TeXhax Digest Friday, October 23, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 85 [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]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?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 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 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 Subject: Re: SUN TeX Previewer To: TeXhax Digest 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: ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 87 14:52:00 PDT From: Subject: TPU interface to TeX To: "texhax-request" Reply-To: 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 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 ------------------------------ %%% %%% subscriptions, address changes to: texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% please send a valid arpanet address!! %%% %%% BITNET redistribution: TEX-L@TAMVM1.BITNET (list server) %%% %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------