Subject: TeXhax Digest V89 #88 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 Monday, October 2, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 88 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: Announcing BibTeX V0.99c for the Atari-ST !!! TUG '89 Meeting at Stanford -- questionnaires, please Switching between one and two columns on the same page More about \hanging \immediate\write of a character Active characters make reasonable command terminators Re: Squeezing spaces from write token list OzTeX fits on two floppies TeX on an ATT PC Round-off errors when processing \oval from LaTeX Unix man pages Help with blackboard bold and cyrillic fonts ... Where to get dvipage? and article writer needed Change files for TeX and METAFONT Re: TeX, troff, man pages -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 22:48:37 EDT From: jlong@afit-ab.arpa (Jeffrey K. Long) Subject: Announcing BibTeX V0.99c for the Atari-ST !!! Keywords: BibTeX V0.99c, Atari-ST BibTeX v0.99c is avialable for the Atari-ST! It should soon be available from the terminator archive server for anonymous ftp (35.1.33.8) or from the panarthea mail server. It will run on any ST, although I will assume that you have a hard-drive as it is really needed to run LaTeX on the ST to begin with! I ported this version of BibTeX over from the excellent MS-DOS implementation by Niel Kempson (of the UK). He took the WEB code and hand translated it into Turbo-C V2.0 code. I have the Prospero-C, ANSI compatible compiler on my 1040ST, and the changes were minimal to get it ported over! I have also submitted the program to the comp.binaries.atari.st moderator, so keep an eye open for it there in a few weeks (I understand he has a huge backlog of submissons :-) ). If you really need it badly, try and reach me via E-Mail, and I can send a uuencoded copy to you via E-mail. | Jeff Long jlong@blackbird.afit.af.mil (ARPA net) | | | | humble (and getting humbler by the day) graduate student; | | The Air Force Institute of Technology (what a great way of life??) | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 16:03:45 EST From: Christina_Thiele%CARLETON.CA@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: TUG '89 Meeting at Stanford -- questionnaires, please Keywords: general, TUG meeting This is a short reminder to all those who attended the recent TUG meeting at Stanford, and who picked up a Questionnaire on the last day. Out of 170 questionaires picked up, already some 70 have been returned to me. I would really love to have a lot more! I'm going to be program co-ordinator at next year's meeting at Texas A&M (in June), so I would be very interested in comments and suggestions... uh, not that every single one of them will be implemented, but it would be very helpful to hear what attendees thought about various aspects of the meeting. And of course, you don't hve to hold back, just 'cause you didn't pick up a for! Send your comments and suggestions -- and complaints -- about this year's meeting, and we'll see what can be done to address them. And to all those you did fill out the form -- Many thanks for your comments and suggestions. Oh, if sending e-mail correspondence, it would help me if the subject line were: TUG '89 -- Questionnaire. See you in Texas... how many of you write TeXas? ;-) Christina Thiele ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 07:22:26 CDT From: "Lee Schneider" Subject: Switching between one and two columns on the same page Keywords: TeX, LaTeX, columns Does anyone out there have ready-to-run macros for plain TeX or LaTeX that allow switching between one and two columns in the middle of the page? There are some macros on P. 417 in the TeXbook that are supposed to do this, but I cannot get them to run (there seems to be some problem with the variable dimen@), and I don't know enough TeX to figure what is wrong. (My apologies for bothering all of you with what is probably a very elementary problem, but I know of no TeX guru here.) If anyone can provide me with an equivalent set of macros, or explain to me how I can get Knuth's example to work, I would be most appreciative. I probably need to mention that I am trying to get this to work under TeXtures on the Macintosh. Apparently the standard "plain" format is supposed to have this variable "dimen@," but from what I understand about TeXtures, the version of "plain" it uses is not entirely standard, and that may be the cause of my troubles. Thanks, Lee Schneider Department of Mathematics University of Missouri-Columbia MATHPG2@UMCVMB.BITNET or