TeXhax Digest Monday, April 10, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 35 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: Re: IBM PC based DVI driver for the 3812 Journals accepting TeX Sources? German spell checker available ? RE: PD spell checker for VMS Nested ifs (second round) Re: Width of columns and \halign Questions about LaTeX-environments LaTeX footnotes...using letters or numbers as identifiers Dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX Problems with errata.tex Available for FTP: texsun for sun 386, etc Bugs in Chen's makeindex Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Apr 89 13:32:31 PLT From: Dean Guenther Subject: Re: IBM PC based DVI driver for the 3812 Keywords: dviware, IBM PC > Can anybody tell me whether there is an IBM PC based DVI driver for the > 3812? ... Gustaf Neumann has a PC driver that goes to a LaserJet or 3812. His address is NEUMANN@AWIWUW11.BITNET -- Dean ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Apr 89 16:43 +0100 From: Igor Metz Subject: Journals accepting TeX Sources? Keywords: TeX, journals Is there anybody out there who has an up to date list of all Journals accepting TeX/LaTeX/AMSTeX sources? Thanks for any feedback, Igor Metz X400: metz@iam.unibe.ch Institut fuer Informatik ARPA: metz%iam.unibe.ch@relay.cs.net und angewandte Mathematik UUCP: ..!uunet!mcvax!iam.unibe.ch!metz Universitaet Bern Switzerland Phone: (+41) 31 65 49 02 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1989 19:39:53.25 GMT+1 From: (Christoph D. Gatzka) Subject: German spell checker available ? Keywords: spell checker Does anybody know of a GERMAN spell checker or GERMAN dictionary in machine readable format ? (Please answer directly, since I do not subscribe to this list, to gatzka@dtupev5a.bitnet) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Apr 89 14:03:27 EDT From: Jim Walker Subject: RE: PD spell checker for VMS Keywords: spell checker, VMS K. Sankara Rao asks about PD spell checkers for VMS. Two come to mind: There is a program from Vassar, available from DECUS. I don't know much about it, other than the fact that it has some special provisions for TeX and LaTeX. Also, it happens that I wrote a spell checker myself, which I call SPELT. It has some TeX features, like ignoring control words unless you really want them checked, and ignoring stuff in math mode, and is written in WEB. I have posted this in the VAX forum on CompuServe. I suppose I could also send it by e-mail, although someone will have to remind me of the ins and outs of sending large files through the net. I don't know of a spell checker that is directly integrated with TPU, but you can fake it pretty easily. You can define a keystroke that will save a buffer to a file, spawn a subprocess to check the file, and read the file back into the editor. With a little more TPU programming, you can allow the user to select a range of text, which will be saved to a temporary file and checked, and read back in if changes were made. --- James W. Walker, Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208 BITnet: N410109@univscvm P.S. There is also a free spelling checker from Denison University. I would not recommend it, since parts of it have "broken" in recent releases of VMS, and source code is not available. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 22:18:58 CDT From: svb@cssun.tamu.edu (Stephan v. Bechtolsheim) Subject: Nested ifs (second round) Keywords: LaTeX, nested conditionals I had submitted a question along the following lines: > Assume the following nested ifs: > \if [1]... > then text 1 > \if [2] ... > then text 2 > \else > else text 2 > \fi [2] > \fi [1] > Now assume that instead of \if [2] there is a macro > \IfSomething which, when expanded, delivers a conditional. > Everything is fine as long as \if [1] is true because > then \IfSomething is expanded. But if \if [1] is false > then \fi [2] will terminate the \if [1] and it's all wrong. > > Is there anyway to define a macro \IfSomething in such a way > that TeX will recognize it as a potential conditiona'' when > conditional text is being skipped?! How do you solve this problem? > I answer on this list because of the large number of replies I got (over 10!). I obviously didn't express myself clearly enough: Assume you would like to define a macro \ifeven: \def\ifeven #1{% \ifodd#1\relax \let\result = \iffalse \else \let\result = \iftrue \fi \result } If you use this macro in a nested conditional then you are in trouble because when an \ifeven call is skipped TeX does