TeXhax Digest Friday, October 23, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 85
[SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]<TEX.TEXHAX>TEXHAX85.87
Editor: Malcolm Brown
Today's Topics:
Re: Font help
Hershey fonts
Preloaded fonts in plain.tex
Enhancements to Kellerman and Smith TeX
Unix spell filter for TeX files
Re: Mixing landscape & portrait mode in LaTeX
self-adapting font definition
Re: SUN TeX Previewer
TPU interface to TeX
LaTeX Notes (Re: TeXhax Digest V87 #83)
makeindex
Verbs vs Symbols for defining VAX/VMS TeX
Re: Postscript to Impress conversion program needed
Footers
Obtaining a list of Computers TeX runs on... (big ibm's?)
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Date: Fri, 16 Oct 87 18:15:12 PDT
From: russell@bluebell.ucdavis.edu (Michael Russell)
To: texhax@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: Font help
To everyone who responded to my request for information on more fonts,
thank you very kindly. I now know what I need. I didn't include some
data in the message that I didn't think was pertinent. I was not the
one who installed TeX here. A student here bought TeX himself, and in
exchange for us letting him take up the disk space necessary to install
it, he agreed to make it available to all users. He installed what he
needed, and when he left, he took the distribution tape with him. He
didn't install Metafont, and he didn't unload the rest of the stuff that
we could have used to create the fonts that we are missing. I didn't
know about Metafont when I wrote the message, but I have since been in
touch with the U of W people, and it is clear that what I need to do now
is get the most recent distribution of TeX. The fonts that we are
missing can be generated using Metafont and the other stuff supplied with
TeX. I am in perfect agreement with Pierre MacKay who said that U of W
is taking an optimal tack in not including every possible font in the
distrubtion, but instead is including a way for the client sites to
generate them for themselves. Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 87 21:36:24 EDT
From: Dimitri Vulis <CLDLV%NASAGISS.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
To: TeXHaX@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Hershey fonts
%% Dimitri's original submission contained a discussion of the
%% conversion of the Hershy fonts. This discussion appeared
%% in issue 83.
%% -- malcolm
More remarks:
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that some time in the past,
TeX and METAFONT have been installed on my school's VAX. (Btw my ID
there is DLV at CUNYVMS1, but I may not check mail there very often)
Unfortunately, students are expected to pay 25 cents/page for using
the laser printer (Imagen). Also, the Math dept has an antique Sun with
the Sun laser printer (aka Apple LaserWriter) but with no TeX.
I've convinced the department to put an AB switch and a PC on the
SunWriter, s.t. I can run TeX/MF on the VAX, then download all pertinent
files to the PC and send them to the PS device. This will still be slow,
but faster than MF on the PC. So, I will probably be running MF in the
near future.
YES, Hershey fonts are very crude. You have to tweak them quite a bit
to make them look reasonable at 300 dpi. I don't feel that I'm qualified
artwise for this soft of thing. My knowledge of Metafont is rudimentary,
but it was sufficient for a crude job on several H letters (sorry
I can't send them to you because I have no idea where I saved them)
What do you mean by Pascal errors? I'll be happy to re-create the work
described above; I just would like to be in touch with someone who
is a sort of a graphics artist to help with the tweaking. I'm willing
to do some of the programming.
Which letters are worth porting, anyway... It is my understanding that
Fraktur and Script (upper and lower case) can be bought cheaply from AmS.
(I'm writing AmS to distinguish it from AMS, Am. Meteorological Soc.)
I don't have them now, but I see no point to bother with them (if I'm
wrong, please correct me). Hershey Old English is very VERY crude and
requires A LOT of tweaking, but it would be nice to have it for headlines
The third gothic font which I in my ignorance call Carolinian would
also be good for headlines and is easier to convert. Various astrology
and meteorology symbols are very 'cute'; I doubt if they're very useful.
What else is there...
