TeXhax Digest Wednesday, January 2, 1991 Volume 91 : Issue 1 Moderators: Tiina Modisett and Pierre MacKay %%% The TeXhax digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group %%% %%% in cooperation with the UnixTeX distribution service at the %%% %%% University of Washington %%% Today's Topics: fix for nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 leaving a space Postscript, Metafont TeX/Postscript driver The mtex music font and MF2.7 Ker-mit-choo! Portuguese hyphenation xxencode TeX for Coherent Russian Latex Cree syllabics Infinite Loop OzTeX question gftodvi Word processor-> TeX LaTeX to RTF translation DVIPS for PC Index help Making/modifying Metafont mode_defs ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 09:52:51 -0800 From: att!ihlpa!danj1@cs.washington.edu Subject: fix for nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 leaving a space Keywords: TeX, nroff, fix >From George_L_Sicherman@ATT.COM to me, Sun Dec 30 11:10 EST 1990 GLS> By the way, the nroff macro for TeX in tex.1 is leaving a space after GLS> each occurrence, even in phrases like _The TeXbook._ You ought to use GLS> a string instead of a macro. I will note this down, fix it locally here at ATT.COM, and even attempt to report it to someone@labrea, as it's all their fault :-) -Dan J. (hmm, and here's the fix:) .\" --fixed spaces... [only tested with nroff], Dan Jacobson 12/1990: .\" .ie t .ds TX \fRT\v'+0.3m'E\v'-0.3m'X\fP \" for troff .ie t .ds TX \fRT\v'+0.3m'E\v'-0.3m'X\fP\" for troff .\" .el .ds TX TeX \" for nroff .el .ds TX TeX\" for nroff .\" to use, type \*(TX and that someone turns out to be Texhax, 'cause that's the best "person" I came up with. Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Jan 91 09:55:02 +0200 From: Rama Porat Subject: Postscript, Metafont Keywords: Postscript, Metafont Is there a public domain converter from Postscript fonts to Metafont? Thanx a lot! Rama. -- rama@shum.huji.ac.il ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 1 January 1991 12:55:11 CST From: "Uri N. Peled Subject: TeX/Postscript driver Keywords: dviware, PostScript, TeX Could anyone please let me know about the following problem? I have a 386-based machine with 8Meg RAM and an HP Laserjet IIP printer with 512 KB memory. I run Mathematica and can generate postscript or encapsulated postscript files with graphics. I also run PCTeX to generate papers. Is it possible to imbed the postscript file in a TeX or LaTex file and be able to print it on my printer or view it on the screen? I am thinking of something like PSFIG that runs for our laser printers at school. If not, will purchasing additional memory for the printer help? Is any software available on ftp or commercially? Thank you very much for any information you may have. Please answer to: Uri N. Peled U32799@UICVM (Bitnet) U32799@UICVM.UIC.EDU (Internet) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 12:04:11 CST From: drl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu Subject: The mtex music font and MF2.7 Keywords: fonts, mtex, MF2.7 Has anyone made the music font from mtex by Andrea Steinbach and Angelika Schofer with the new MF? I had trouble this font with the last MF (< 2.0) so when I built MF 2.7 (from the web2c 5.8a dist), one of the first things I tried was the music font. It still fails the same way: downward stems with flags do not have flags and a few other characters also seem to be drawn wrong. Any help would be appreciated. David David Linn, System Manager/Postmaster |INET: drl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu Vanderbilt University School of Engineering|Phone: [+1] 615-343-6164 Post Office Box 3241, Station B |Disclaimer: Nashville, TN, USA 37235 | I speak only for myself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 09:33:20 PST From: rousu@sicbm.boeing.com (DWIGHT ROUSU, 657-4235,MS82-26) Subject: Ker-mit-choo! Keywords: Kermit Computer: Vax VMS Recent items on TeXhax regarding Kermit and FTP lead me to come out of the hacker's closet with these questions; With all these archives and mailservers available, I can get ASCII `e-mail'ed files nicely. Thank you kindly. For various reasons, including institutional caution of computer viruses (even from respectable univ. archives), FTP of (executable and binary) files from external sources is difficult. Kermit is a more available procedure, though slow. USMailed mag tape is a more bothersome, costly source I may have to resort to. Immediate question: Is there a way to get Vax VMS .exe files from these respectable archives using Kermit, IF one so desired? Structural questions: What procedures DO the various archives use to vacinate against viruses? Could they characterize the degree to which they perform this function? If they don't vacinate, could cognizati of the protection business provide virus checkers to them so we can have safe TeX? Can we talk?... