Subject: TeXhax Digest V90 #29 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, March 9, 1990 Volume 90 : Issue 29 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: mode_def for LPS-40, anyone? R\'eflexions sur le Congr\`es GUTenberg (TeXMaG V3N4) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 04 Mar 90 14:36:53 -0800 From: Mark Hastings Subject: mode_def for LPS-40, anyone? Keywords: mode_def, LPS-40 All the recent talk of building Metafonts on comp.text.tex has sparked my curiosity -- has anyone created a good-looking mode_def for DEC's LPS-40 printer? I didn't see one in the recent postings or in the U_Wash.mf file (from the UnixTeX distribution), but then I don't really know what brand of marking engine it uses. All I know is that it is one of those pesky write-white engines. Thanks for any pointers. --Mark Hastings (415) 642-4611 hastings@ernie.berkeley.edu ..!ucbvax!ernie!hastings --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 3 Mar 1990 17:13:29.43 CST From: Subject: R\'eflexions sur le Congr\`es GUTenberg (TeXMaG V3N4) Keywords: TeXMaG by Malcolm Clark The French TeX users group has been around for a few years, in an "unofficial" form. Over the last year or so they have become "official", much more active and they now organise an annual meeting. The first well-publicised GUTenberg meeting was held in Paris last year. I was impressed there by the attendence (well over 100), the stamina (the room was tiny and without air-conditioning), and the range of topics covered. There is, in any case, a tradition of TeX activity in France--the second European TeX Conference was held in Strasbourg, in 1986. This year's meeting was again in Paris, but used far larger rooms to accommodate the 120-150 people who attended. Scanning down the list of attendees, there are the usual academic and research organisations, but also publishers, and the printing trade in general. This bodes well for the future. The meeting was held over two days: the first day was given over to two seminars--one on LaTeX (from Olivier Nicole and Jacques Andr\'e), and the other on Metafont (Victor Ostromoukhov); followed by the AGM. The second day was the conference proper. I attended part of Victor's "Premiers pas en Metafont". As usual, I was impressed by Victor's breadth and depth of Metafont-lore. And he seemed to be getting something useful across to the forty or so would be Metafont-ers. Since he used a Macintosh to demonstrate the points, there was a reasonably quick interaction between intention and realisation. I confess I didn't stay to all of this; my powers of concentration are not great enough to follow a full day of technical Metafont (far less in a foreign tongue). However, one quote from Victor: -> |} -> That sums things up nicely I think. Bernard Gaulle, GUTenberg's President ran the AGM with great efficiency and some humour. I particularly like the French style of democracy (it runs: question: "anyone against?"; answer: "no"; conclusion: "passed"; excellent). I won't plough through all the bits of the AGM, except to note that the group is in excellent financial health, that this is a year of anniversaries in France--200 years since the Revolution, but also some others: 10 years of TUG, 50 years of CNRS (Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique), one of the homes of TeX, and of course this is also the year of the 4th European TeX Conference. The AGM honoured two people with "honorary membership": Barbara Beeton and Raymond Seroul (the author of _Le petit Livre de TeX_)). By way of recognition, they were each presented with an edition of "Les bons Romans", published over a hyndred years ago. Peter Abbott was also thanked for the help he has given in easing "[les] perturbations EARN/Bitnet". I was particularly pleased to see Barbara honoured and Peter thanked in this way. The whole TeX community owes them much for their dedicated adherence to the cause, and it was particularly refreshing and tactful that GUTenberg saw fit to include them in this way. Besides this conference, GUTenberg produces its own journal, _Cahiers GUTenberg_. The inaugural (or prototype) edition (confusingly numbered "z\'ero") was available at last year's conference. The first and second editions were out by this year's conference. Many of the talks in the conference were also printed in the _Cahiers_ (which helped me enormously). Although the group is "francophone", several articles are in English. Allowing for the technical words which dictionaries never seem to get right, it isn't too difficult to make sense out of the papers/articles. The _Cahiers_ represent a major undertaking, in time, effort, and in financial commitment (as I well know from my own limited venture in TeXline). If the high standards already being established are maintained, GUTenberg will have created something which will be of great and lasting service to the whole TeX community. My only minor criticism of the _Cahiers_ is the lack of consistency in the provision of abstracts (a failing it shares with TUGboat). If abstracts were included, it would be possible to prepare multilingual translations which could be circulated more widely, alerting others to the range and relevance of the material. The major theme of the Conference was "graphics"--a popular one