Subject: TeXhax Digest V90 #10 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 Sunday, January 14, 1990 Volume 90 : Issue 10 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: %%Moderator`s apologetic note: Due to a miscommunication, the incorrect %%version of Peter Flynn`s Network Server Document was included in %%TeXhax Digests 8 and 9. Please disregard this version. The correct %%version will be posted to TeXhax as soon as it becomes available. Tex macros requiring a paremter in braces Texhax kwic index available. Re: TUG courses DEC Documentation DVI-to-Postscript under SunOS V4? Fixing latex font problem on postscript printer. Balanced columns in LaTeX [jle@cfm.brown.edu: Balanced columns in LaTeX] Re: Balanced columns in LaTeX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Jan 1990 14:44:06 +0100 From: G15C%DHBRRZ41.BITNET@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Wilhelm Mueller) Subject: Tex macros requiring a paremter in braces Keywords: TeX, macros In TeXhax Vol90 #1, writes: <...> In fact, the situation is a bit different with \upppercase since, as documented in the first \doubledangerous paragraph at the top of p. 41 of the TeXbook, the \uppercase command (it is a kernel command) requires the argument to be delimited by braces. I cannot figure out how to do this with defined macros, by the way, although I am reluctant to say it is impossible. <...> <...> Well, I don't know how to do it with _one_ macro, but with two macros, there is no problem, at least as long as you only want the last para- meter to have to be enclosed in braces: \makeatchar% \def\mymac#{\@mymac@}% \def\@mymac@#1{}% \makeatother% will force you to write always \mymac{parameter value} Of course, these two definitions may well be automated by something similar to LaTeX's \newcommand/\renewcommand. - Wilhelm --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 11:46:10 EST From: clayton@thumper.bellcore.com (R. Clayton) Subject: Texhax kwic index available. Keywords: TeX index A kwic index for texhax 1989 is available via anonymous ftp from the directory /pub/tex on thumper.bellcore.com (128.96.41.1). Also available are a kwic index for texhax 1988 and a shar file (kwic.shar) containing the shell scripts used to maintain the index. Don't forget to set binary when copying the compressed (.Z) versions of the indexes. Due to a lack of talent and inclination, I'm not going to make these files available in any other form over any other network. Others are, however, welcome to do so. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 13:33:36 GMT From: Sebastian P Q Rahtz Subject: Re: TUG courses Keywords: TUG, courses >>>>> On Sun, 7 Jan 90 13:15:54 -0800, TeXhax Digest said: > The TeX Users Group is pleased to announce its March, 1990 > Course Schedule: > Intensive Beginning/Intermediate TeX, University of Michigan, March 5-9 > Advanced TeX/Macro Writing, Vanderbilt University, March 5-9 > Intensive Beginning/Intermediate TeX, Texas A&M University, March 12-16 > Inten Beginning/Intermediate TeX, Univ of Illinois at Chicago, March 19-23 > Intensive Course in LaTeX, Harvard University, March 26-30 > Intensive Beginning/Intermediate TeX, Northeastern University, March 26-30 for an international organisation this is a pretty parochial list of venues; I hope TUG is also trying hard to organize courses in countries whose troops don't invade sovereign states? :-} But seriously, remember the rest of us - after all, DEK just did, by extending TeX to give better support for non-English languages (please lets NOT use the word `foreign'). Sebastian Rahtz --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 07:51 EST From: Ted Nieland <@AAMRL.AF.MIL:TNIELAND@FALCON> Subject: DEC Documentation Keywords: TeX, LaTeX, DEC > >Date: 14 Dec 89 12:39 GMT+0100 >From: Jan Vorbrueggen >Subject: A historical LaTeX document >Keywords: LaTeX, history > >A historical note: >I just received a copy of "DECnet Digital Network Architecture (Phase V)", >\copyright 1987 by DEC. It is obviously typeset by LaTeX, and if >you look at the figures, you can see that LaTeX's line font >(esp. the arrow heads) were generated with cmbase loaded...:-) >Now I know why LL went to all that trouble giving us LaTeX! > >Jan Vorbrueggen >MPI for Brain Research >Frankfurt, FRG DEC has a product called VAX DOCUMENT, which is used to do almost all of the documentation for the VAX. DOCUMENT, for many years, was an internal tool only. DOCUMENT is based upon TeX and LaTeX. At several DECUS symposia, we have heard that DOCUMENT is based on the TeX code. I don't know if the above document was done using LaTeX or DOCUMENT. I am inclined to believe DOCUMENT, because I know it can look a lot like LaTeX. Ted Nieland --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 90 13:53 PST From: (Mike Hannon; UCD Physics; [916]-752-4966) Subject: DVI-to-Postscript under SunOS V4? Keywords: dviware We have a network consisting of one Sun 4/280, two Sun 4/110's, and three Sun 4/60's (SparcStation I's), all running SunOS 4.0.3 or SunOS 4.0.3.c. We have an Apple LaserWriter II NTX attached to the network and do ordinary printing