TeXhax Digest Wednesday March 29, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 28 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: Kinch Computer Co.-- TeX vendor Re: Needed: information on certain drivers Re: graphics in TeX Problem with LaTeX \box and query about text- and scriptstyle The purpose of strut Here's a man page for the spelltex script posted recently Problems with \includeonly and \tableofcontents Non-English Hyphenation Re: TeXhax Digest V89 #18 (WYSIWYG and VorTeX) Problem with AMS fonts in TeX 2.93 Problems with numeric formatting ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 89 08:48:40 -0600 From: Ralph Johnson Subject: Kinch Computer Co.-- TeX vendor Keywords: general information Someone in V89 #17 asked about versions of TeX for the PC/AT, and someone in V89 #19 asked about DVI drivers for LaserJet IIs. I just got a "Buyer's Guide" from Kinch Computer Company that offers both of these things and more. Kinch supports TeX on PC class machines and on Unix System V systems. In addition to all the usual sorts of drivers and previewers, they offer support for including graphics from paint programs or scanners in TeX documents, OCR software, and a TeX-FAX system that lets you use a FAX machine as an output device, eliminating the jagged edges that usually result with FAX. The prices are all reasonable and for a little extra you can get C source. Although I have never used any of these products, Dick Kinch is a friend of mine from graduate student days. He has high standards, both technically and ethically, so I don't hesitate to recommend him. The address is Kinch Computer Company, 501 S. Meadow St, Ithaca NY 14850. Telephone: (607) 273-0222. FAX (607) 273-0484. Ralph Johnson -- johnson@cs.uiuc.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 12:56:52 CST From: Don Hosek Subject: Re: Needed: information on certain drivers Keywords: dviware [Note sent to both TeXhax and inquirer to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible] I'm assuming that you are looking for drivers for VAX/VMS for lack of any identifying information (note to all who see this... PLEASE specify both the printer and the computer for any driver information requests). If you hear of anything else or receive additional information on the drivers listed, please send me whatever information you have. I'm not familiar with the VT330, so I've listed drivers for both Tektronix and ReGiS compatible terminals. dh DEC LA75, LP100 (VAX/VMS) University of Utah DVIL75 (by John Sauter) Uses GF, PK, and PXL files. INFN/CNAF TXMAPPER, TXREGIS DEC ReGIS Uses PXL files. Written in FORTRAN. Source Included. Kellerman \& Smith, Stanford Tape DVItoVDU (by Andrew Trevorrow) AED 512, ANSI-compatible, DEC ReGIS, DEC VT100, DEC VT220, Tektronix 4014, Visual 500, 550 Uses PK or PXL files at output device resolution. Written in Modula 2. Source Included TPSoftware TP Tektronix 4010/4014 compatible Uses special "stick-figure" fonts to display TeX output. Written in Fortran. Source Included. Distributed on your choice of IBM 5.25" disk, IBM 3.5" disk, Mac 3.5" disk, or TK50 cartridge (enclose your own or add $40 to order). Cost: $185 INFN/CNAF Contact: Maria Luisa Luvisetto Postal Address: Via Mazzini 2 40138 Bologna, Italy Phone: 51-498286 Bitnet: MiLtex@Iboinfn DECnet: <39947::luvisetto> Availability: Older versions of the INFN drivers are on the VAX/VMS distribution tape. Current versions may be picked up on DECnet/ Span; for more information on this, send mail to the DECnet address: <39947::luvisetto> Transfers are *only* available for DECnet/Span users. No tape distribution from INFN/CNAF is available. Kellerman & Smith Contact: Barry Smith Postal Address: Kellerman & Smith 534 SW Third Avenue Portland, OR 97204 Phone: (503) 222-4234 Telex: 910-240-4397 Usenet: tektronix!reed!barry Stanford VMS distribution tape Contact: Maria Code Postal Address: Data Processing Services 1371 Sydney Drive Sunnyvale CA 94087 TPSoftware Contact: Harold T. Stokes Postal Address: P.O. Box 922 Provo, UT 84603-0922 University of Utah Contact: Nelson H.F. Beebe Postal Address: Center for Scientific Computing 220 South Physics University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 Phone: (801) 581-5254 Internet: Beebe@Science.Utah.EDU Availability: All of the Beebe drivers are distributed together. They are available on 1600bpi 9-track tape in TOPS-10/20 BACKUP/DUMPER format, VAX/VMS BACKUP format, Unix tar format, and ANSI D-format. Send a tape plus $100 for a copy. IBM PC floppies are available from Personal TeX or Jon Radel. FTP: The programs are available for anonymous FTP from SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU on the internet; information is in the file PS:00README.TXT. A VAX/VMS binary distribution is available for anonymous