MATHPG2@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 89 10:04:37 PDT From: S John Banner Subject: More about \hanging Keywords: TeX, macro, \hanging In response to my message in TeXhax V89, I84, it was suggested that I check out the \hang macro (or the \hangindent paramter in general), and after playing with it for a while, I remembered why I havn't been using it... \hang This is a bunch...... gives: This is a bunch of text, ... \hang\hangafter=2 This is a bunch ... gives: This is a bunch of text ... and this is some more... \hang\hangafter = -2 This is a bunch ... gives: This is a bunch of test ... and this is some more... none of which are what I want, hence the definition of \hang that I came up with that does basicly what the regular \hang does, but it also clears \parindent. Up to there, all is pretty much fine. The problem comes when we get to blocks of paragraphs that are all to be hung. I want to be able to say something like: {\hanging This is some text ... {\hanging And this is some more text ... } {\narrower And this is still more text ... } And finally, a bit more. } and have it give me: This is some text with a hang... And this is some more text ... And This is still more text ... And finally, a bit more. Perhaps this explains the problem a bit better. I have played with all the parameters mentioned in the section on hanging indents, and parshapes, and I am not happy with the results that I got... Thanks again, S. John Banner -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 15:56:00 PST From: Peter Scott Subject: \immediate\write of a character Keywords: ASCII, \immediate\write Okay, this is one I've banged my head against for a few hours: ASCII character code in \charcount; how to \immediate\write the character corresponding to that code? \immediate skips the usual digestion process, so \chardef\cc=\charcount \immediate\write16{\cc} doesn't work. Tried all sorts of variations of the form \chardef\cc=\charcount \xdef\aa{\cc} \immediate\write16{\aa} or \chardef\cc=\charcount \toks255={\cc} \immediate\write16{\the\toks255} and no luck. Tried perusing source code that does table-of-contents without success. [In case it ain't obvious, if \charcount is 65, the output should be a record consisting of the character "A".] Any takers? Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) P.S. "Ask your local TeXpert won't do in this case - I *am* the local TeXpert. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 16:52:43 edt From: Dan Bernstein Subject: Active characters make reasonable command terminators Keywords: TeX, control sequence parsing, inconsistency To respond to the complaint that TeX's control sequence parsing engenders inconsistency before spaces, one must present a solution that is easy to type and, if possible, looks reasonable. Define an active character, possibly followed by a sequence of several characters, as \relax. The character will not munch spaces after it and hence can be used as a consistent separator or terminator. One need not redefine every control sequence in the format. The difficult decision is what sequence of characters to use. I always use editors that take advantage of special characters available, so I have both a filled-above-diagonal triangle (to match the backslash) and a gray box; but I suspect few other users can easily type or display those symbols. The best solution I can figure out in standard ASCII is a sequence of two or three double quotes, since such a sequence is very easy to type, doesn't interfere with \", and looks reasonable. Dan Bernstein, brnstnd@acf10.nyu.edu, bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 17:59 CST From: Subject: Re: Squeezing spaces from write token list Keywords: macros, TeX write command, token list expansion In texhax.89.075 Carlos A. Felippa writes: >>Consider the macro definition >> >> \def\writedef#1#2{\immediate\write16{\def\ #1{#2}}} >> >>[This is a simplified form of a more complicated macro I am >>using to prepare an indexed database.] Then >> >> \writedef{macroname}{macrodefinition} >> >>writes the line >> >> \def \ macroname{macrodefinition} >> >>What is the simplest way to get rid of the blanks before >>and after \ in the output line? The following example provides a solution. Run "write.tex" through TeX. You'll get a "undefinded control sequence" errormessage when TeX encounters \abc. Respond by typing "i\relax", and then run TeX again {\bf WITHOUT} changing "write.tex". This time TeX will successfully produce one page of output. [Notice that input stream numbers can only take values between 0 and 15, cf. The TeXbook, p. 