TeXhax Digest Thursday, January 7, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 02 [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]TEXHAX02.88 Editor: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: LaTeX and PostScript LaTeX warning ENLARGING METAFONT Problem with vskip in appendix (LaTeX) dot-under accent in math mode? Re: tpic Font substitution tables An Arabic Latex? Re MF misnaming GF files LaTeX Notes (Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #01) Adobe Font Metric to TeX Font Metric converters? Re: LaTeX for foreign languages (TeXhax V88 #1) TeXhax Digest V87 #105 - thesis styles Don't let LaTeX grow in size! (Re: LaTeX for foreign languages) Is a preloaded TeX necessary? (Re: TeXhax v87 n103) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mario Wolczko Date: Mon,4 Jan 15:26:45 1988 Subject: LaTeX and PostScript Now that I have a DVI to PostScript program that can access the PostScript built-in fonts on a LaserWriter, I am considering spending some time modifying the LaTeX style files to use PostScript fonts. The main advantage of this is that a wider variety of fonts are available, and PostScript seems to be gaining widespread acceptance as a page description language. The aim of these modifications is to come up with a version of LaTeX that accepts the same input as Lamport's version, but produces quality output based on PostScript fonts and the European page size (A4). Clearly, this requires the expertise of someone versed in typography and document design; fortunately it looks like I may be able to enlist the help of just such a person. In an ideal world, we would be able to produce new versions of the article, report and book styles; I'm uncertain as to how much effort is required to achieve this. Any comments or advice regarding the idea would be appreciated. Apart from the document design, I can see at least the following additional work has to be done: 1. Modify lplain to use the PostScript characters; these are not in the same positions as the CMR characters. Things like accents have to be taken into account. (One part I am unsure about is whether mathematical formulas can be converted to use PostScript fonts.) 2. Modify the parts of the style files that contain Lamport's design decisions; things like fonts for headings, spacings, page sizes, etc. At a first glance it seems like the best route is to modify the basic files (lplain, e.g.) rather than try to incorporate all the modifications into one or more style options. If you have tried any of these things before, I would be grateful for any advice. The final product (if I ever get that far) will, of course, be placed in the public domain. Mario Wolczko ______ Dept. of Computer Science Internet: mario%r5.cs.man.ac.uk /~ ~\ The University USENET: mcvax!ukc!man.cs.r5!mario ( __ ) Manchester M13 9PL JANET: mario@uk.ac.man.cs.r5 `-': :`-' U.K. Tel: +44-61-273 7121 x 5699 ____; ;_____________the mushroom project____________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jan 88 16:01:05 pst From: lamport@src.dec.com (Leslie Lamport) Subject: LaTeX warning An error was introduced into the 15 Dec 1987 version of latex.tex that made \marginpar not work. This error is corrected in the 3 Jan 1988 release, which I will put on score.stanford.edu as soon as I can. This is a serious error. The 15 Dec 1987 version should not be used. If you have installed it anywhere, please replace it with an earlier or (preferably) later version. Leslie Lamport ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Jan 88 15:27:19 CST From: Robert Coleman Subject: ENLARGING METAFONT I want to draw some large pictures in metafont and cut them up into 1in aquares to be pieces of a font which will then be reassembled in a picture invironment. When I try to do this at full scale, I get the capacity exceeded error. The problem seems to be mainly with the main memory, which stores pictures, paths and so forth. How does one make a larger METAFONT? Details please. I am primarily interested in the Washington distribution which we are running on a vax750 with Berkley4.3 and will run on a SUN3/50-60. We also have METAFONT running on a vax780 running vms and on an IBM mainframe running CMS. Thank you for the information. Robert Coleman Mathematics Dept. Univ. of Regina Regina, Sask. S4S 0A2 coleman@uregina2.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 17:38:37 EST From: akk2@tut.cc.rochester.edu (Atul Kacker) Subject: Problem with vskip in appendix (LaTeX) This might be a trivial thing but I have something like : \documentstyle{report} \begin{document} \chapter{Chapter Title} Body of document. \appendix \chapter{Appendix Title} This is some text. \vskip 0.5truein This is some more text. \end{document} The \vskip command does not work. I get huge amounts of space instead, which does not change in any logical fashion, when I change the amount of vskip. I would expect the \vskip command to behave in the same fashion in an appendix as it would in the main document. What gives ? Atul Kacker | Internet: akk2@tut.cc.rochester.edu | UUCP: {ames,cmcl2,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!ur-tut!akk2 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 17:03:50 +0100 From: prlb2!ronse@uunet.UU.NET (Christian Ronse) Subject: dot-under accent in math mode? In Plain TeX, the accent \dot is used in math mode to put a dot accent above an argument. I want to have an accent in math mode putting a dot under the argument, as does \d in the horizontal mode. Is it possible to define such a math dot-under accent? Of course, one can use the \d accent by switching to horizontal mode ( doing \hbox{\rm\d$#1$}), but I want something neat which respects math spacings, etc. Christian Ronse maldoror@prlb2.UUCP {uunet|philabs|mcvax|...}!prlb2!