UKTeX V89 #08 Friday 24 February 1989 RE: UKTeX V89 #07 Accessing the TeX archives RNOtoTeX: missing file Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts TeX Drivers for LN03R Postscript Printer Non-text files in the archive Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts Editor Peter Abbott Issue 09 (Friday March 3) will be posted on Thursday March 2 and issue 10 will be posted Friday March 17. There will be no issue on March 10 as I shall be in Portland, Oregon. Latest TeXhax in the Archive is #10 (09 and 10 received Feb 22 1989) Latest TeXmag in the Archive is V2N6 --------------------------------- Message-Id: <24646.8902171425@itspna.ed.ac.uk> Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Fri, 17 Feb 89 14:25:45 GMT Date: Fri Feb 17 14:26:20 GMT 1989 From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis Firstly, my thanks to: Brian Tompsett at Edinburgh University for the facilities on Tardis (so-named because it's a big, blue box which falls over a lot), Phil Taylor for making the request which obtained said facilities, Peter Abbott for the tapes, David Osborne for his tape, and anybody else who may have helped. I'm the TeX "Sorcerer's Apprentice" on our VAX, keeping half a step ahead of my users whilst trying to coerce LaTeX into meeting various company requirements for document formats. Every problem I unearth seems to have more lurking behind it - I'm beginning to suspect TeX is fractal in that respect. For instance, to send this message I had to take a crash-course in UNIX, (I'm *not* ungrateful Brian, but it's *worse* than MESS-DOS); come back VMS, all is forgiven. Software versions: TeX VAX VMS version 2.0 LaTeX 2.09 <3 JAN 1988> (Article style dated 12 Oct 1987) MF VAX VMS version 1.0 INIMF VAX VMS version 1.0 1) LaTeX: I defined some commands for a document style, and would like to restrict their use to the preamble. The hook mentioned in latex.tex (\let\do = \noexpand, \edef\@preamblecmds{\@preamblecmds \do\mycommand}) dies horribly. Reason - the \do's in the \@preamblecmd list stop the existing commands expanding but they themselves vanish in the process. My feeble attempts to find an answer have simply proved how little I understand TeX's expansion mechanism. Can anyone tell me (and Dr Lamport) what should be used instead? 2) LaTeX: I needed a strut to go with 12pt type so, whilst mildly cursing L.L. for not providing a \strut that coped with size-changing commands, I looked in lfonts.tex to see what value of baselineskip went with 12pt type. Imagine my surprise when I found \strut re-defined in lfonts.tex so that it copes with size-changing commands. Is this an unauthorised (but welcome) change to lfonts.tex or is it an omission from the LaTeX manual? Go on Leslie, find \strut in the index - or anywhere else! ;-} 3) LaTeX: A customer (U.S. Gov't) decreed that we produce documents with a section titled `Definition of Abbreviations, Terms and Symbols' (you or I might have chosen `Definitions' or `Glossary'). The resultant output was `Definition ..... Sym-bols', the dangling `bols' being disconcerting to those of us with a sensitive disposition. Since this occurred in the early days of our battles with LaTeX it took an embarrassingly long time for us to discover that \sloppy was the solution (in retrospect it's obvious that none of the many approaches we tried were remotely sensible). I know that some people (Hi, Leslie) advise against long section headings, but sometimes they're unavoidable. Should LaTeX's sectioning macros be altered (please don't hit me, Dr Lamport) to be \sloppy? 4) INIMF: When I try and run INIMF so that I can build a version of MF which knows what a DEC LN03 is (at least I *think* that's what I should be doing), the stack-dump tells me that an array index value is out of range in module `userreset'. I TANGLED it and the compiler warned (at line 6127) that `readyalready' had not been initialised - the resultant executable, of course, failed in exactly the same way as the original. Can anyone tell me what to do - I assume I need to modify the change file (see point 8 below). In case you're wondering how I managed to do anything with MF: I use a command procedure which MF's WAITS.MF, inputs the required file and renames WAITS.GF to whatever - convoluted, but it works (I expect at least 317 people to write in and tell me that I missed the blindingly obvious). 5) METAFONT: X'ing out of Metafont after causes a stack dump with an access violation. Related to point 4? 6) METAFONT: I decided to build elvish; the files were located in `zaphod$dua1:[public.mffiles.exterfonts.elvish]' which was a holding area whilst I looked at them. I ran the command procedure (see point 4 above) and watched things run long enough to be sure things were O.K., then I killed it and submitted it to a batch queue. It ran for the rest of the afternoon. It ran all night using 100% of a microvax's CPU... it would be going still if I hadn't stopped it. Investigation showed that it could not cope with inputting `tincoma', though it could manage shorter file names. If I run the command procedure interactively it's still away with the fairies, but it works if I type the commands interactively!???? 7) METAFONT: Could someone please send me the write-white mods for cmbase and the appropriate mode_defs for an LN03? 