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 08:27:39 PLT From: Dean Guenther Subject: Portuguese hyphenation Keywords: TeX, hyphenation, Portuguese > Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 12:54:31 GMT > From: Carlos Lourenco > Subject: Help with hyphenation in Portuguese or French. > Keywords: TeX, hyphenation, Portuguese, French > > I am using TeX to write texts in the PORTUGUESE language and, > most of the time, the words are incorrectly hyphenated. I am > not a TeXnician, although I use TeX quite often, and I don't > know how to make a portuguese version of the hyphenation > algorithm, paterns and so on. I'll send you a copy of the Portuguese hyphenation table Pedro d Rezende did in 1987. -- Dean Guenther ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 09:15:12 MST From: cbiemes@noao.edu (Chris Biemesderfer) Subject: xxencode Keywords: xxencode In issue 73, Pierre asks about a North American source for xxencode. I got mine from wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the misc/unix subdirectory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 1990 09:24:00 -0500 From: SCHROEDER@UTORPHYS Subject: TeX for Coherent Keywords: TeX, Coherent Has anybody ported TeX to the operating system Coherent, by Mark Williams Co.? Coherent is a unix-clone that sells for $99.00. Conversely, does anybody know a reason why TeX couldn't be ported to Coherent? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From LaTeX-help > Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 14:30:42 -0500 > From: dbb@cs.duke.edu (Donald B. Bliss) > Message-Id: <9012131930.AA08690@romeo.cs.duke.edu> > To: LaTeX-help@sumex-aim.stanford.edu > Subject: Russian Latex > > Hello. > I am looking for a full blown russian version of Latex. In other words > something that will allow me to see the russian as I type it. Commands > can be English or Russian as long as I can see the russian text as I type. > I am also looking for a Polish version so any info on that would also be > appreciated. > Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 10:48 EST From: William Cowan Subject: Cree syllabics Keywords: METAFONT, Cree Does anyone know of any metafont production of Cree syllabics? William_Cowan@carleton.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 17:27:10 EST From: toms@ncifcrf.gov Subject: Infinite Loop Keywords: LaTeX, infinite loop Hi fellow Texnicians! If LaTeX cannot find a file when I \input definitions.tex it asks me for another file. That's fine. If I give it a good name, it is happy and we proceed. If I give it a bad name, I'm asked again: ! I can't find file `definitions.tex'. l.4 \input definitions.tex Please type another input file name: If I have made a mistake and want to stop at this point, I can't! Well, I know that I'm supposed to say 'nul' and it will fall out of the loop, but IT DOES NOT TELL ME that that is an option. So that is my first point: LaTeX should tell the user what options are available at this point. Next, if I try to kill the program with control-c, it ignores me. Worse, if I type a control-d, IT GOES INTO AN INFINITE LOOP. I have to kill the program remotely, which is difficult, since LaTeX takes maybe 80% of the cycles of the machine to run the loop! Has this been fixed? I have: This is TeX, C Version 2.95 (no format preloaded) (x.tex LaTeX Version 2.09 <4 Aug 1988> Tom Schneider National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Mathematical Biology Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201 toms@ncifcrf.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 14:55:15 -0500 From: furuta@cs.UMD.EDU (Richard Furuta) Subject: OzTeX question Keywords: OzTeX Does OzTeX have a mechanism by which multiple directories can be bound to the list searched for TeX input files? We have many locally-produced LaTeX style files and find it convenient to keep them separated from the system-defined ones. As near as I can make out from the OzTeX configuration files, only a single directory is permitted to be specified for searching for \input files that aren't in the current area. Thanks. --Rick ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 11:49:18 EST From: "Bradley D. Keister" Subject: gftodvi Keywords: gftodvi Given the release of SBMF for PC's...is there a PC version of GFtoDVI available? Brad Keister Physics Dept. Carnegie Mellon U keister@poincare.phys.cmu.edu (internet) keister%poincare.phys.cmu.edu@CARNEGIE (BITNET) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 11:02:19 +0200 From: Malki Cymbalista Subject: Word processor-> TeX Keywords: Microsoft Word, TeX, converter Does anybody know of a program that converts any Pc word processing package to TeX. I know that one exists for WordPerfect. I am especially interested in Word to TeX. Thanks. Malki Bitnet: vumalki@weizmann Internet: vumalki@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 06:59:29 EST From: IL Gibson Subject: LaTeX to RTF translation Keywords: LaTeX, RTF I am looking for a program that might translate LaTeX input files into Microsoft's RTF format. The objective is to use LaTeX text files for other procedures that require RTF as input. The translation probably would not be perfect and would be useful even if it only dealt with a subset of LaTeX commands. Any help would be appreciated. Ian Gibson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 1990 11:35:36 GMT+1 From: kuhnle@ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de Subject: DVIPS for PC Keywords: PC-TeX, Novell clusters, Postscript We (at the AIT Tuebingen) are running PC-TeX on our Novell Cluster. This cluster is connected with a DEC LN03R Postscript Laserprinter. Therefore, we are desperately searching for a dvips driver which runs on our cluster. Currently, we are using a HP Laserjet but that printer is much too slow for bigger documents. Does anybody out there know where we can find a dvi2ps program, and how we can get it (at best via anonymous FTP)? Any hints would be appreciated. Thank you in advance, Volkmar Kuhnle kuhnle @ aitxu2.ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de (preferred for mail) psjeka1 @ zmcon2.