TeXhax Digest Saturday, October 29, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 98 Moderator: Malcolm Brown Today's Topics: Re: Salvaging PXL fonts where are NEC drivers dvineclq available ? making all displayed equations numbered in LaTeX TeX for journals RE: Journals that accept/request/require TeX input (V88 #93) TEX Maple to TeX Conversion, TeXHax 95 note TeX for journals. Looking for TeX on Apollo WEB/Pascal subset Including MacDraw documents in TeX files flame on fonts Numbering in LaTeX Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #96 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Salvaging PXL fonts Date: Wed, 26 Oct 88 15:45:37 EDT From: "Louis A. Mamakos" I have a dvi to postscript converter that is based on the work that Chris Torak has done with his ctex package. It is based on the Imagen imPress driver, and can use PXL, PK and GF fonts. It can also use resident PostScript printer fonts. If there is any demand for something like this, I can make it available for anonymous FTP. It has been run on Berkeley UNIX based machines (4.3BSD, Ultrix, etc) and also on the Commodore-Amiga. Who know, you might be able to transport it to something else too. Louis A. Mamakos University of Maryland Computer Science Center ------------------------------ Date: 10/27/88 11:41:02 GMT+1 From: X114%DDAGSI3.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: where are NEC drivers dvineclq available ? In one of the last texhax new drivers for the NEC printer with 360 dpi where anounced of Fuyun Ling. From where can I get them ? Is it possible to store them at a server (e.g. at clarkson.edu) for access from BITNET ? Bye Michael Dahlinger ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Oct 88 03:56:54 PDT From: Jonathan_Thornburg@mtsg.ubc.ca Subject: making all displayed equations numbered in LaTeX In some writing styles, *all* displayed equations are numbered. In this case, it would be nice to have a shorter and more stand-out-on- -the-terminal-screen-ish version of the LaTeX \begin{equation} ... \end{equation} and \begin{eqnarray} ... \end{eqnarray} environments. The following style file redefines things so that \[ ... \] does what \begin{equation} ... \end{equation} used to do, and \[[ ... \]] does what \begin{eqnarray} ... \end{eqnarray} used to do. - Jonathan Thornburg Dept. of Geophysics & Astronomy thornburg@mtsg.ubc.ca The University of British Columbia userbkis@ubcmtsg.bitnet Vancouver BC V6T 1W5 userbkis%ubcmtsg@um.cc.umich.edu Canada ubc-vision!ubcmtsg.bitnet!thornburg ------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------ % alleqno.sty -- LaTeX style file to make displayed equations numbered % by default. % % This document style option makes all displayed equations numbered by % default. In particular, it defines things so that \[, \], \[[, and % \]] may be used as follows: % % \[ ... \] ==> \begin{equation} ... \end{equation} % \[[ ... \]] ==> \begin{eqnarray} ... \end{eqnarray} % % These new commands are short, and they stand out clearly from the % surrounding text on a terminal screen. % % Note that \begin{displaymath} ... \end{displaymath} should *not* be % used with this style file -- use \[ ... \] instead. To override the % default and get an unnumbered displayed equation, use a one-line % \begin{eqnarray} ... \end{eqnarray}. % % - Jonathan Thornburg, 25/Sept/88 % % Dept of Geophysics & Astronomy thornburg@mtsg.ubc.ca % The University of British Columbia userbkis@ubcmtsg.bitnet % Vancouver BC V6T 1W5 userbkis%ubc@um.cc.umich.edu % Canada ubc-vision!ubcmtsg.bitnet!thornburg % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % % Thanks to Donald Arseneau for help with the following macro. \def\mygobbletoken{\let\myjunktoken= }%%% % \def\[{\futurelet\mydisplayselect\mydisplay}%%% \def\mydisplay{%%% \if\mydisplayselect[%%% \begin{eqnarray}\let\mynextcommand=\mygobbletoken%%% \else%%% \begin{equation}\let\mynextcommand=\relax%%% \fi%%% \mynextcommand }%%% % \def\]{\futurelet\mydisplayselect\myenddisplay}%%% \def\myenddisplay{%%% \if\mydisplayselect]%%% \end{eqnarray}\let\mynextcommand=\mygobbletoken%%% \else%%% \end{equation}\let\mynextcommand=\relax%%% \fi%%% \mynextcommand }%%% ------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Oct 88 18:59:55 EDT From: "Doug Arnold" Subject: TeX for journals I find the discussion of author-typeset journal articles very timely. My opinion is that this has the potential to be an important advance in the way that information is communicated in the scientific community, but like any complex new technology, it has to be used carefully. The potential benefits of electronic preparation of articles