8) CHANGE FILES FOR MF and TeX: I would appreciate it if someone could send me the change files I need to bring these up to the current revision (I saw \lowercase{Barbara Beeton's} warnings that there were complications). Is there anything I need to know about doing this under VMS? +-------------------------------+ | Paul L. Allen | Disclaimer: The opinions presented here | Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd | are my own and are not necessarily | T.E.G. Lab, | those of Ferranti International Signal | Robertson Ave | (who would never have released me from my | Edinburgh EH11 1PX | strait-jacket if they realised I could | Tel. 031 337 2442 Ext. 3246 | get access to a modem). +-------------------------------+ - - - - - - - - - - There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly how TeX works, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. (With apologies to Douglas Adams and Donald E. Knuth) - - - - - - - - - - --------------------------------- Date: 17-FEB-1989 17:24:58 GMT From: CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB Subject: RE: UKTeX V89 #07 Sender: JANET"CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB" Reply-to: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) Originally-to: JANET"ABBOTTP@UK.AC.ASTON" Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.3a (02-Feb-1989) Stuart --- >>>From: CENSWM@UK.AC.HW.VAXB >>>Subject: Postscript. >>>To all you Postscript experts out there! >>>Why is it when I send a postscript print file from MS Word to our LN03R >>>postscript printer on a VAX it does not print. I thought Postscript was >>>`standard' and would work on any postscript machine (no doubt I am being >>>optimistic). I would be gratefull for any info as to where the problem >>>lies. How about telling us how it fails, so we stand some faint chance of helping you ? >>>Are there any better versions of DvitoVDU available, that support Tektronix >>>41xx series of terminals? I understand that T4010 emulations are not feasible >>>as you cant have a text area using t4010. I have a version which supports Tek 4010 emulators, if that would help ? >>>I would even consider buying such a product! as our users are moaning about >>>poor previewing on our VAX Great ! I'll be in touch. ** Phil. --------------------------------- Received: from casandra.cs.aber.ac.uk by athene.cs.aber.ac.uk; Fri, 17 Feb 89 18:31:06 GMT From: kas@uk.ac.aber.cs Date: Fri, 17 Feb 89 18:29:53 GMT Message-Id: <6301.8902171829@casandra.cs.aber.ac.uk> Subject: Accessing the TeX archives At present I use LaTeX on a Sun 3/60, but have to resort to Textures on a Macintosh SE when I want to include diagrams in a document. I'm looking for ways round this. In particular I have the psfig macros, but need dvips in order to use them. Do you know where I could get hold of this, or of any alternatives? Kevin. Robotics Research Group University College Of Wales Aberystwyth. JANET: kas@uk.ac.aber.cs --------------------------------- Date: 20-FEB-1989 11:01:06 GMT From: CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB Subject: RNOtoTeX: missing file Sender: JANET"CHAA006@UK.AC.RHBNC.VAXB" Reply-to: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) Originally-to: $UK-TEX Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.3a (02-Feb-1989) Simon Radford du Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique has kindly pointed out that the file "RNOtoTeX.Ini" was omitted from RNOtoTeX.All as sent to the Aston archive. I attach the missing file; perhaps Peter would be kind enough to integrate it into the RNOtoTeX source. ** Phil. [Start of attached file: TEX$ROOT:[RUNOFF]RNOTOTEX.INI;1] +++Editor - The files have been unpacked and the subdirectory is [public.vms.rno-to-tex] +++ --------------------------------- Date: 21-FEB-1989 09:31:15 GMT From: FPS@UK.AC.IMPERIAL.CC.VAXA ************************************************************ UK TuG UK TeX Users' Group The second meeting of UK TuG will be held on Wednesday, 15 March, 1989 at the London School of Economics, Houghton Street, Aldwych, London WC2A 2AE. The meeting will start at 10.00 am. A small charge (no more than \quid2.00) will be made to recover some of the costs of room hire, teas and coffees. ------------------------------------------------------------ Speakers will include: Dave Brightly (psfig) Tony Norris (chemical diagrams) Adrian Clark (halftones) Sebastian Rahtz (picture languages) There will also be: demonstrations of some recent implementations of TeX on interesting hardware (to be confirmed); But most importantly, the organisation of the group's structure and future activities. ------------------------------------------------------------ In order to allow us to estimate numbers, or for further information, contact: Malcolm Clark or Carol Hewlett Computer Centre Computer Unit Imperial College London School of Economics Exhibition Road Houghton Street London SW7 2BP London WC2A 2AE email: TeXline@Imperial.cc.vaxa Hewlett@lse.vax2 tel: 01 589 5111 ex4949 01 405 7686 ------------------------------------------------------------ LSE is about equidistant from Holborn and Temple Tube stations. Houghton Street runs north from the Aldwych. It may also be approached from Kingsway through Portugal Street. ************************************************************ --------------------------------- Date: 22-FEB-1989 09:09:34 GMT From: PHYHJR@UK.AC.HW.VAXB Subject: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts As it appears that .pxl fonts are rapidly going out of fashion no doubt all TeX users will convert to another format (.pk). However as far as I am aware there are no Suntools previewers which can read fonts in any format other than pxl. At present I use dvipage (I also have dvitool). Have these been updated to allow use of .pk fonts or are there any alternatives ? Harvey Richardson, e-mail : JANET - phyhjr@uk.ac.hw.clust INTERNET - phyhjr%clust.hw.