TeXhax Digest Tuesday, August 11, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 67 [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]TEXHAX67.87 Editor: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: multi-lingual hyphenation patterns? Driver wanted for Diconix 150 battery portable printer (Epson-like) How do I get DVI2LN3 plotfile to work? DVI to GPX SUTHESIS.STY Help with \newenvironment TeX eats l's after fil Re: TeX eats l's after fil Need help with HP Laser DVI driver WEB PK files on CMS undump Re: BibTeX suggestions Re: WEB PostScript page overlays with dvips detex, delatex, where are they? Mode definitions for LN03 and LN03+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LD16%DKAUNI48.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: 08/05/87 14:15:19 CET To: TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu Subject: multi-lingual hyphenation patterns? I've heard a rumor that there are hyphenation patterns for German that are different from the ones originally produced by Bernd Schulze in Bonn, FRG. The new file is said to be very short. The idea is to use it for a bilingual german-english TeX \`a la Jacques D\'esarm\'enien without having to increase TeX's variable trie_size. Can anybody out there give me a pointer to the new patterns? Please, drop me note: LD16@DKAUNI48.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 09:57 N From: Subject: Driver wanted for Diconix 150 battery portable printer (Epson-like) To: TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu We need a driver for the Diconix 150 battery portable ink-jet printer. It is Epson/IBM compatible (nearly) but can only do single and double resolution graphics, not quad density. The DVIEPS driver shipped with PC-TeX nearly works, so I guess it could be modified without too much trouble by someone who (a) knows the guts and (b) has access to the code. Question is, who is that person? It would *not* need as many multiple-passes as the DVIEPS driver, because the ink-jet technology seems to produce a very good black image on ink-jet paper with almost complete silence. We want to use it from IBM-compatible PCs. It is a very nice little printer, BTW, which I can recommend for laptop use as an ordinary dot-matrix device, but to have it produce TeX output would be a real plus. Don't tell anyone, but we may be able to fund the mods to a driver for it with (whisper) *money*! Trouble is, we don't know who to ask to do it. I can send the details of the relevant bits of the manual to whoever, as the documentation is reasonably good. Peter Flynn Office: +353 21 276871 x2215..(9am--5pm European) Academic Advisory Manager Home: +353 21 546305..........(7pm--> European) Computer Bureau Fax: +353 21 277194 (G3).............(anytime) University College Telex: 75583 uncc ei........(if all else fails!) Cork, Ireland BITNET: CBTS8001 @ IRUCCVAX ....(preferred route) (=arpa cbts8001%iruccvax.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu) "...not lying, just being" HEANET: cbts8001@irl.hea.ucc.vax1 (Irish network) creative with the truth." BIX: pflynn@bytecosy....(checked every 2 days) [some politician] Kom: "Peter Flynn UCC" @ UCD.KOM .....EuroKom) ------------------------------ Date: 05 Aug 87 15:28:00 ADT From: "Derrick Webber Documentation" To: "TeXhax" Subject: How do I get DVI2LN3 plotfile to work? I've been trying to get the ln03:plotfile \special of the Rose DVI2LN3 driver to work. I tried the procedure explained in TeXhax V87 #25: \begin{figure} \special{ln03:plotfile critical5.ln3} \vspace{4in} \caption{Organizational Chart} \end{figure} The file CRITICAL5.LN3 is a sixel graphics file. The document up to and including the sixel file comes out perfectly, but the LN03 spews out pages of garbage after that. Even the \caption is lost. Apparently the LN03 is not put back into the proper mode for printing the rest of the document. Has anyone gotten ln03:plotfile to work? I'm not really interested in including sixel files in documents, but rather files using DEC line-drawing characters. Thanks in advance, Derrick Webber Computer Centre University of Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island, Canada ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 16:39 EDT From: "guthery%asc@sdr.slb.com" Subject: DVI to GPX To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Anybody know of a DVI renderer for the VAXStation with a GPX card? Thanks, Scott ------------------------------ Date: Wed 5 Aug 87 18:20:20-PDT From: --`O----O'-- Subject: SUTHESIS.STY To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Is there any documentation on this style? It was included with my LaTeX disks, but I have no idea what it is capable of and I don't have the time to decipher it. Thanks, --- Ravi Narasimhan Dept. of Chemistry Stanford o.oski@othello.