include: - greater accuracy. Under the present system the journal is presented with a typescript which must be typeset. Errors invariably creep in during the typesetting phase, many of which only the author is likely to be able to catch. The author receives the proof sheets long after the article was completed, when it is no longer as fresh in his mind, and is given a very short time to check for errors which he marks in a proof- readers language in which he is likely unskilled. Errors usually sneak through. - faster dissemination. An author-typeset article can appear more quickly, a very significant advantage for modern science. At present, many people don't read the typeset version of an article at all, since they can't wait for the preprint to be set. Moreover, if the author has his final document in TeX, he can distribute it electronically. - higher quality prepublication form. The preparation of a high quality document with TeX requires effort. For many people, that effort is not justified just to print a preprint which will ultimately be reset, and consequently preprints are circulated which are typo- graphically ugly. If the author's effort will also determine the appearance in the journal, the effort has a much greater payoff. - lower costs for publishers. Allowing them, one hopes, to lower costs to readers and/or to produce a better product. The major worry expressed by Victor Eijkhout is that the quality of typesetting will be lowered by this development for two main reasons: the fonts available are inadequate and authors will not always produce competently typeset documents. These are very real concerns, but I believe that they can be adequately addressed. The font problem isn't very important for journals that will set all articles, author typeset or not, in TeX. Such journals will have a standard set of fonts, Computer Modern or otherwise, and can convert all received TeX files to those fonts. For journals that mix traditionally typeset material with TeX material, I don't see any complete solution, except the expensive and unlikely one that journals produce the necessary Metafont code to match their fonts. Fortunately, for many journals this problem is quite minor. In the journals of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for example, a discerning eye can find the article typeset in TeX by the fonts, but to me, at least, the difference is very small and not distracting. This is a tradeoff, but one which I think is well worthwhile. Of course journals should definitely not accept low resolution printer output as camera ready copy. The author should always send the TeX file, and not the printer output, which can then be set by the journal on a high resolution phototypesetter. This is the current policy of SIAM. The question of the quality of the typesetting can and should be addressed by the journals. Journals simply should not lower their standards. It is the responsibility of journal production editors to require that author-typeset papers match the journal format exactly. Authors who are not prepared to meet this requirement should have the paper set by the journal in the traditional way. I think that the way to go is that a trained copy editor, perhaps with a mild familiarity with TeX, will mark up the output and return it to the author for corrections if it is not up to snuff. TeX can produce output of the highest quality, and that's what we must demand. Michael Barr raises some practical questions on how this can best be implemented. >> Is it necessary or desirable to standardize on one version of TeX >> (e.g. LaTeX or AMSTeX) or can you handle more than one. >> How much freedom can you leave to authors to make up their own macros? The flavor of TeX is not the issue. The quality of the output is. The journals should accept any output which matches their style perfectly. LaTeX and AMSTeX and associated style files exist to make it (much) easier for authors to do so. Both tools have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the journal shouldn't try to impose one or the other. The same point applies to TeX front-ends, preprocessors (e.g., for bibliographies), and other macros packages (such as for table making or equation numbering). >> Has anyone prepared a guide for authors? Brad Lucier and I developed an AMSTeX style file for SIAM publications. SIAM provided us with information on the layout which was very helpful. We provide users of our style files (which we freely distribute) with ample documentation and examples. I feel that journals should make a strong effort to produce as many tools as possible to authors. They should commission and help