{maldoror|ronse} ------------------------------ Subject: Re: tpic Date: Tue, 05 Jan 88 10:28:47 -0800 From: Tim Morgan You can get tpic from me by sending me a copy of the first page of your ditroff license. Tpic is Kernighan's pic, with its output driver modified to produce \special commands which TeX can handle. It also supports a superset of pic's input language, including the ability to shade enclosed regions (boxes, circles, etc.). Your output device driver(s) must be able to understand the \special's which tpic produces. We have a driver for Imagens (Chris Torek's imagen1), and there are drivers around for QMS printers. For previewing, I've modified X Version 10's xdvi previewer, as well as texsun and dvisun, to support tpic, and there is a DVI previewer based on dvisun for Integrated Solutions workstations which also supports tpic. There are at least two modified versions of dvi2ps which support tpic. There may be other drivers which support tpic as well, as there are a number of sites which have it. If you mail me your license, please specify whether you'd like to get tpic via FTP or by a tar-tape in physical mail. If you're going to use FTP, please include your e-mail address so I can send you the relevant info. Tim Morgan UC Irvine ICS Dept. Irvine, CA 92717 (714) 856-7553 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 16:14:58 EST From: "David F. Rogers" Subject: Font substitution tables G'day, Two font substitution tables are given below. The first is from cm to am fonts and the second from am to cm fonts. These tables are set up for use with Arbortext's series of dvi to laser printer programs. They have been tested (but not exhaustively) using MicroTeX and an HP Laserjet+, i.e. with Arbortext's dvihp program. They should also work with the dvips program. The format may need editing for other dvi to laser printers. However, that should be easy enough with a good text editor. I find these substitution tables particularly convenient because I work in a mixed environment where some implimentations of TeX have only am fonts and others only cm fonts. They are also convenient when printing dvi files transmitted amongst machines on a network. I have called the tables/files -- amcmfont.sub & cmamfont.sub with obvious meaning. I keep them in \tex\fonts for the MicroTeX implimentation. Please let me know of any typos/bugs. Professor David F. Rogers Aerospace Engineering Department U. S. Naval Academy Annapolis, MD 21402 USA dfr@usna.mil %%% David's tables are too long for distribution via the digest. You %%% can transfer the file from Score using FTP on ARPA. The complete %%% text of David's submission is saved as %%% ROGERS.TXH %%% on the host SCORE.STANFORD.EDU. For those on BITNET, a copy has been %%% sent to TEX-L. %%% Malcolm ------------------------------ Date: Tue 5 Jan 88 16:24:02-CST From: Anthony Aristar Subject: An Arabic Latex? I've heard rumors of a LaTeX capable of producing Arabic text. Does this actually exist, and, if it does, is there some kind person who might aim me at it? ------------------------------ From: Julian Bradfield Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 22:33:41 GMT Subject: Re MF misnaming GF files My problem with MF wrongly using a 2602gf extension on certain fonts (which Pierre MacKay misunderstood in TeXhax digest #106) has been explained to me by Chris Thompson (cet1@uk.ac.cam.phx). I was setting the slantfont for proofs before the mode_setup command in the driver file; this special caused the output file to be named with the then current mode of proof. (So anybody who has my font files should move the `slantfont slant4' in oeit.mf to somewhere after the `mode_setup'.) Julian Bradfield. Janet: jcb@uk.ac.ed.lfcs ARPA: jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 16:27:33 pst From: lamport@src.dec.com (Leslie Lamport) Subject: LaTeX Notes (Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #01) Steve Samuels writes: The LaTeX letter style supplies today's date automatically, which is usually just fine. Occasionally, I'd like to specify some other date. If I use \date{mydate}, it's ignored, and I still get today's date. Is there any way to override the default? I don't remember exactly how the letter style works, but I presume that the date is generated with the \today command. So, simply putting \renewcommand{\today}{July 4, 1776} should allow you to forge a letter from Thomas Jefferson. Leslie Lamport ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 08:32:03 EST From: Bill Gropp Subject: Adobe Font Metric to TeX Font Metric converters? Does anyone have a program which takes an AFM file and a size (e.g., 10pt) and generates a TFM file suitable for TeX? Generating a PL file would be adequate (in fact, preferable). Please respond to me directly; I no longer get this mailing list. Thanks. Bill Gropp Gropp@yale.arpa Gropp@cs.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 15:56 N From: (Nico Poppelier) Subject: Re: LaTeX for foreign languages (TeXhax V88 #1) A small comment on entries by Hubert Partl and Leslie Lamport regarding LaTeX and languages other than English (TeXhax V88 #1). Basically, I think that Leslie Lamport's is right in stating that the typographical conventions for, say, Dutch are different from the English ones. But why should a LaTeX user who produces 90% of his documents in English, and wants to use LaTeX for his (Dutch) annual scientific report, have to: 1. put things like '\makeatletter \def\fnum@figure{Figuur \thefigure} \makeatother' in his document, or 2. change LaTeX's standard style files? The changes that Hubert Partl proposes are very simple and make it easier to produce non-English documents with LaTeX. A Dutch LaTeX user is annoyed when he/she sees the English word 'Contents' instead of 'Inhoudsopgave' in a Dutch document, especially if the LaTeX book does not explain how to solve this (the suggestion 'change the style file' is a bit vague). He/she will worry about typographical conventions later. I think the suggestions of Hubert Partl are worth serious consideration. Nico Poppelier Theoretical Nuclear Physics University of Utrecht The Netherlands ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 15:02:21 GMT From: stoy%prg.oxford.