using the ``transcript'' product. We'd like to be able to do TeX on these machines as well. To that end, I obtained what I take to be the canonical Unix TeX distribution from the University of Washington. I installed TeX itself without a great deal of difficulty. I then wanted to install a Postscript driver. It appeared to me that the ``TeXPS'' utility supplied with the Unix distribution was a de facto standard for Unix Postscript drivers, so I attempted to install it. The ``make'' procedure for TeXPS failed. I reported this via email to the author of TeXPS, and he responded that the utility did not work under SunOS version 4.x. He spontaneously sent me an update message, saying that he had found the problem and was on the verge of fixing it. Since that time I have been unable to contact the author, despite a couple of email attempts on my part (no mail-error messages, just no reply). My question is, essentially: now what? Obviously we aren't the only people in the world running SunOS V4. Does anybody actually have a working TeXPS driver for SunOS V4? Is there another driver which I should use instead? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Mike Hannon mike@ucdhep (Bitnet) ucdhep::mike (HEPnet) 42385::mike (HEPnet) jmhannon@ucdavis.edu (Internet) 916-752-4966 (Telephone) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 90 14:58 EST From: Subject: Fixing latex font problem on postscript printer. Keywords: fonts, LaTeX, PostScript Hello, I'm using Latex with DVIPS v4.0 to print on a DEC ScriptPrinter (PostScript version of LN03) under VMS 5.2 The latex fonts which are downloaded by dvips come out too thin. That is thin lines or curves come out as intermitent dots not continuous lines. For instance, on lower case "e"'s the bottom curve breaks away from the top. The problem is not the "printing". The problem is that the due to some roundoff error or something not all the appropiate pixels get turned on by the postscript printer. The problem seems to be in the vertical direction not the horizontal (explained below). I have a work around fix, that others might be interested in. I'm interested in any better fixes, or explainations of the true source of the problem. My fix: In TEX.PRO the postscript macro file that dvips prepends to the printer file there is a definition of "p" which is used as the macro to print or "show" the text. It's origional definition was: /p {show} bdf I changed it to the following: /p {dup show dup stringwidth neg exch neg exch rmoveto 0 .5 rmoveto show 0 -.5 rmoveto} bdf This causes all characters to be "printed" twice, normally, then displaced vertically one half pt. This makes the Latex fonts come out beutifully. Vertical movement is the key, horizontal displacement changes, but does *not* improve the text. The .5pt seems important also it seems to be the minimum to get all the pixels to turn on. More fixes the breaking up of the lines but quickly begins to smudge the font. Less is not guaranteed to fix the font. The following seems to be a good clue. /p {dup show dup stringwidth neg exch neg exch rmoveto 0 .3 rmoveto show %.5 changed to .3 0 -.5 rmoveto} bdf % this .5 is NOT changed This gives lines which zigzag up slightly every 3-4 characters. At about 3 out of 4 of the vertical steps the overlayed characters look *exactly* like what you get from the unmodified code. At several of the steps, however the font changes to the "good" font. This is what makes me suspect roundoff. As long as I stick with TeX fonts I'm pretty happy with the results, In my opinion the result is slightly better than what I get from our Imagens. However the PostScript fonts, which are correct to start with, come out slightly bolder. Not bad unless you are really picky, but for my taste Times-Roman is already slightly too bold, and this just makes it worse. If people can comment or help I will summarize if there is interest. Thanks, Chuck Parsons CHUCK@MITLNS.MIT.EDU CHUCK@MITLNS.BITNET ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 90 00:50:42 EST From: Anand Mehta Subject: Balanced columns in LaTeX Keywords: LaTeX, balanced columns Can anyone help this person? > X-Return-Path: <@brownvm.brown.edu:jle@cfm.brown.edu> > From: jle@cfm.brown.edu (Jon Elion) > Subject: Balanced columns in LaTeX > > I have been trying for some time to get BALANCED columns in LaTeX (not > TeX), similar to the macros Don Knuth used to produce Appendix I > (described in Appendix E). I have scoured manuals, back-issues of > texhax, and all my favorite FTP supermarkets, but to no avail. Several > variations of Knuth's macros for TeX have appeared in texhax, but these > are NOT suitable for LaTeX. > > Before becoming addicted to LaTex, I used SCRIBE, which had an > excellent BalanceColumns environment. I have several applications in > which this would be very handy. An example (somewhat trivial, but > representative) would be formatting a list of ingredients for a recipe, > where the list of ingredients is in two columns, and directions is in > single column. Rather than manually determining the proper location > for the column break, a BalanceColumns environment would