distribute style files, sample documents, and typesetting guidelines written with the layman computer typesetter in mind. Douglas N. Arnold dna@emmy.umd.edu Department of Mathematics na.arnold@score.stanford.edu University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Oct 88 17:43 CST From: Subject: RE: Journals that accept/request/require TeX input (V88 #93) Even though I'm an infrequent user of TeX/LaTeX, I can see the advantages of submitting journal articles in TeX input (via network, of course). There may even be interest in developing products for specific journals. Here at Texas A&M we have BibTeX, specifically designed for thesis and dissertation preparation. Why can't the same be done for the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Physics Review Letters, etc. It might even take some of the fear (and time) in learning how to use TeX. This idea should at least have a chance in the computer science world. But realistically, I can't expect my part of the academic world to be immediately enthusiastic about the idea. The problem is how to get chemists (even those who are computer jocks) to get excited about learning TeX. And to get editors to at least give it a try. I for one would like to receive comments on my work in weeks instead of months. Who knows, I might even consider learning TeX to get the ball rolling in this area! Ricardo Davis Department of Chemistry GTE: (409) 845-0612 Texas A & M University Bitnet: RCD2403@TAMCHEM College Station, TX 77843-3255 THEnet: CHEMVX::RCD2403 Internet: RCD2403@CHEMVX.TAMU.EDU NGWnet: RCDAVIS@MT.ZION ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 09:33:09 EDT From: Mohr%NBS.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: TEX Dear Malcolm: I am interested in TEX and heard that you communicate with a network of users. I would like to get on your mailing list, and have a (possibly elementary since I started using TEX a few weeks ago) question to pose. Is there a way to use \topinsert,\endinsert without being between paragraphs? The goal is to write a macro analogous to \footnote that allows a segment of floating text to be generated in the middle of a sentence to appear elsewhere. I have not been able to prevent a new paragraph being made when the \topinsert,\endinsert are called. Any comments would be appreciated. Sincerely yours, Peter Mohr (National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly National Bureau of Standards) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 10:02 EST From: Subject: Maple to TeX Conversion, TeXHax 95 note In his note under the title above in TexHax 95, Gerald Edgar says: > This capability exists in Maple, version 4.2. It is called 'latex' > but I see nothing that would differentiate the output from plain TeX. Unfortunately, the Maple function latex() uses LaTeX specific constructions such as '\frac' that do not make sense in Plain TeX. However, it is easy to program a tex() function in the Maple language to use '\over' instead by modifying the latex() source code. Ois\'{\i}n McGuinness Math. Dept. Fordham University Bitnet: mcguiness@fordmurh Bronx NY 10458 (Note the spelling!) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 16:13:46 MET From: Victor Eijkhout Subject: TeX for journals. Roughly a month ago, I started a discussion on journals that allow authors to submit TeX code, instead of manuscripts. Allow me to summarise (and annotate) the discussion so far, and contribute some new thoughts. >From: Victor Eijkhout >One. As TeX is still intimately connected to the Computer Modern >font, journals tend to wind up with two kinds of articles >Two. It is my fear that (1) journals may view accepting TeX source as >a way of saving typesetter costs; (2) journals will have to employ >a TeX hacker (next to their regular typesetting staff) >From: Ken Yap >I hope there will be more and more drivers that will allow non CM fonts >to be used. The stumbling block seems to be the math symbol font. >Your fears are well taken. Any new technology will present problems >which have to be faced instead of expecting a panacea. ------------ I agree, TeX as it stands is not a panacea. VE >From: Brad Miller >I see, so it's the presentation not the content that concerns you? For >shame. >From: William LeFebvre >Agreed! Journals should take their time: quality is more important >than speed for a journal. >Clearly what must happen, and what may happen in the not-to-distant- >future, is that the old typesetters (the people, that is) must be >reeducated in the area of electronic typesetting (or make way for those >who are). >Where these journals are going wrong is in the assumption >that TeX will eliminate the need for a typesetter. It doesn't: it is >just providing a more powerful tool for the typesetter to use. --------------- old typesetting does not die: it just gets more exciting. VE >From: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem >Journals which accept TeX in lieu of sending out to typesetters may, >in fact, be reducing the quality of their journals. >However, journals like the ACM SIG newsletters do not have the luxury >of having outside typesetters. These journals normally accept >camera-ready copy, and print it as received. In this case, accepting TeX is >a big win ----------------- ah, always the real world spoiling our utopian dreams VE >From: (Nico Poppelier) >A very simple answer is (of course): the scientific journals should > - use LaTeX and _not_ TeX > - design their own document style, to be used with LaTeX. >From: J E PITTMAN >My only major criterians are that the output >should look professional and that I should not have to wait, >TeX (and LaTeX, >for people that can't handle TeX) meet these criterian. ---------------- both Poppelier and Pittman seem to believe in panaceae VE >From: INHB%MCGILLC.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU >1. Is it necessary or desirable to standardize on one version of TeX >2. How much freedom can you leave to authors to make up their own >macros? >3. Can you get by with a TeX consultant or is it necessary to have a >full-time in-house TeXnician? >4. Has anyone prepared a guide for authors? >5. Is there any other advice? Good points. In my opinion: 1. LaTeX is already something of a de facto standard, and considering the tools it hands to the user (tables, environments, cross referencing to name but a few) it wouldn't be the worst imaginable. Proposition: let journals adopt LaTeX (probably augmented with a .STY file), and customise LATEX.TEX such that it produces a layout which is entirely their own. 2. This one will be difficult to delineate. One will certainly want to allow macros that just save repetitious typing, but not those that alter the structure of the layout, let alone those that redefine TeX (or LaTeX) commands. 3. First of all: even with a rigorous .STY file authors can mess things up. Therefore any journal accepting TeX will need at least some typesetting staff with a working knowledge of TeX ('where does this extra space come from' and the like). It might very well be that, after the desing phase, they can get by without full-time TeXhackers if point 2. has been satisfactorily solved. However, there is no way they can get by without {\em any} typesetting staff. 4. Anyone? 5. Advice: get a good graphic artist to design your style, and a competent hacker to implement it. Both authors and readers will be satisfied. Victor Eijkhout u641000@HNYKUN11.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 17:33 N From: Subject: Looking for TeX on Apollo I am looking for a version of the TeX software that ... ... would run on some Apollo DN300 (Aegis 9.5.1 & BSD4.2 DOMAIN/IX) ... would be "buildable" with c_compiler, revision 4.65 or with pascal_compiler, revision 7.1452 ... would produce its output in POSTSCRIPT for a LaserWriter I Many thanks in advance, Marc Schenk Bitnet: MSCHENK@CLSUNI51 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1988 11:52:03 PDT From: Max Hailperin Subject: WEB/Pascal subset As is well known, Knuth restricted himself to a subset of Pascal in writing TeX. For example, he didn't use pointers, call by reference (except for files) or nested procedures. However, as far as I can tell, none of this self-discipline is a part of the WEB language definition. My questions: 1) Does any of the TeX-related software not obey these restrictions? 2) If I write a WEB-to-... converter that exploits these conventions, should it instead be called restricted-WEB-to-... or some such? In particular, has anyone got a name for this WEB subset? 3) To what extent do other people exploit the restrictions? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 15:18 EDT From: Henning Schulz-Rinne Subject: Including MacDraw documents in TeX files I would like to include MacDraw documents in a Tex file and then print the resulting .PS file on a DEC LPS40 printer. I am using DVIALW to convert .DVI files to .PS files and have been able to include the sample file given in the DVIALW manual, but have not had any luck with MacDraw files. I have a suspicion that a special Apple dictionary is required, but don't know enough about Postscript etc. to be sure. Any help greatly appreciated. Henning Schulzrinne ECE/COINS U. of Massachusetts, Amherst ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 12:51 EDT From: RICK%ntcws1.hub.hdsm05.hds.sdr.slb.