TGIF
Dimitri
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 87 01:32:57 BST
From: CET1%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
To: TeXhax <@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK:TeXhax@score.stanford.edu>
Subject: Preloaded fonts in plain.tex
Although the distributed plain.tex file says
% And don't modify the file under any circumstances.
the TeXbook (p.350) implies that it is pukka to alter the list of
"preloaded" fonts (and still call it plain TeX). Does anyone actually
do this? I have an environment in which the relative costs of reading
format files and TFM files probably mean that the list of preloaded
fonts should be pruned.
Whether fonts have been preloaded or not ought to be transparent to
the user, and this is almost true. But not quite. Specifically, whether
\hyphenchar and \skewchar for a newly \font'ed font have been set from
\defaulthyphenchar and \defaultskewchar depends on whether TeX has
actually loaded the TFM file or has found a match among the already
loaded fonts.
If it is legitimate to alter the list of preloaded fonts, then it
would be better if the list were in a separate file (preload.tex?)
\input'ed from plain.tex. (Compare plain.mf and local.mf.)
I see that the distributed plain.tex still preloads "manfnt", although
that never made it into the TeXbook. Surely, even at Stanford, this
font is now outmoded by "manual"?
Chris Thompson
Cambridge University Computing Service
Janet: cet1@uk.ac.cam.phx
ARPA: cet1%phx.cam.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 87 10:08:01 pdt
From: hildum@iris.ucdavis.edu (Eric Hildum)
To: karney@ppc.mfenet, texhax@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Enhancements to Kellerman and Smith TeX
I have look over the list of enhancements suggested by Mr. Karney, and
found them to be very interesting. However, there is one suggested
change to the distribution that I am strongly opposed to. Mr Karney
suggests that the command line parsing should be done inside TeX to
facilitate the installation of TeX by nonprivleged users.
Privledges are NOT required to install a private copy of TeX or LaTeX.
I suspect that the problem that Mr. Karney is facing is that the .CLD
file is normally installed in the system command tables to make TeX a
command known to the system so that any user may use it. However,
every process has its own copy of the command table which may be
modified via a SET COMMAND command. The documentation associated with
the DCL utilities explains this further.
Eric Hildum
dehildum@ucdavis.edu (Internet)
dehildum@ucdavis.bitnet (BITNET)
ucbvax!ucdavis!dehildum (uucp)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1987 20:48 PDT
From: GFA001K%CALSTATE.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject: Unix spell filter for TeX files
To: texhax@score.stanford.edu
I use TeX on a number of microcomputers running Unix (V5.2). I know that
there is a spell filter for TeX files available on the Unix TeX tape, but
I can't read that tape on my machine, nor am I on a network where I can
FTP the file from someone else. Would someone out there in Unix-land be
kind enough to send me (via bitnet) the filter and "unfilter" program.
Any other handy Unix shells on that tape would also be appreciated.
Thanks.
Brad Finney
Humboldt State University
gfa001k@calstate.bitnet
------------------------------
To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: Re: Mixing landscape & portrait mode in LaTeX
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 07:29:33 -0400
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy%ai.toronto.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>
The easiest solution is probably (real) glue and scissors...
If however you are like me and prefer virtual cut and paste, a possibility is
to use a PostScript printer and a driver that supports \special. You would
then save the PostScript translation of your figure in a file and insert it
via the \special. Some drivers support rotation of figures (recent releases
of dvi2ps do), otherwise you can stick a "90 rotate" at the beginning of the
PostScript code.
Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.toronto.edu, lamy@ai.toronto.cdn
AI Group, Dept of Computer Science lamy%ai.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net
University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {uunet,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 15:46:27 MEZ
From: Z3000PA%AWITUW01.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: self-adapting font definition
To: texhax@score.stanford.edu
Can anyone help me, please:
I want to define (re-define) \today to produce a british-english
date like ``January 1${st}$, 1900''. My problem is how to
define the font for the raised `st' or `th' etc.:
If \today is set in 10 point roman, then that font should be
7 point roman. But if \today is set in a larger or smaller font,
than its size should equal the size of the current font
multiplied by a ratio of 7:10, and if \today is set in
boldface or italic or any other font style, then it should
be the smaller font of that same style.
