopk 1.4 %%% weave 2.9 gftype 2.2 %%% dvitype 2.9 pktype 2.2 %%% pltotf 2.3 pktogf 1.0 %%% tftopl 2.5 mft 0.3 %%% BibTeX 0.99c %%% AmSTeX 1.1d %%%\bye %%% End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------