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 18:43 DST From: Reid Rowlett Subject: Help with \newenvironment To: texhax@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU I'm trying to use \newenvironment and running into problems beyond my meager comprehension of LaTeX. I want to define an environment called "bullets" which is equivalent to the following (I want to center the bullets, which are all short, so I didn't use itemize): \begin{tabular}{@{$\bullet$ }l} ....tabular stuff.... \end{tabular} so I defined an environment thusly: \newenvironment{bullets}{\begin{tabular}{@{$\bullet$ }l} } {\end{tabular} } and tried to use it as \begin{bullets} ....tabular stuff... \end{bullets} LaTeX did not complain about the definition, but TeX burped when it hit the \end{bullets} with ! Use of \endbullets doesn't match its definition. \end #1->\csname end#1\endcsname \endgroup \@checkend {#1} ... l.20 \end{bullets} ? h If you say, e.g., `\def\a1{...}', then you must always put `1' after `\a', since control sequence names are made up of letters only. The macro here has not been followed by the required stuff, so I'm ignoring it. TeX seems to be complaining that it expects an argument or some particular text to follow the \end{bullets}, which I don't understand. The LaTeX manual states on page 128 that such an error can mean that "something is wrong in an @-expression in the argument of ... a tabular environment --- perhaps a fragile command that is not \protect'ed." (Yes, I do TRY to read the LaTeX manual) However, the places I tried sticking in \protect in the @-expression (which after all is in the \begin{bullets} definition, not the \end...) either didn't work or didn't change things. I admit I don't really understand \protect, so could someone point me in the right direction? And, what's a good approach to debugging such a problem? Reid Rowlett Unisys Corporation Reston, Virginia ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 20:27:30 CDT From: "Douglas N. Arnold" To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Subject: TeX eats l's after fil If an 'l' or and 'L' follows a unit of glue such as 'fil', even separated by spaces, it is aparently parsed as part of the name of the unit. This leads to some fairly strange behavior. For example, the following script will put a 'K' and a 'M' in the dvi file, but no 'L'! \def\q#1{\hskip 0 pt plus 0 fil #1} \q{K}\q{L}\q{M} \end I know that TeX has no bugs ... but is it really supposed to do this? -- Doug Arnold na.arnold@score.stanford.edu = arnold%s1.ima.umn.edu@umn-cs.arpa %% Barbara Beeton responds: ------------------------------ Mail-From: BEETON created at 5-Aug-87 20:25:06 Date: Wed 5 Aug 87 20:25:06-PDT From: Barbara Beeton Subject: Re: TeX eats l's after fil To: texhax@Score.Stanford.EDU the "l"-gobbling you've encountered is legitimate, and easily explained. the full syntax of \hskip is \hskip plus minus since your example didn't include a "minus", tex keeps looking. since "fil" is a "pseudo-dimension" it can continue, up to 3 "l"s (if your data had been "llama", all you would have gotten in the output would have been "ama"). similarly, if the data had started with the word "minus", not followed by a proper , minus would have been gobbled and you probably would have gotten a nasty message to the effect that a was expected, and 0pt will be assumed. the best way to avoid this is to put \relax after your skip expression. this is covered explicitly in the texbook; look it up in the index (page 469): "l after fil". -- barbara beeton ------------------------------ From: Marc Elsen Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 21:16:09 GMT To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Query for device driver : I would like to know whether anyone knows about the existence of a Texdriver supporting the digital VAX/STATION II (GPX),preferably running under VMS (VWS). Or else running under