FTP (password guest) from CTRSCI.UTAH.EDU. 00README.TXT in the login directory gives details. On JANET, the programs may be obtained from the directory aston.kirk::[public.texdvi210]. On DECnet, they are available from the DECnet file repository, for more information send mail to the DECnet address <39937::luvisetto>. Bitnet servers: The drivers are available from Listserv on EARN to European Bitnet users. Sending the command GET DRIVER FILELIST (in an interactive message, or as the first line of a mail message) to LISTSERV@DHDURZ1. Files are obtained with the command GET filename filetype. Don Hosek Internet: U33297@UICVM.UIC.EDU 3916 Elmwood Bitnet: U33297@UICVM Stickney, IL 60402 DHOSEK@YMIR Work: 312-996-0658 UUNet: dhosek@jarthur.claremont.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Mar 89 20:08 -0800 From: laura halliday Subject: Re: graphics in TeX Keywords: graphics my two cents' worth...TeX does a spectacular job of typesetting text and mathematical equations. isn't that enough? it doesn't do the greatest job of drawing pictures, but it was never intended to. rather than dreaming up extensions to TeX to make it draw pictures, i would *much* rather see a page layout program that grokked .dvi files as well as graphics files. leave the pictures to programs that know how to draw pictures. we already do this at a primitive level by inserting graphics with \special and letting our dvi-to-whatever programs fit things together. of course it's not pure TeX, but so what? i'm not a purist; i want results. ...laura halliday@cc.ubc.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: MON 27 MAR 1989 14:35:00 EST From: INHB000 Subject: Problem with LaTeX \box and query about text- and scriptstyle Keywords: LaTeX, \Box, textstyle, scriptstyle I was using LaTeX' \Box to mark the end of proofs. The definition was \def\epf{~\hfill$\Box$\medbreak} The problem was that it didn't come out at the right margin as I wanted. A little more experimenting showed that the problem is that the LaTeX \Box (which is character "32 in the lasy font) appears to somehow fool TeX as to its actual width. To see the odd behavior, try to run this file through LaTeX: \documentstyle[12pt]{article} \begin{document} $\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box\Box$ blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah \end{document} The more boxes that are added to a line (anywhere, beginning, end or middle), the more the line will be foreshortened. Does anyone know a cause and cure for this? I have another question. Is there any way to make a command like \over or \atop that puts its arguments in textstyle if they are used on a line, but will make them scriptstyle if they appear in superscripts. I currently use the definition \def\jacobi(#1/#2){\left({\textstyle{#1}\over\textstyle{#2}}\right)} to print out Legendre or Jacobi symbols. In using \textstyle, I conform to the style of at least some number theory books (as well as what me eye assures me is best looking, since the arguments are not logically subordinate). I have never had occasion to use this in an exponent, but if I did, I would want to put the arguments into scriptstyle. Is there any way of having this done automatically? Michael Barr ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 12:48:39 CST From: Don Hosek Subject: The purpose of strut Keywords: LaTeX, strut The correct height of a strut depends on what it's being used for: it's general purpose is to ensure that the proper spacing between lines occurs in places where TeX's line spacing might not normally occur, e.g., in tabulars or between footnotes. Thus, we want the height (and depth) of the strut to correspond to the current line spacing. In general, we would want this to be the same as baselineskip (use one of the fontdimen parameters to track the size, if you must). There are some notable exceptions, however, e.g., a single-space tabular in a double-space document, but that case should probably be enclosed in something along the lines of \begin{singlespace}..\end{singlespace} to guarantee that p-columns come out correctly. dh Don Hosek Internet: U33297@UICVM.UIC.EDU 3916 Elmwood Bitnet: U33297@UICVM Stickney, IL 60402 DHOSEK@YMIR Work: 312-996-0658 UUNet: dhosek@jarthur.claremont.