not recognize that a conditional is behind \ifeven''. The \let\ifeven = \iftrue or so does not work because that would redefine the macro \ifeven. In other words there is no way in TeX to say \LookAtThisTokenAsConditional\ifeven and TeX would assume that \ifeven generates a conditional. One solution is to make the whole conditional including the and of the conditional into a macro: \def\ifeven #1#2#3{% \ifodd#1\relax #2% \else #3 \fi } Thank you for taking the time answering. Stephan Bechtolsheim P.S. I had submitted this questions mainly to confirm for myself that I am not missing anything here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 22:18:59 CDT From: svb@cssun.tamu.edu (Stephan v. Bechtolsheim) Subject: Re: Width of columns and \halign Keywords: LaTeX, columns Does anybody know of a STRAIGHT FORWARD way to get the width of a column in a table built with \halign? Thank you. Stephan Bechtolsheim ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 89 15:36:01 -0200 From: uunet!eutrc4!rcpt@entropy.ms (Piet Tutelaers) Subject: Questions about LaTeX-environments Keywords: LaTeX, environments I have some questions regarding environments in LaTeX: 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} This is TeX, C Version 2.93 (preloaded format=lplain 88.12.7) 11 APR 1989 15:18 . . . . . . . . ! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup. l.8 \begin{verbatim}}{\end{verbatim}\end{quote}} ? h I've deleted a group-closing symbol because it seems to be spurious, as in `$x}$'. But perhaps the } is legitimate and you forgot something else, as in `\hbox{$x}'. In such cases the way to recover is to insert both the forgotten and the deleted material, e.g., by typing `I$}'. b) Is it possible to create a generalized environment in which each line of text can be processed by a macro? Suppose we have an environment `gedicht' to create verse's in which each line is numbered: \newcounter{line} \newcommand{\oneline}[1]{\addtocounter{line}{1}% \makebox[1cm][r]{\arabic{line}}~#1 \\} \begin{gedicht} \oneline{Een schoon en fleurig huis, een tuin met ranken langs de muren} \oneline{een beker flonkerende wijn en vruchten in de schaal} \oneline{geen al te talrijk kroost, geen last en geen schandaal} \oneline{een trouwe vrouw die helpt het huisgezin besturen} \end{gedicht} I would prefer, of course, the following: \begin{gedicht} Een schoon en fleurig huis, een tuin met ranken langs de muren een beker flonkerende wijn en vruchten in de schaal geen al te talrijk kroost, geen last en geen schandaal een trouwe vrouw die helpt het huisgezin besturen \end{gedicht} (The first stanza of the poem ``Het Werelds Geluk'', made by Christoffel Plantin, translated into Dutch by Ward Ruyslinck. Plantin was a famous French typographer, living from 1548 to 1589 in Antwerpen.) 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} or: %A large piece of %text %you %want to comment out 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? I hope somebody can answer my questions. uucp: rcpt@eutrc4.UUCP | Piet Tutelaers Room RC 1.90 bitnet: rcpt@heithe5.BITNET | Eindhoven University of Technology phone: +31 (0)40 474541 | P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, NL --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 89 21:48 BST From: Jan-Ameij%UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU:AMEIJ@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK, Engineer Extraordinaire Subject: LaTeX footnotes...using letters or numbers as identifiers Keywords: LaTeX, footnotes Does anyone there know how LaTeX decides whether to use a letter or a number as the identifier for a footnote? My document contains footnotes within minipages, generated with the two part \footnotemark[1]...\footnotetext[1] method, but whereas the mark is a numeral, the text is identified with a letter. The Latex manual is not a great deal of help (even after I manage to find the pages the index tried to refer to but didn't quite!). Please reply directly, as only the odd TeXHaX manages to get through these days Jan Ameij, Oxford University Department of Applied Metaphysics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 14:46:17 GMT From: prlb2!kulcs!kulesat!kulmath!vanroose@uunet.UU.NET (Peter Vanroose) Subject: Dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX Keywords: Dutch, hyphenation, TeX In the previous TeXhax issue, Theo de Klerk (klerk%ijsapl.DEC@decwrl.dec.com) asks: > To implement a proper version of LaTeX on our machines, I'd like > to know if there is any dutch hyphenation pattern for TeX