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: flame on fonts Flame on Fonts !!! There needs to be a trip like test for cm fonts! I've just had an interesting experence trying to output a 50 page document in LaTeX. When we took the output to a local printshop to be printed. They recommended we switch fonts because the roman fonts we were using had some very thin areas which would tend to drop out when making the printing run. They suggested we switch to a sans serif font. After having much fun getting LaTeX to think that roman fonts were actually cmss10 type fonts and dealing with missing sans serif fonts at small sizes (for the fine print part of the document) we took that output to the printer. He then pointed out that the 10 point cmss10 font also had problems -- especially the small "e" character had little or no white space. It would end up as a black blob on the upper half when duplicated for printing. After this I decided to take a closer look at the fonts supplied with the laser printer. Looking in the printer manufacture's book of TeX fonts at cmss10 sure enought the e's where black in the upper half of their own manual. All the sans serif fonts appear to be boldface. The standard cmss10 sans serif font is as bold if not bolder than the boldface cmssbx10 font example in Knuth's "Computer Modern Typefaces" book. Most if not all the fonts are too black. I don't think it is to unreasonable to expect that if I print using cm fonts on two different laser printers that the output should look reasonably alike. I realize at 300 dots/inch and with different technology (write white/ write black etc.) that they will be slightly different but, any reasonable company supplying TeX fonts should make some effort to fine tune their mode_defs values to make their output look like the examples in Knuth's book. Anyone generating fonts using metafont that they are going to call cm fonts should have a copy of "Computer Modern Typefaces" open in front of them (pages 554 thru 570), how else are they going to know if what they are generating is cm or not? Now if the manufacture had supplied Metafont and the program to convert the .pk file to the proper format for downloading to the printer, I could clean up the fonts. But that is scheduled for the next release. I have Metafont, but no way to covert the output .pk files to a format the printer can use. The result is I'm going to give the printer an inferior master, and will get an inferior final product as a result. I realize I should be using a printer who can output from TeX dvi files, but that is another story. I'll not name the offending company because I'm sure there are many other companies with a similar problem, you know who you are. flame off Rick Caldwell ------------------------------ Date: 28 October 1988 14:44:31 CDT From: "Cynthia E. Quinn " Subject: Numbering in LaTeX Does anybody know how to get all numbering done by LaTeX using oldstyle numbers? This should include page numbers and chapter numbers. Thanks Cynthia Quinn U27095@UICVM.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Oct 88 04:18:25 EDT From: Chris Torek Subject: Re: TeXhax Digest V88 #96 I realise the magnitude of this request, as I handle requests for several mailing lists myself (none digestified or moderated, thank the Valar), but it would be nice if someone would edit in answers to simple questions like the one that comes up repeatedly about \if...\fi expansions after numbers. This time the question took the form: \newcount\v \v=0 \newcommand{\test}{\ifnum\v=0 $A=0$ \else $A=1$\fi} \newcommand{\testa}{\advance\v by 1% \test} \testa Of course, the problem is that TeX is trying to see what comes after the `1', in case the macros expand to something like \advance\v by 1\iffoo 2\else 4\fi which advances by either 12 or 14. Ah well, no doubt twenty other people will answer this question.... Chris ------------------------------ %%% %%% Concerning subscriptions, address changes, unsubscribing: %%% BITNET: send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@TAMVM1.BITNET: %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L % to subscribe %%% %%% All others: send mail to %%% texhax-request@score.stanford.edu %%% please send a valid arpanet address!! %%% %%% %%% All submissions to: texhax@score.stanford.edu %%% %%% Back issues available for FTPing as: %%% machine: directory: filename: %%% [SCORE.STANFORD.EDU]TEXHAXnn.yy %%% nn = issue number %%% yy = last two digits of current year %%%\bye %%% ------------------------------ End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------