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK Subject: TeXhax Digest V87 #105 - thesis styles Leslie Lamport writes ... I will remind you that I am not be a party to the "thesis" document styles because they produce bad typography. The thesis standards are excellent for a typed thesis and are ludicrous when applied for a typeset one. I think it's time that universities entered the 1970's and changed their stupid regulations. ... He will be pleased to learn that Oxford University last year revised its offending regulation so as to restrict the double-spacing requirement to theses in typescript. In general it's now the candidates' responsibility "to ensure that the print of their thesis is of an adequate definition and standard of legibility"; but by way of guidance the Proctors (the relevant authorities) have recently ruled that LaTeX's 12pt report style on a 300bpi laser printer is acceptable as it stands. Joe Stoy. ------------------------------ From: Oliver Schoett Subject: Don't let LaTeX grow in size! (Re: LaTeX for foreign languages) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 17:06:22 -0100 I strongly support Hubert Partl's plea (TeXhax Digest V88 #01) for a standard set of 'hooks' in the LaTeX document styles to support changing the 'verbiage' generated (such as 'Table of Contents', 'Appendix'). This would help users writing in different languages, as well as those who have their own ideas about certain headings (e.g., I think that 'References' and 'Bibliography' convey different meanings). The required change to the standard document styles (defining macros for the text items rather than embedding them directly in larger macros) seems not to raise any compatibility problems. I would like to point out that the language-switching mechanism (H. Partl suggests a \setlanguage command) should be designed in such a way that precisely those language-specific definitions required for each document are loaded (as opposed to, say, a single file containing all the language customizations available at an installation). For monolingual documents, this will be exactly one set of definitions, which should not require much more macro space than the text items currently embedded in the document style macros. The reason for this is that LaTeX should not become bigger than it already is. Even now, LaTeX requires so much macro space that some users regularly get into trouble with Standard TeX's memory limitations (16-bit indexing of the mem array). For example, I know two authors of papers on VLSI design who use LaTeX and are often forced to compile the figures of their papers separately from the text and paste them in with *real* glue! (No, they are not letting figures accumulate unnecessarily.) Guess what they think about the 'advanced' text formatter TeX ... Oliver Schoett schoett@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de / relay.cs.net schoett%lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de@ - unido.uucp \ ddoinf6.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1988 16:39:07 CST From: Glenn Vanderburg Subject: Is a preloaded TeX necessary? (Re: TeXhax v87 n103) In TeXhax volume 87 issue 103, Pierre MacKay pointed out that the change in a.out header format from the SUN3 to the SUN4 is not such a big problem, because the time saved for a preloaded version of TeX does not really offset the disk space requirements for the huge preloaded versions. It seems that with certain combinations of machine, operating system, and DASD, this is the case. Here at Texas A&M we run UTS (Amdahl's wonderful version of System V for IBM mainframes) on an Amdahl 5860. Having that kind of speed and Unix power at the same time is very nice. We use a version of TeX in C written by Tomas Rokicki. About a year ago I produced a preloaded plain TeX by a rather unusual method: hex dumps of the TeX a.out and core files in notebooks on the desk, the UTS file format documentation in my lap, and hed (a hexadecimal editor which comes with UTS) running on the machine. It took about 20 minutes, and I was very excited until I tried actually running it. The average time for producing a given document was the same as the average time for virtex. It seems that it takes the operating system as long to load the larger executable as it does for virtex to be loaded and then to load the format file. That's the statistical picture. To the user, using virtex actually seems *faster*! When using the preloaded version, all of the delay occurs before you see any response from TeX. With virtex, you see a little delay while the program is loaded, and then you see the ``This is TeX . . .'' message, and then another short delay (usually about a second) while the format file is loaded. The total delay is the same, but it seems faster because you get a faster initial response from the program. I had planned to write an undump program for UTS following my ``trial run,'' but decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Regards, Glenn Vanderburg ------------------------------ %%% %%% subscriptions, address changes to: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% please send a valid arpanet address!! %%% %%% BITNET distribution: subscribe to TEX-L by sending the following %%% line to LISTSERV@: %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% %%% submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------