these days. Fortunately, thanks to Sebastian Rahtz' talks, I think I know a little about the background here. Rather than report each talk in detail, it is perhaps more productive to try to select some of the major themes. After all, the text of most of the talks is available. As usual, it is notable how far LaTeX dominates in Europe (or perhaps, just outside the US). It is also notable that "standards", however defined, keep cropping up: X-Windows, PostScript, TeX itself, PHIGS, GKS, SGML, and even emacs. This seems particularly healthy, although equally there are many forays into areas which are less portable. Nevertheless, the apparent domination of C, as the implementation language of choice, (with or without the spectre of Unix) would indicate the possibility of transfering some of the applications to other platforms. From the summaries, it is evident that one of the great concerns is the use of PostScript, and the incorporation of PostScript (and EPSF) files into (especially) LaTeX. Perhaps my favourite paper was Maurice Laugier's. His was a very simple and straightforward idea--namely that the pc's graphics characters may be napped quite easily into rules, and that tables (and some diagrams) may be prepared by this means, provided that a monospaced font is adequate. A list of the talks, together with a brief summary (usually the authors'/author's own) is included here. Some of the talks were in English (a bold move for a francophone group), and some summaries (notably that of Lance Carnes) were distributed in English and French. Very tactful. o L'ann\'ee de tous les anniversaires --Bernard Gaulle A welcome to GUTenberg, and an overview of the services and facilities available to TeX users in France (and elesewhere); touches on the public, private and commercial domains; addresses GUTenberg's relationship with the rest of the world. o Xwindows, LaTeX, TeXdraw et Plot79, ou comment calculer, r\'ediger, dessiner et imprimer plus ais\'ement --Nicolas Brouard A workstation running under X-Windows offers a way of calculating, writing and designing which is much simpler than with a "classic" terminal. Two graphics tools, TeXDraw (a public analogue of MacDraw) and PLOT79 (a 3D graphics system based on CORE), can easily be employed with LaTeX. o TeX and Graphics: the state of the problem --Nelson Beebe Inclusion of graphics in documents typset by TeX is not yet a satisfactorily solved problem, and no final general solution is in sight. This paper surveys alternatives for insertion of graphics in TeX documents. It summarizes graphics primitives of several modern software systems, and shows how TeX has seriously deficient support for their direct incorporation in TeX itself. o L'environment de production de documents TeX \`a l'IRISA --Philippe Louarn & Bertrand Decouty The group consists of over 200 researchers, teachers and engineers, who need to produce reports, articles, theses, books... The objective was to provide a set of homogenous tools in a heterogenous environment (Unix, VMS, workstations, pcs...). Naturally, TeX was chosen as the fundamental tool. In graphics, the two main avenues are through the incorportion of PostScript, and by the use of eepic in the LaTeX picture environment. o Survey of TeX Graphics for the PC --Lance Carnes This talk reviews the various graphics systems offerings for the IBM pc and compatibles, and the ways these systems can be used in conjunction with TeX; the use of PostScript, HP PCL and bitmap files in conjunction with current TeX drivers; the use of output from screen oriented drawing systems; and the conversion of graphics files from one format to another, and scaling of images, for inclusion in documents. o TeX et les graphiques dans l'environment Mac --Anestis Antoniadis Painting and drawing are the two sides of the creation of graphics on the Macintosh. Paint images (otherwise known as bitmaps) are known to the Mac as a set of points on the screen. Draw images (also known as vector drawings) are known to the Mac as objects (rectangles, lines, circles, polygons) and are defined by their mathematical attributes. As a consequence of the way in which they are defined, they take full advantage of the resolution of PostScript peripheral devices. The goal of this article is to give an overview of the methods and software for the generation of graphics on the Mac, and to discuss the insertion of such graphics in documents prepared with TeXtures, one of the implementations of TeX on the Macintosh. o Metafont et PostScript --Victor Ostromoukhov Conversion between Metafont and PostScript is possible. What are the best techniques, and what are the constraints? (No written contribution, but see his MacMetafont program.) o DDI: un environnement de travail pour la r\'ealisation de graphiques scientifiques, techniques et fantaisies utilisables avec TeX --Andr\'e Violante DDI is a work environment for the creation of scientific, technical and artistic graphics. The fundamental of the system is the creation and use of graphic fonts. To use these, several tools are available: design software (Designcad); a program to convert Designcad files to Metafont; Metafont itself; GFtoPK; TeX; and a suitable device driver. o texpic: design and implementation of a picture graphics language in TeX \`a la pic --Rolf Olejniczak texpic is a TeX implementation of a graphics language similar to Kerhighan's troff preprocessor pic. The implmentation consists of two parts, a set of elaborate TeX macros and a postprocessor for drawing (in the dvi file). texpic objects and TeX or LaTeX commands may be combined at will. texpic is written in C, and is fully portable, to the extent that every TeX implementation, every preview and every correctly written printer driver will work with texpic. o Traduction en TeX d'un fichier SGML avec r\'ecup\'eration des graphiques et des tableaux --Maurice Laugier The logic of SGML markup is close to that of LaTeX, and translation from SGML to LaTeX can be realised quite simply. However, the problem is rather different for graphics and tables. This paper presents a way in which the PC graphics characters were successfully mapped into LaTeX, easing the production of tables and simple diagrams. o GITeX, PAPS: deux logiciels minipulant PostScript et LaTeX --Christophe C\'erin From PC-based graphics programs, PAPS (Programme d'Application PostScript) transforms an image into a PostScript format. It will also allow some manipulation of the graphics image. GITeX (G\'en\'erateur d'Image TeX) is a program which allows a figure environment to be constructed for inclusion of the PostScript into a LaTeX file. o L'incorporation de graphiques dans INRSTeX --Michael Ferguson The approach used in INRSTeX is to use the power of the printer to create graphics, and not to introduce special characters. The capability to generate graphics has been achieved for PostScript, and for QMS graphics on a QUIC laser printer. The paper discusses the role of the printer as well as the need for support software to permit the incorporation of graphics produced by other systems. The paper also discusses some of the limitations inherent in the choice of graphics systems. Like most conferences, the most interesting and valuable discussions take place in the corridors, over coffee, or at lunch. This tradition was maintained here. The corridors were also used to display various pieces of TeXware. The inclusion of a noticeboard for general TeX-notices, trivial as it seems, was extremely useful. There was a display of ArborText's Publisher (about the only place you don't see Publisher these days is in the UK), and an extensive display of books, where Raymond Seroul's book was selling well (on its first day of publication). >>Conclusion I was impressed. There can be no doubt about it, GUTenberg provides us all with much to emulate. The strength and coherence of the group is manifest. Taken purely at the national (or francophone) level, GUTenberg is contributing massively to the strength of TeX. The Cahiers are excellent, and looks capable of sustained quality. The annual meeting is now well-established and imaginative. GUTenberg's involvement with several French publishers must also be a good sign. GUTenberg is also keenly aware of other French speaking areas (Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec) and of the advantages of international electronic communication. And the committee ensured that the various national representatives (myself, representing TUG and UKTUG; Joachim Lammarsch, representing the German group, Dante; and Kees van der Laan representing the Dutch group) had the opportunity to discuss how we could cooperate for the common good. I am a shade worried by what I see as the determination to stay outside the TUG orbit. Perhaps I am over-sensitive--being described either as English or Anglo-Saxon does tend to make me a trifle testy--but I have always thought of TUG as an international organisation, not an American one. Others do not share this perception. If our conclusion is that we are not getting what we need out of TUG, the solution is in our own hands. We can influence the organisations in which we participate. That's the key--participation. TeX must be worth it. >>Joining GUTenberg; subscribing to the Cahiers To join GUTenberg, you need only part with 200 FF. This has two advantages (besides preparing you for 1992 and demonstrating your adherance to the European ideal)--it enables you to pay a reduced fee at the annual meeting and for the Cahiers. To obtain the Cahiers costs a further 150 FF if you are a member, but 250 FF if you are not. This year's conference cost 200 FF for members and 400 FF for non-members. Clearly membership pays for itself if you are contemplating attending the conference and taking the journal. In other words, joining GUTenberg and subscribing to the Cahiers costs you a total of 350 FF (made payable to GUTenberg). Of course Eurocheques are acceptable. Note that membership comes in several different categories: individual membership is 200 FF; institutional membership on behalf of a non-profit organisation is 700 FF; while institutional membership on behalf of profit-making (as opposed to _profitable_?) organisation is a hefty 1400FF. On the other hand, institutional membership does allow you to nominate up to seven individuals. Send your money to: GUTenberg c/o IRISA Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu 35042 Rennes Cedex France ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% 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 ************************** -------