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 18:22:24 PST From: dennis@yang.cpac.washington.edu (Dennis Gentry) Subject: Here's a man page for the spelltex script posted recently Keywords: spelltex, man page The man page is 7 times larger than the program. Dennis Gentry CPAC Computing Services Manager .TH SPELLTEX 1L "27 March 1989" .SH NAME spelltex \- spell check a TeX or LaTeX file. .SH SYNOPSIS .B spelltex file .SH DESCRIPTION \fISpelltex\fP uses \fIspell\fP(1) to spell check the named file. It will ignore most \fITeX\fP(1L) and \fILaTeX\fP(1L) keywords. .LP spelltex foo .LP spell checks the file "foo.tex". If there exists a file "foo.spell" containing correctly spelled words, sorted in the standard collating sequence (i.e. output of \fIsort\fP(1)), none of these words appear in the output of \fIspelltex\fP. This is for use in making a stop list of things that no pattern matcher could detect as \fITeX\fP or \fILaTeX\fP syntax. Such a list can be made by spelltex foo > foo.spell when foo contains no spelling errors. For British spelling change "spell" to "spell -b" in both lines of the \fIspelltex\fP shell script. .SH OPTIONS None .SH "SEE ALSO" spell(1), TeX(1L), LaTeX(1L) .SH BUGS Spelltex is only as good as spell. .sp .4v Each user must create her own stop list. .sp .4v It should be possible to request British spelling without editing \fIspelltex\fP. .SH AUTHOR Charlie Geyer, Department of Statistics, University of Washington. (charlie@stat.washington.edu) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 22:18:39 EST From: Ashwin Ram Subject: Problems with \includeonly and \tableofcontents Keywords: \includeonly, \tableofcontents When working on individual chapters for a report, I use \includeonly to process the chapter I'm currently working on. I also like to look at the \tableofcontents of this chapter since it provides a nice outline of the chapter. It would be nice if only the \tableofcontents for that included chapter was actually printed. E.g., if there are 10 chapters and I \includeonly{chapter3}, \tableofcontents should print the "Table of Contents" header and then only the \tableofcontents for chapter 3. Currently, I have to either (a) edit the .toc file and delete all but the chapter 3 lines, or (b) print the entire table of contents and remove the pages that I don't want. Neither is very satisfying. I'm sure I've overlooked a hundred reasons why this is harder than it looks (e.g., getting labels and page numbering right will probably be hard). However, if anyone has (or is willing to attempt) a solution for this, I'd appreciate getting hold of it. Thanks, Ashwin. ARPA: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harvard,cmcl2,...}!yale!Ram-Ashwin BITNET: Ram@yalecs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 02:24:19 EST From: jessica!sbmath!eric@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Eric Jablow) Subject: Non-English Hyphenation Keywords: LaTeX, hyphenation A number of people at my institution are writing documents in languages other than English; French, Spanish, and Portuguese, for example. Is there any place from which I may obtain hyphenation tables for any non-English language? Additionally, has anyone access to non-English word lists for spell? We only have dictionaries for American and British English. I know about the foreign LaTeX styles available from the University of Rochester. I've also forgotten how to set up alternative hyphenation tables. Can anyone give me pointers? Respectfully, eric%sbmath@sbee.sunysb.edu Eric Robert Jablow eric%fawn@sbee.sunysb.edu SUNY at Stony Brook "Master of Fawn's Hall" Department of Mathematics Don't you wish she were your secretary? Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3651 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Mar 26 23:06:35 1989 From: microsoft!w-colinp@uunet.UU.NET Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V89 #18 (WYSIWYG and VorTeX) Keywords: WYSIWYG, VorTeX You wrote: > 1) it is NOT a WYSIWYG system. As far as I know, VorTeX is the > only piece of software based on TeX that approaches this > capability. It's odd, but I don't mind. For small, fancy things like presentation graphics and ad layouts, WYSIWIG is important. For books and journals (unless you're trying to be flashy), it doesn't seem to be. I have to muck around for a while to get the format right, and after that I want to use all my standard text editing tools instead of being forced to use the typesetter's editor, which is more of an afterthought and probably doesn't have all the tools I'm used to. > a) No concept of `ink on a page' - TeX deals in empty > rectangular boxes of specified dimensions, and knows > nothing about their contents. This has important > consequences for the inclusion of figures, and doing > many of the tricks currently handled with ease by > Mac-based DTP systems. Could you clarify? There are various limitations in TeX I'd like to fix (someday... like, years hence) and am not familiar with this one. Certainly a good typesetting system should allow the inclusion of various graphics in the text, where standards for encoding those pictures exist, but being able to paste in an illustration is also useful. > b) No optimisation of pagination. Yes, this is something which has been developed since TeX, and needs work. (Increased memory