How can I achieve this? Is there a way to say something like
``take the font that belongs to the current font family and is
smaller than the current font by a ratio of 7:10'' - in
Plain TeX and in LaTeX?
Any help is appreciated!
Hubert Partl, TU Vienna (z3000pa @ awituw01 .BITNET)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 87 08:13:56 NOR
From: Jeremy Cook <JMC%NOCMI.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: SUN TeX Previewer
To: TeXhax Digest <TEXHAX-REQUEST@score.stanford.edu>
We've just bought an excellent package from ArborText. Whilst ArborText
do sell a TeX/DVI/Preview package at about $1000 their latest is
'The Publisher' which is actually a desktop publishing system for
workstations. With The Publisher you have the possibility to edit existing
TeX documents and preview them almost instantaneously in the adjacent preview
window. The previewer starts formatting from the page you are on so even in
a long document you don't have to wait ages before you see your output. As
well as providing compatibility for existing documents, The Publishers real
power is the WYSIWYG screen editor. The document is displayed on screen
as you type and the formatting is carried out by TeX. You do have the
posibillity to include in-line TeX commands too if The Publishers features
are not diverse enough for you. Purists will probably not accept this
latest offering as you are not given the full freedom of TeX
within your document but, if all you're interested in is nicely presented
documents with very little learning time then this is the package for you.
We like it because we can now produce reports and proposals without any
problems. There is no need to run TeX again and again to track down
a bug as The Publisher will not let you make a mistake (although it has
no control over in-line TeX and will display errors in the same way as TeX
when it formats).
If you contact ArborText before the end of October you should get their
introductory half price offer of $1000 (less any educational discount you
may be entitled to). I should add that I have no connection to ArborText
other than that I am very impressed with this latest product and with their
service.
-- Jeremy Cook (JMC@NOCMI.BITNET)
Acknowledge-To: <JMC@NOCMI>
------------------------------
Date: 20 Oct 87 14:52:00 PDT
From: <wu@ames-aero.arpa>
Subject: TPU interface to TeX
To: "texhax-request" <texhax-request@score.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: <wu@ames-aero.arpa>
Does anyone have a Change file to call TPU from within TeX upon an error?
This would have to be added to VMS change file of course.
Please reply directly as I am no longer receiving texhax.
Alex Woo
woo@ames-nas.arpa
wu@ames-aero.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 09:36:19 pdt
From: lamport@src.dec.com (Leslie Lamport)
To: TeXhax@Score.Stanford.edu
Subject: LaTeX Notes (Re: TeXhax Digest V87 #83)
Gordon Howell writes:
I want my output to look like:
-------------------------------------------
| this is a 2in | this is a 2in |
| parbox which | parbox which |
| can be several| can be several|
| lines long | lines long |
ENTRY | But I want it | But I want it |
| aligned with | aligned with |
| the centre of | the centre of |
| the box in col| the box in col|
| number one. | number one. |
-------------------------------------------
How about
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|}
entry & \parbox{2in}{this is a 2in parbox...} ...
Leslie Lamport
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 12:44:26 edt
From: getzler%huma1@harvard.harvard.edu
To: TeXhax@Score.Stanford.edu
Subject: makeindex
I just received the August 1987 (?) U. of Washington Unix distribution
tape, with a nice description of the makeindex program. The only problem is
that the tape doesn't seem to include the program. Where can I get it?
Ezra Getzler (getzler@huma1.harvard.edu, getzler@huma1.bitnet)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 09:38:14 PDT
From: KARNEY%PPC.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA
Subject: Verbs vs Symbols for defining VAX/VMS TeX
To: TeXhax@Score.Stanford.EDU
This is in answer to Eric Hildum's message stating his preference of verb
definitions to symbol definitions of TeX under VAX/VMS. Non-VMS users
should skip to the next message.
There are two problems with users defining verbs using SET COMMAND:
(1) It takes a long time to execute in a LOGIN.COM file.