ULTRIX (using the X window system ?!). M.Elsen IMEC Kapeldreef 75 3030 Heverlee Belgium ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Aug 87 09:49:07 EDT From: akk2@tut.cc.rochester.edu (Atul Kacker) To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Subject: Need help with HP Laser DVI driver I am trying to use the HP LaserJet driver from the University of Utah, in conjunction with the DVI files produced from PCTeX. The manual that I have goes into great details about the driver program itself, but does not tell anything about actually using the program. I guess what I am looking for are instructions that tell me what kind of fonts I need, where should I keep them, what environment variables I have to set etc. Has anyone out there actually used this DVI driver from an IBM PC to a HP LaserJet Plus ? My setup is as follows : IBM PC-AT HP LaserJet II PcTeX .PK and .TFM font files for CM fonts (obtained from our VAX/VMS machine) I tried to compile the C sources using the instructions I found on on one of the diskettes and got about 50 warning messages with Microsoft C version 3.0. I do not know C, so I just ignored them and tried to use the executable I generated. I do get some output from the HP LaserJet but it seems like it is ignoring all the CM fonts. Any help would be appreciated. I am also posting this to comp.text. Thanks Atul Kacker UUCP: ...seismo!rochester!ur-tut!akk2 ------------------------------ Date: 6 Aug 87 10:52:00 CDT From: "PERV::ROBERT" Subject: WEB To: "texhax" There is a column entitled "Literate Programming" in CACM Vol. 30, Number 7, June 1987 which mentions the WEB system. In the article the author, Christopher J. Van Wyk, states that "Pascal is not essential; WEB can work as well with any other programming language, such as Fortran." If this is correct, can anyone enlighten me on how WEB might be used to generate the code of say a C or Fortran program instead of the Pascal source TANGLE normally generates? Thanks... Robert Schneider Department of Petroleum Engineering The University of Texas at Austin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Aug 87 10:56:20 CDT From: Don Hosek Subject: PK files on CMS To: TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu Be aware that PK files on CMS do not *exactly* match the format described in Sections 14--30 of PKtype. In Section 16, it said, ``[The pk_post] command is followed by just enough pk_no_op commands to make this file a multiple of four bytes long; zero through three are usual but four are allowed.'' However, on CMS, PK files are packed in F32 records, and it is often necessary to use more than four pk_no_op s which is forbidden by the format (GFtoPK on CMS does this). However, it is not a serious problem, since PK files are read from beginning to end, and most PK-reading programs (except an exacting syntax-checking program like PKtype) will just stop after reaching the pk_post command without bothering to look any further. While I'm on the subject, does anybody out there have a CMS-CHAN file for PKtype, or should I continue my occasional efforts. -DH ------------------------------ To: texhax@score Subject: undump Date: Thu, 06 Aug 87 13:57:10 PDT From: Richard Roy Two questions concerning undump: 1) Has anybody successfully used undump under 4.3bsd to create TeX and or LaTeX modules using the Berkeley pascal compiled initex and virtex modules. When I attempt it, the modules created immediately get into an infinite loop of some sort upon execution. Note that using the pastel compiled initex and virtex seems to produce module which execute perfectly. The only reason I am really interested in a working version of undump for the Berkeley pascal compiler (pastel is twice as fast!) is that ... 