capacities also help.) > c) The confused and confusing notion of one language > being used for macro definition (as in text replacement), > and for building style files. This isn't so bad. There are problems with TeX's macro language, but what is the distinction you're making? > Im my opinion, only a complete rewrite of TeX, that takes its algorithms > for hyphenation, paragraph-setting, kerning/ligatures, mathematics > handling, and general goodies, but places them in the context of a system > which provides a REAL programming language as well as a simple macro > definition facility, and moves on towards assimilating the lessons Don > Knuth might have learnt had DTP been in existence when he began work > on TeX, will meet the requirements of the 1990's. I'd like to write such a beast. Important points for me are providing the basic algorithms (as you mention above) and giving the user maximum access to the algorithm engines. I think the way to do it is to define a programming language which interprets the input stream. In TeX, the ideas of reading input and writing output are implicit, and I'd like to make them explicit. In most cases, it just runs the user's input through the typesetting algorithms, but a useful interpreter will also have escapes to let you modify the interpreter at run-time. A simple macro facility is easily added by the interpreter writer. And, of course, you would also be able to use this super-TeX for things awk and perl are used for today. The challenge is making all this sufficiently fast, but we can't make it too easy... > If ArborText are interested in sponsoring a group of TeX fiends > (including myself) so that we can continue work on the TinT project > (TinT is not TeX), we'd be happy to hear from you. Now, what us this? Thanks for helping my information addiction! -Colin (uunet!microsoft!w-colinp) "Don't listen to me. I never do." - The Doctor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 00:25:58 gmt From: Bo Thide' Subject: Problem with AMS fonts in TeX 2.93 Keywords: TeX 2.93, AMS, fonts I have just installed the AMS fonts from the directory /amsfonts on the U Wash distribution tape for TeX 2.93. For some reason all AMS characters get printed on top of each other. Is this normal or is something wrong with the .tfm files? I am running HP-UX 3.0 on an HP9000/835 (if that's of any importance). Please e-mail. ^ Bo Thide'-------------------------------------------------------------- | | Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 91 Uppsala, Sweden |I| [In Swedish: Institutet f|r RymdFysik, Uppsalaavdelningen (IRFU)] |R| Phone: (+46) 18-403000. Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S). Fax: (+46) 18-403100 /|F|\ INTERNET: bt@irfu.se UUCP: ...!mcvax!enea!kuling!irfu!bt ~~U~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------sm5dfw ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 89 21:14:52 CST From: J E PITTMAN Subject: Problems with numeric formatting Keywords: numerics, formatting I've been trying to add numeric formatting to my cellular package, but am finding out that I know very little about how numbers are formatted in general (and obscure) manuscripts. The current set of patterns I'm considering are: [ -> non_digits <=A digits ]B [ non_digits <- ]C [ -> non_digits <=D digits ]E [ . digits =>F non_digits <- ]G [ -> non_digits <=H digits ]I [ . digits =>J [ exp =>K [ sign =>L text <-]M <- ]N <- ]O [ -> non_digits <=P digits ]Q [ exp =>R [ sign =>S text <- ]T <- ]U where [ ... ]letter denotes a numeric element that is to be typeset to same width within a column, the letter is used for identification. -> or <- denotes a point and direction of stretch. =>letter or denotes an optional point and direction of stretch <=letter that overrides a -> or <-, the letter is used for identification. non_digits include +, -, CR, $, et cetera. digits include 0..9, comma, and underscore. exp is the exponent notation characters (usually E). sign is +, -, or nothing. text is any text. . is a decimal point. Formatting one numeric pattern within a column is fairly simply, however, what I'm having trouble with is formatting a mix of patterns within a column such as 10,000.00CR 10,000.00CR 10,000.00CR 100- or -100 or - 100 10+ +10 + 10 Although the cellular package can keep track of the 21 variables that my patterns require on a per column basis, the problem is determining relationships between patterns and how to allow the user to specify them. Another problem is determining the minimal sufficient set of patterns that need to be considered. Does anyone have suggestions? A good reference? Anything? J E Pittman Bitnet: JEPTeX@TAMVenus User Services Group Internet: JEPTeX@Venus.TAMU.EDU Computing Services Center Texas A&M University P.S. 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