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 09:54:49 GMT From: toby@hce.computer-science.manchester.ac.uk Subject: Index help Keywords: LaTeX, index, MakeIndex I'm currently preparing the index to a book done with LaTeX, using Lamport's MakeIndex program (I've switched from IdxTeX). Has anyone who's used MakeIndex before (or knows of a better tool) got any tips/caveats etc that might help me? Thanks Toby Toby Howard Computer Science Department, University of Manchester, Lecturer Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, U.K. janet: toby@uk.ac.man.cs.p1 internet: toby%p1.cs.man.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk earn/bitnet: toby%uk.ac.man.cs.p1@UKACRL uucp: ...!ukc!mup1!toby voice: +44 61-275-6274 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 17:21:01 EST From: rocky@ibm.com Subject: Making/modifying Metafont mode_defs Keywords: METAFONT, mode_def I've been experimenting with the MetaFont parameters for making fonts for the IBM 38xx printers among others. In doing so, I have been looking at various mode definitions. (Such as in waits.mf, devices.mf, or local.mf) One thing that has bothered me about the way such mode_defs are written is the way assignments to parameters are unnecessarily hard-coded in. For example, some mode definitions unconditionally assign a value to variable, fontmaking. For example they contain assignment ``fontmaking:=1'' which causes a TeX Font Metric file or tfm to be created. Suppose I want to generate a font using all of the setup that this mode provides, but just do not want to generate a tfm? One could create another mode that doesn't have the assignment, but this seems a bit wasteful since the rest of the code in the mode would be duplicated. Given the way many mode definitions are written, it is not possible to change fontmaking. To see why, I review how a MetaFont run usually works. First a call to MetaFont is made with a base file to load. Then one might want to do additional MetaFont instructions, such as \scrollmode or assign the \mode_def. Next one inputs a parameter file such as cmr10. The parameter file calls a driver file such as roman by the comamnd ``generate roman.'' Finally the driver often has as its last line ``bye.'' Thus any additional commands that are given after the input of the parameter file (such as an assignment to fontmaking) are ignored. Usually one of the first things a driver file does is to call mode_setup. It is here that the mode intructions are interpreted. (In our hypothetical mode, it would be here that fontmaking is assigned.) To allow flexible fontmaking, there is a simple fix: in the mode_def, first test to see if a value has been defined prior and only make the assignment if not. That is if unknown fontmaking:fontmaking:=1;fi Alas this doesn't work for the parameters blacker, fillin and o_correction, since they are primitives and therefore always are defined. A suggestion is to three more variables for these, e.g. set_fillin, set_blacker, set_o_correction which tell if a variable has been set. Although one now has to add an assignment to these variables in addition to the variable they are guarding (e.g. set_blacker := blacker := ... ) it does allow one to use mode definitions more flexibly: one specify some of the mode definitions parameters to change while keeping the default value of others. With the above in mind, here is a mode_definition for the IBM38xx printers:... % % Thanks to Jim Hafner (hafner@ibm.com) for experimenting with blacker. % mode_def IBMD = % IBM mode for the IBM38xx's pixels_per_inch:=240; if unknown fontmaking: % Unless told otherwise, fontmaking:=1; % output TFM fi if unknown tracingtitles: % Unless told otherwise, tracingtitles:=0; % don't show titles in the log fi if unknown proofing_set: % Unless told otherwise proofing_set:= proofing:=0; % we're not making proofs fi if unknown blacker_set: % Set this value unless it has been set previously blacker_set:= blacker:=0; % On cmtt8 a's are already starting to fill in, fi % so no more blacker. if unknown fillin_set: fillin_set:= fillin:=.3; % This value can be checked on cmtt10's k's and z's-- fi % check the diagonal/horizontal ratio on these. if unknown o_correction_set: o_correction_set:= o_correction:=.75; % I don't believe even a value of 1 is that bad. fi For such low-resolution devices, a single mode_def might not suffice---parameters for some fonts look bad for others. (Screen fonts are another case of a low-resolution device where one might consider having several mode definitions.) R. Bernstein IBM Research rocky@ibm.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% Further information about the TeXhax Digest, the TeX %%% Users Group, and the latest software versions is available %%% in every tenth issue of the TeXhax Digest. %%% %%% Concerning subscriptions, address changes, unsubscribing: %%% %%% BITNET: send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@xxx %%% SUBSCRIBE TEX-L % to subscribe %%% or UNSUBSCRIBE TEX-L %%% %%% Internet: send a similar one line mail message to %%% TeXhax-request@cs.washington.edu %%% JANET users may choose to use %%% texhax-request@uk.ac.nsf %%% All submissions to: TeXhax@cs.washington.edu %%% %%% Back issues available for FTPing as: %%% machine: directory: filename: %%% JUNE.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU TeXhax/TeXhaxyy.nnn %%% yy = last two digits of current year %%% nnn = issue number %%% %%%\bye %%% End of TeXhax Digest ************************** -------