216.] %=================== CUT HERE ============================================== %%% file "write.tex" {\catcode`\*=0 *catcode`*\=12 *xdef*DEF{\def\}} \def\writedef#1#2{\immediate\write15{\DEF#1{#2}}} \openin15=\jobname.lab \ifeof15 \else \closein15 \input \jobname.lab \fi \immediate\openout15=\jobname.lab \writedef{abc}{123} \abc \bye %================== CUT AGAIN =============================================== In order to be able to use the command "\abc" during the first pass, you could use the following definition of "\writedef": \def\writedef#1#2{\expandafter\xdef\csname #1\endcsname{#2}% \immediate\write15{\DEF#1{#2}}} I have a working cross-referencing system based on this approach. J\"urgen Koslowski Dept. of Math. & Comp. Sci. Macalester College St. Paul, MN 55105-1899 612-696-6041 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 21:07:25 edt From: Dan Bernstein Subject: OzTeX fits on two floppies Keywords: OzTeX To those who, like me, have a Mac with two floppy drives and no hard disk: Don't be deterred from getting OzTeX. With a lot of paring it will fit on two disks, leaving 150-200K available on the second disk for files. I have almost all the tfms and pk-300s and have well over 100K free. To squeeze as much as possible onto the disks I set OzTeX to be the startup program and removed the Finder; for file manipulations I use a DA. Two notes about this procedure: (1) When OzTeX quits, it appears to ignore Apple guidelines---it transfers to the Finder. So rename OzTeX as Finder. (2) Without the Finder, you should shut down by quitting OzTeX; it will restart itself, and you can safely eject the disks and turn off the machine. Other setup procedures should be reasonably obvious to any TeXnician; I'll refrain from listing here my entire directory structure. I hope this attracts more people to an excellent TeX implementation. Dan Bernstein, brnstnd@acf10.nyu.edu, bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue 19 Sep 89 18:19:11-EST From: Jeffrey S. Joel Subject: TeX on an ATT PC Keywords: TeX, ATT PC I was recedntly gifted with an AT&T PC, running UNIX, but without the optional DOS card. Does anyone out there know of an implementation of TeX for this machine? (There are no further identifying model numbers.) Please send replies directly to me as I do not always read the bulletin board. Thanks very much. Jeff Joel Math. Reviews P. O. Box 8604 Ann Arbor, MI 48107-8604 Internet: jsj@seed.ams.com OR jsj@vax01.ams.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 18:16:37 -0700 From: karger@ultra.enet.dec.com (Paul A. Karger 19-Sep-1989 1817) Subject: Round-off errors when processing \oval from LaTeX Keywords: LaTeX, round-off errors I have had a great deal of trouble getting the following simple LaTeX document to print correctly: \documentstyle[11pt]{article} \begin{document} \begin{figure}[htb] \begin{center} {\thicklines\small\sf \begin{picture}(349.6,209.1)(20,8) \put(194.6,35.4){\oval(90.5,54.0)} \end{picture} } \end{center} \caption{oval problem} \end{figure} \end{document} The problem is that the vertical sides of the oval do not quite match-up with the rounded corners, due to a round-off error in the DVItoXXX programs. (The problem does not come from the odd sizes in the example. I can get it to fail with integer sizes.) The problem seems to be a round-off error that originates in DVITYPE, as every DVItoXXX converter that I have tried exhibits the same problem. The University of Cambridge in England has an excellent DVI to PostScript converter that was written from scratch that does not exhibit that behavior, but unfortunately their converter is not generally available. Jerry Leichter has looked at the problem for me (thank you Jerry), and it is his belief that the problem originates in DVITYPE, and most DVI converters are based on DVITYPE. Does there exist any generally available DVI to PostScript converter that CAN handle \oval properly? - Paul Karger --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 14:15:33 EDT From: sinha@caen.engin.umich.edu (SARVAJIT S SINHA) Subject: Unix man pages Keywords: LaTeX, UNIX, man pages Is there a style file for formatting Unix man pages using LateX ? I am sure someone has already written this, so could you please send me the address of the location where I could ftp it from. Thanks in advance, Sarvajit Sinha Sarvajit Sinha sinha@caen.engin.umich.edu 157, ATL Bldg,University of Michigan 313-764-2138 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 19:38:25 PDT From: desouza%bosco.Berkeley.EDU@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Help