available > anywhere in netland. Some time ago, I constructed the file HYPHEN_NEDERLANDS.TeX , which works fairly well. It is even a lot smaller than HYPHEN.TeX; this is not so stange, because the splitting rules in dutch are rather strict and consistent. The only caveat is, that compound words (and those are in principle unlimited in dutch) are sometimes not splitted right. This of course can be cured by inserting `\-'s in the text itself. Fortunately, this is not happening too much. It can be remarked that newspapers seem to have the same ``compound word splitting'' problem with their automatic splitter. Installation: Replace the file HYPHEN.TEX by the one given below. Run initex on the preferred format (e.g. PLAIN.TEX or LPLAIN.TEX). Rename the output .FMT file : e.g. PLAIN.FMT ---> PLAIN_NEDERLANDS.FMT Replace the original HYPHEN.TEX. Define the commands nTeX as ``TeX &plain_nederlands'', nLaTeX as ``TeX &lplain_nederlands''. Peter Vanroose Department of Mathematics, K.U. Leuven, Belgium. VANROOSE@kulmath.uucp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Apr 89 21:59:28 PDT From: Darrell Long Subject: Problems with errata.tex Keywords: errata.tex Hi. I was trying to print the errata.tex file and had some problems. The complaint is that there are unmatched $'s, but they're there, I looked. It may be UNIX that is the culprit here, since there is a \ just before the end of the line before the error. Perhaps this is yet another macro mystery that I have not yet been initiated into. Can someone clue me in? Thanks, DL midgard [50]% tex errata This is TeX, C Version 2.98 (no format preloaded) (errata.tex (/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/manmac.tex) [1] [2] [3] ! Missing $ inserted. $ \par l.247 ...\\{save\_ptr})\gets\\{insert\_token};\par ? [4] [5] [6] [7] Runaway argument? {top\_skip\_code)$; \quad $\{\,$now $\\{temp\_ptr}=\\{glue\_ptr}(q)\,\ETC. ! Paragraph ended before \\ was complete. \par l.607 ? ! Missing $ inserted. $ \par l.607 ? [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Runaway argument? 1/23/89) \ninepoint \noindent {\bf labels}$(5,6)$; \ \\{zero\_width};\ETC. ! Paragraph ended before \bugonpage was complete. \par l.1002 ? [14] [15] Output written on errata.dvi (15 pages, 45804 bytes). Transcript written on errata.log. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 21:11:43 CDT From: grunwald%flute.cs.uiuc.edu@a.cs.uiuc.edu (Dirk Grunwald) Subject: Available for FTP: texsun for sun 386, etc Keywords: texsun, SUN 386 The most recent revision of the set of TeX tools, primarily previewers, that I've written and/or maintained is available for anonymous FTP. I am unable to handle individual requests, because I'm interviewing and am thus out of town a great deal. The FTP site is a.cs.uiuc.edu. The file name is ``pub/TeX/uiuctex2.0.tar.Z'', a compressed tar file. The tools include: texsun: Now includes support for Sun 386i. The most complete version, with scrollbars, menus, whole nine yards. Supports tpic specials, outlines bounding boxes of \psfig, marking pages for printing, etc. iptex/imagen1: This is a re-work of the original imagen1. Changes were made to use a ``common core'' for the print loop, shared with texsun and texx. Additional options have been added as well. Support tpic specials. texx: This is the version as distributed with X11R3, but with all patches applied. Known to work on Vax, Sun, PC/RT, and now the DEC 3100. This version is rather gross; fonts are shrunk to fit ``on the fly''. Handles tpic specials (albeit slowly - if someone really likes texx, they should look at the special code in texx2 & back-patch it) texx2: This is currently at version 2.8.5. texx2 is another X previewer, but it uses resident X-11 fonts (generated by a companion program) to display the page. Thus, it's a lot faster. It has options similar to texsun: you can goto pages, `mark' pages for printing, select different mag sizes, put up multiple pages, print the document (or marked pages). This will undergo some more changes, but not until late this summer. If someone does change this, please let me know. BTW: if you put ``*BackingStore: whenMapped'' in your .xresources file, scroll motion is smooth, not jerky. Documentation for texx2 is rather sketchy, to say the least. At least there's a README, but not much else. If someone *does* write any thing, or improve on the code, I'd appreciate hearing about it. dviselect, the CTeX library & other junk -- much of this is as distribtued by Chris Torek at UMD. Dviselect hasn't changed. The CTeX library for