(2) The verb definitions are not inherited by spawned subprocesses (thus
you cannot do
$ SPAWN/INPUT=NL:/NOWAIT LATEX/BATCH ... )
Therefore if TeX is defined as a verb, it is desirable that the verb
definition be installed in the SYS$SYSTEM:DCLTABLES.
As far as I know, there is only one disadvantage to calling DCL$PARSE in
the executable file (instead of having DCL doing the parsing), and that is
that the image has to be loaded up before the parsing can take place. This
entails greater overhead in the case where DCL$PARSE encounters a syntax
error. However, I believe this is a non-issue with the K&S verb
definitions for TeX, since the qualifiers are few and are rarely used. The
most common command line error is probably misspelling a filename---but
this only gets caught by TeX itself.
Thus the symbol definition is preferable at those installations where TeX
is used and maintained by non-priveleged users. At sites where TeX is
supported by the systems programmers, the verb definition is slightly
preferable (since you don't have to define a symbol at login time); but the
symbol definition is also perfectly acceptable.
Charles Karney
Plasma Physics Laboratory Phone: +1 609 683 2607
Princeton University MFEnet: Karney@PPC.MFEnet
PO Box 451 ARPAnet: Karney%PPC.MFEnet@NMFECC.ARPA
Princeton, NJ 08544-0451 Bitnet: Karney%PPC.MFEnet@ANLVMS.Bitnet
------------------------------
To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: Re: Postscript to Impress conversion program needed
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 06 Oct 87 14:22:32 -0700.
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 07:20:26 -0400
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy%ai.toronto.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>
A PostScript to Impress converter would be very difficult to do, mostly
because Impress is not a programming language in the sense PostScript is. The
best you can hope for is probably a PostScript interpreter that produces a
300dpi bitmap, which you would then send to the Imagen. Another major
difficulty lies in the Adobe fonts: the translator must either have access to
the outline definitions and Adobe's magic algorithm to scale them while
keeping them readable at small point sizes, or have access to pre-computed
bitmap versions.
There is hope, however, since windowing systems based on PostScript (NeWS
from Sun) are here, and previewers for X are being worked on (Adobe?). What
this leaves unanswered is whether 300dpi "screens" will be supported (and I
can see why they would not be -- $$$ )
Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.toronto.edu, lamy@ai.toronto.cdn
AI Group, Dept of Computer Science lamy%ai.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net
University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {uunet,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 15:17:31 EDT
From: gil@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Gil Neiger)
To: texhax@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Footers
I use LaTeX and would like to have the current date appear as a footer
while I am preparing drafts. Specifically, I'd like the foot of my
pages look like this:
October 19, 1987 page 1
The only way I've found to do this is to redefine the command \thepage:
\renewcommand{\thepage}{\today \hfill page \arabic{page}}
But this plays all sorts of havoc with error messages and page
references. Does anyone have any better ideas?
- Gil Neiger
gil@svax.cs.cornell.edu
------------------------------
Date: 19 Oct 87 15:47 EST
From: SIMPSONG%PED1.decnet@ge-crd.arpa
Subject: Obtaining a list of Computers TeX runs on... (big ibm's?)
To: TEXHAX@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Hello! I have some simple questions regarding Obtaining TeX for
various computer systems. Any help would be appreciated.
1) How does one find out if TeX runs on a XXXX Computer system? Is
there a list lying around somewhere that can be ftp'ed, uucp'ed
or otherwise obtained?
2) I am specifically interested in whether TeX is up and running on
any "IBM - 4381-1" 's...
3) Also, is there a "standard" procedure/location that one would
send a tape and handling fee to in order to obtain the latest
and greatest TeX Distribution for a particular machine?
Thanks for your help!
Gregory R. Simpson Internet: SIMPSONG%ped1.decnet@ge-crd.arpa
General Electric UUCP:...codas!ge-dab!ped1.GE.COM!simpsong
Lighting Business Group
Nela Park #3433.08
E. Cleveland, OH 44112 AT&T: (216)-266-6506 Home: (216)-531-8428
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