with blackboard bold and cyrillic fonts ... Keywords: fonts, blackboard bold, cyrillic I am trying to use the AMS Fonts inside LaTeX, in special the BlackBoard Bold and the Cyrillic fonts. I put the line \input mssymb but when I use it, it comes all right on the text, but when we need it a little bit bigger (let's say in a Chapter name, or section heading) it does NOT increase the size as normally does the other fonts. The question is them: What can I do so it will follow whatever size is being used for thatparticular moment. To translate between english and cyrillic I use a table passed on to me by a systems manager over here, but the table has a couple of bugs that I cannot decipher. How can one find the exactly relation between the two alphabets ? Thanks in advance for any help, Paulo Ney de Souza |Internet: desouza@math.berkeley.edu Dept. of Mathematics | BITNET: desouza%math.berkeley.edu@ucbjade.bitnet Univ. of California | UUCP: {harvard,rutgers,...}!ucbvax!math!desouza Berkeley CA 94720 | Work: 643-8638 Home: 524-5734 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 89 11:01:33 EDT From: HOOVER Subject: Where to get dvipage? and article writer needed Keywords: dvipage Where can I ftp dvipage from and is anyone interested in providing an article in TUGboat about previewers available for different devices? anita -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 89 15:21 ADT From: Gus Gassmann Subject: Change files for TeX and METAFONT Keywords: TeX, METAFONT, change files We are currently running TeX version 2.93 and METAFONT 1.4. Is there a kind soul out in TeXland who could supply us with change files to update to the current versions? (There is no FTP at this site.) Many thanks. gus gassmann GASSMANN @ dalac.bitnet % old bitnet address gassmann @ earth.sba.dal.ca % new domain style address (may not work!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 12:30:59 PDT From: Phil Farrell Subject: Re: TeX, troff, man pages Keywords: TeX, troff, man pages In TeXhax vol 89, issue 85, William LeFebvre says: > I've often thought of implementing the troff man macros in TeX. If > that were done, then one could just TeX-off the printed form whenever > desired but still have "nroff -man" for the man command. So what's > needed? First, we need to define "(newline)." as the equivalent of an > escape character. Any takers? There is another existing way to do this. The UNIX TeX distribution includes a contributed program tr2tex from a former student here at Stanford that can convert troff manuscripts that use either -ms or -man macros to LaTeX documents. It doesn't do a perfect job for complicated troff constructions, but the simple macros normally used in man pages come through just fine. This isn't the real answer for replacing troff with TeX on UNIX systems because it still requires that you keep nroff around and it still requires that you know the -man macros for writing man pages. What I think is needed is a combination of a LaTeX style option that forces the output to use a constant-width font and constant line spacing, etc; plus a dvi interpreter that can reproduce such a restricted output on a normal terminal screen. For the fairly simple documents that are used as on-line documentation (no math and only simple tables that can be done with tabs) this would allow regular typesetting via LaTeX for printed copies, but also permit viewing on a normal dumb terminal by including the special style option and processing through the special dvi interpreter. I am afraid, however, that this would be a rather large project to undertake and unfortunately can never imagine having the time to do it myself. Phil Farrell, Computer Systems Manager Stanford University School of Earth Sciences farrell@erebus.stanford.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% Further information about the TeXhax Digest, the TeX %%% Users Group, and the latest software versions is available %%% in every tenth issue of the TeXhax Digest. %%% %%% Concerning subscriptions, address changes, unsubscribing: %%% %%% BITNET: send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@xxx %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L % to subscribe %%% or UNSUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% %%% Internet: send a similar one line mail message to %%% TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu %%% JANET users may choose to use %%% texhax-request@uk.ac.nsf %%% 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 %%% %%%\bye %%% End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------