font routines, however, has changed, and you need the version distributed here for these tools. It now cleanly compiles using the Gnu C compiler, with no warning messages. Also, I went over everything using lint once, and it's clean as far as I can tell. I've removed some of the machine specific assembler hacks designed to fix VAX compiler bugs; if your VAX compiler is broken, use GCC or complain to your vendor. Dirk Grunwald Univ. of Illinois Office: 72 DCL (217) 333-1925 grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 APR 89 14:20:47 BST From: TEX%rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK Subject: Bugs in Chen's makeindex Program Keywords: bug, makeindex At RMCS, we have been making extensive use of Chen's makeindex program ever since a version ported to VMS became available last year. However, we have discovered two unrelated bugs in it. The version we are running is defined in mkind.h as follows: #define VERSION "portable version 2.5 [4-14-88]" The two bugs, with their fixes, are as follows: 1) [This has been reported in TeXhax as being mended, but the version at Aston is still faulty. The message in TeXhax didn't say how to fix it! Pehong Chen has also reported back that this is fixed --- if so, in which version?] Module GENIND is concerned with actually creating the .IND file. The file GENIND.H defines macros used therein, amongst which was: >#define PUT(S) { \ > fprintf(ind_fp, S); \ >} Since this doesn't include an explicit format string for the C fprintf procedure, the actual string to be printed is used as the format. Ordinarily, this will not cause any problems, but if the string for printing includes a percent symbol, it is assumed to introduce a C format specifier (line %d, for example), so the percent itself doesn't get printed. On 3rd Feb 1989, Brian HAMILTON KELLY corrected this as under, and reported it to Pehong Chen, who, as stated above, said that it had already been fixed. But the distributed version of makeindex on this side of the Atlantic is still wrong, as of today's date! #define PUT(S) { \ fprintf(ind_fp, "%s", S); \ } 2) On 15th March 1989, BHK discovered that makeindex couldn't handle unbalanced braces, even if they were quoted with the program's current quote char. He corrected SCANID.C as follows:\footnote{This is the output of VMS's DIFFERENCES utility, with the new version given first in each case. Changed sections are separated by double rows of asterisks.} ************ File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5 512 if ((a == idx_aopen) && 513 ((i == 0) || (key[i-1] != (char)idx_quote)) 514 ) { 515 /* opening delimiters within the argument list */ ****** File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1 512 if (a == idx_aopen) { 513 /* opening delimiters within the argument list */ ************ ************ File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5 518 } else if ((a == idx_aclose) && 519 (key[i-1] != (char)idx_quote)) { 520 if (n == 0) { ****** File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1 516 } else if (a == idx_aclose) { 517 if (n == 0) { ************ ************ File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;5 567 if ((a == idx_aclose) && 568 (no[i-1] != (char)idx_quote)) { 569 no[i] = NULL; ****** File DISK$USER3:[TEX.LATEX.MAKEINDEX.SRC]SCANID.C;1 564 if (a == idx_aclose) { 565 no[i] = NULL; ************ This problem was notified to Pehong Chen at that time, but I've heard nothing from him. Unfortunately, I'd lost his previous reply to me, so had to try to find his e-mail address from an old TeXhax, so may have got it wrong. Therefore, if he's reading this, would he please contact me!! Brian HAMILTON KELLY .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | JANET: tex@uk.ac.cranfield.rmcs | | BITNET: tex%uk.ac.cranfield.rmcs@ac.uk | | INTERNET: tex%uk.ac.cranfield.rmcs@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk | | Smail: School of Electrical Engineering & Science, Royal Military | | College of Science, Shrivenham, SWINDON SN6 8LA, U.K. | | Phone: Swindon (0793) 785252 (UK), +44-793-785252 (International) | `-------------------------------------------------------------------------' P.S. BITNET Users: Please note that our site has had difficulty in receiving mail directly from the UK BITNET gateway. If you suspect that your messages aren't getting through, you could try: tex%rmcs%uk.ac.cranfield.cdvc@ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% 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 ************************** -------