do this > automatically. > > Has anyone encountered the necessary macros for balanced columns in LaTeX?? > As they say: "Thanks in advance!" > > jon elion > jle@cfm.brown.edu Thanks. Anand Mehta ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 05 Jan 90 18:08 GMT-0100 From: Ralf Treinen Reply-To: treinen@fb14vax.informatik.uni-saarland.dbp.de Subject: [jle@cfm.brown.edu: Balanced columns in LaTeX] Keywords: LaTeX I found the following in my collection of LaTeX stuff. I didn't try it, but it seems exactely to be the thing you need. It has been distributed via USENET, not via TeXhax. This is way you might not know it. I hope this helps, Ralf Ralf Treinen | Universitaet des Saarlandes FB 14 - Informatik (Dept. of CS) | D-6600 Saarbruecken 11, West Germany email: treinen@cs.uni-sb.de | phone: +49 681 302 2065 >From dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au Thu Nov 16 05:09:11 1989 Path: sbsvax!unido!mcsun!uunet!samsung!munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!viccol!dougcc From: dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Nice twocolumn style Message-ID: <2981@csv.viccol.edu.au> Date: 16 Nov 89 04:09:11 GMT References: <702@tuewsd.lso.win.tue.nl> Organization: Computer Services, Victoria College, Melbourne Lines: 61 Posted: Thu Nov 16 05:09:11 1989 A few people have asked for more flexible two-column formatting in LaTeX. These are the macros that I have been using for a while: % The twocolumns environment can be used anywhere in a one column document to % produce two column output. The twocolumns environment may extend for an % unlimited number of pages, and start and finish mid-page. Columns are % always balanced. The code works very hard to avoid two-column ``widows'' % and ``orphans''. No inserts are supported (haven't worked out where to put % them yet). \newbox\partialpage \newbox\leftcolumn \newdimen\dimen@ \newdimen\colsize \newdimen\lastpageshrink \newdimen\dimend \newenvironment{twocolumns}{\begingroup \pagegoal=2\textheight \lastpageshrink=\pageshrink \output={\global\setbox\partialpage=\vbox{\unvbox255}}\penalty-10000% \def\columnout{\trycolumnout}% \output={\columnout}% \hsize=\textwidth \advance\hsize-\columnsep \divide\hsize by 2 \columnwidth=\hsize \linewidth=\hsize \global\colsize=\textheight \global\advance\colsize by-\ht\partialpage \vsize=\colsize \global\advance\vsize by\lastpageshrink \multiply\vsize by2}% % \end{twocolumns} {\pagegoal=4\textheight \output={\balancecolumns\pagesofar}\break \endgroup \global\vsize=\textheight \pagegoal=\vsize} \def\pagesofar{\unvbox\partialpage% \wd0=\hsize \wd2=\hsize \hbox to\textwidth{\box0\hfil\box2}} \def\balancecolumns{\setbox0\vbox{\unvbox255} \dimen@=\ht0 \advance\dimen@ by\topskip \advance\dimen@ by-\baselineskip \divide\dimen@ by2 \splittopskip=\topskip {\vbadness=10000 \loop \global\setbox3=\copy0 \global\setbox1=\vsplit3 to\dimen@ \ifdim\ht3>\dimen@ \global\advance\dimen@ by1pt\repeat} \ifdim\dimen@>\textheight \dimen@=\textheight\fi \setbox0=\vbox to \dimen@{\unvbox1} \setbox2=\vbox to \dimen@{\unvbox3} \if\ht0>\ht2\setbox2=\vbox to\ht0{\unvbox2}\else \if\ht2>\ht0\setbox0=\vbox to\ht2{\unvbox0}\fi\fi} \def\trycolumnout{% \global\def\columnout{\leftcolumnout} \global\vsize=\colsize \unvbox255\penalty\outputpenalty} \def\leftcolumnout{% \global\def\columnout{\rightcolumnout} \global\setbox\leftcolumn=\vbox to\vsize{\unvbox255}} \def\rightcolumnout{% \global\def\columnout{\trycolumnout} \setbox0=\box\leftcolumn \setbox2=\vbox to \vsize{\unvbox255} \setbox\@outputbox=\vbox{\pagesofar}\@outputpage \global\colsize=\textheight \global\vsize=2\colsize} -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 90 16:14 PST From: "D.A. HOSEK" Subject: Re: Balanced columns in LaTeX Keywords: LaTeX, balanced columns Frank Mittelbach (who, along with Rainer Schoepf, is responsible for some of the most interesting LaTeX extensions ever written, has written a documentstyle option file called multicol.sty which is a generalized handling of multiple column output which can begin and end at any point on the page. Floating figures and tables are not currently supported, but footnotes are (across the bottom of the whole page). Frank promises that floats will be supported in a future version of the style option. My copy is dated as of last summer, so rather than send that to you, I will give you Frank and Rainer's e-mail address so that you can contact them directly and get the file: -dh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% 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. %%% %%% 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 %%% %%% For further information about TeX Users Group services and publications %%% contact Karen at KLB@MATH.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 2.992 metafont 1.8 %%% plain.tex 3.0 plain.mf 1.8 %%% LaTeX 2.09 (7/12/89) cmbase.mf see cm85.bug %%% SliTeX 2.09 (4/12/89) gftodvi 3.0 %%% tangle 4.0 gftopk 2.0 %%% weave 4.0 gftype 3.0 %%% dvitype 3.0 pktype 2.2 %%% pltotf 3.0 pktogf 1.0 %%% tftopl 3.0 mft 1.1 %%% BibTeX 0.99c %%% AmSTeX 1.1d %%%\bye %%% End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------