2) I am interested in geting a working verison of undump for SUN-3's running SUNs 3.2 UNIX or later. Is there such a program in existence? RR ------------------------------ Mail-From: PATASHNIK created at 6-Aug-87 20:58:07 Date: Thu 6 Aug 87 20:58:07-PDT From: Oren Patashnik Subject: Re: BibTeX suggestions To: texhax@Score.Stanford.EDU > From: Bengt Martensson > Subject: BibTeX: suggestions, bug, Emacs > A suggestion for BibTeX: I would like to see some kind of macro > feature in BibTeX. (The @STRING is not what I am after.) I would > like to be able to write something like the following example: > [followed by a single macro containing several fields] We'll probably include a mechanism for making it easier to cross- reference within the bibliography; this will be a more general solution to the problem that I think Bengt's suggestion was meant to solve. Details will be explained in the updated documentation. > Bug (BibTeX, Version 0.98i for Berkeley UNIX): The alpha style makes > the label [Maa86] from my last name, entered as M\aa rtensson. A new feature will handle this case more gracefully. --Oren Patashnik ------------------------------ Mail-From: BEETON created at 6-Aug-87 22:07:07 Date: Thu 6 Aug 87 22:07:07-PDT From: Barbara Beeton Subject: Re: WEB To: texhax@Score.Stanford.EDU there have been several articles in the past few issues of tugboat regarding adaptations of tugboat to c and (in the latest issue) to modula-2. you might read those for a start. -- barbara beeton editor, tugboat ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Aug 87 23:33:28 PDT From: Bruce Langdon To: texhax@score.stanford.edu Subject: PostScript page overlays with dvips In texhax V87 #59, J. Hallett asks how to get ArborText's dvips to put a light grey "DRAFT" across each page at an angle, perhaps without deep understanding of LaTeX macros. According to the manual, \special{ps: overlay psfile on} where psfile is a file containing definition of PS procedure "OVERLAY", will cause OVERLAY to be executed at the beginning of each page. This is triggered by dvips rather than by the output routine. Hallett knows how to write OVERLAY. So was this approach considered? Bruce Langdon L-472 langdon@lll-lcc.ARPA Physics Department 339650%d@nmfecc.ARPA Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Livermore, CA 94550 (415) 422-5444 UUCP: ..{ihnp4,qantel,ucdavis,pyramid,styx,topaz}!lll-lcc!langdon ..{gymble,ll-xn,seismo}!lll-crg!lll-lcc!langdon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 07:50:31 PDT From: cel@CitHex.Caltech.Edu (Chuck Lane) Subject: detex, delatex, where are they? To: texhax@score.stanford.edu I remember reading here, lo these many months ago, of the programs detex and delatex for stripping out control sequences & commands from TeX and LaTeX files so that they could (for example) be run through a spelling checker. As I recall (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong :-) ) they were on mod.sources or some such place. I tried looking for them and finally gave up. Does anyone have a pointer to where I can find them? --Chuck Lane cel@cithex.caltech.edu .bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 10:19:38 EST From: crl@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu (Charles R. LaBrec) To: TEXHAX@score.stanford.edu Subject: Mode definitions for LN03 and LN03+ I have recently been playing with metafont for an LN03, and have come up with something that seem to produce acceptable output, but is by no means "completely" tested. The problem with the write-white LN03 is that you cannot use a one-pixel wide line ever, since it becomes far, far too light. This is why my previous version of the LN03 mode used a "blacker" parameter that was very big. From metafont 1.3, I started using the write-white cmbase, but even this didn't provide a wide enough line in various places. It was really obvious for things that used only the light_rule.nib pen. This fact made me notice that even though all sorts of parameters were set to a minimum of two, the pens that were saved could have widths of one. I thus decided to try to modify cmbase further, setting minimum pencircle widths of two. I enclose the decln mode I've used, along with a diff of the write-white version of cmbase.mf. I am VERY interested in comments/suggestions as to whether everyone thinks this solution is valid/produces good output. If so, then perhaps metafont should get a new mode parameter which is the minimum pen{circle/square} scaling, so that such things could be more easily handled in base files. Charles LaBrec crl @ maxwell.physics.purdue.edu %% Charles's code is too long for the digest. It's stored on Score as %% labrec.txh %% and has also been sent along to TEX-L for BITNET folks. Malcolm %% ------------------------------ %%% %%% subscriptions, address changes to: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% BITNET redistribution: TEX-L@TAMVM1.BITNET (list server) %%% %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------