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu BITNET - phyhjr%clust.hw.ac.uk@ukacrl.bitnet mail : Physics Department Heriot-Watt University Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK. phone : (+44) 031-451-3047 --------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 11:36 GMT From: ANDY PICKERING - DAOPP OXFORD UNIV. U.K. Subject: TeX Drivers for LN03R Postscript Printer Dear Peter, Charles Curran at OUCS gave me your address, we have a new DEC LN03-R postscript printer on our VAX 6210 running VMS V5 and would like to send TeX output to it. Would it be possible to get a copy of a Postscript Driver for this machine, and if so how do I go about getting one ? There may also be a requirement to drive this printer with TeX from an IBM PC compatable, is this possible ? We also have an HP LaserJet Plus which is in need of a new CM font compatable driver if you have one, regards, Andy Pickering. ISAMS Project System Manager Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics. Oxford University --------------------------------- Message-Id: <26012.8902221338@itspna.ed.ac.uk> Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Wed, 22 Feb 89 13:38:00 GMT Date: Wed Feb 22 13:38:22 GMT 1989 From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis After seeing RNO-TO-TEX mentioned in UKTeX89.07, I immediately pulled it down over JANET, and spent many a happy hour Kermit'ing it at 1200 Baud to my VAX (Luxury - when Ah were a lad, we 'ad two empty baked-bean tins tied together wi' string an' we shouted `zero' and `one' down them) [You were lucky, we didn't even have t'string] {Street? Don't tha talk to me about street}. I was very impressed with the emulation of UNIX shar decoding - I have previously hacked real shar files (Elvish, etc.) apart by hand. Then I tried executing compile_rnototex.com... it fails because there are no PEN (Pascal Environment) files generated. A fix is to change line 1 from ...PASCAL/OPTIMIZE/NOCHECK" to ...PASCAL/OPTIMIZE/NOCHECK/ENVIRONMENT" There might be some unnecessary PEN files created, but it works. Guess what, the link_rnototex procedure falls over as well; the fix is to change line 1 from ...THEN $ PI="NODEBUG" to ...THEN $ P1="NODEBUG" and again, all is well. You could of course alter the .shar file if you knew how to tweak the checksum. At last, I execute setup.com, and try out rnototex. Setup.com defines init$rnototex to be rnototex.ini. There is NO rnototex.ini. Neither init$rnototex nor rnototex.ini is mentioned in any of the documentation. The thing refuses to work without rnototex.ini so I created a dummy file - now it runs, but cannot recognise any runoff commands apart from section headers - this leads to the assumption that the ini file is responsible for initial definition of a translation table (rno-to-tex claims to keep track of changes to flag characters). The missing PEN files can be explained by inadequate testing - somebody checked his shar procedure with old PEN files hanging around. The PI fault can be explained by developers invoking the procedure with debug out of habit. I have no idea where rnototex.ini went to - it's not mentioned in the bill of lading, again the developers could have missed it out if there was an old one hanging around in the working directory. Phil's description of this utility in issue 7 gave ne the impression that he'd tried it, and it worked. So what's gone wrong? +-------------------------------+ | Paul L. Allen | Disclaimer: The opinions presented here | Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd | are my own and are not necessarily | T.E.G. Lab, | those of Ferranti International Signal. | Robertson Ave | | Edinburgh EH11 1PX | When in panic, or in doubt: | Tel. 031 337 2442 Ext. 3246 | Run in circles, sceam and shout! +-------------------------------+ Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggh! --------------------------------- Received: from uk.ac.oxford.prg.client23 (client23) by uk.ac.ox.prg (4.12/prgv.30) id AA02147; Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:34:59 gmt Received: by uk.ac.oxford.prg.client23 (3.2/SMI3.0prgS1) id AA22066; Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:39:42 GMT Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 12:39:42 GMT From: jg@uk.ac.oxford.prg Message-Id: <8902221239.AA22066@uk.ac.oxford.prg.client23> Subject: Non-text files in the archive Is there any possibility of encoding some of the non-text files in the Aston archive as text files? I have failed to persuade any of the .tfm and .pxl files to make their way over here; if there were a uuencode in Aston, or a decoding program here for some VMS encoding method, then I could transfer stuff easily. Do you know of any such (or indeed, any other) method of transferring non-text files? Jeremy Gibbons Oxford University --------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:01 GMT From: Piete Brooks Cc: uktex-request@uk.ac.aston Subject: Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts Message-Id: In-Reply-To: Richard Tobin's message of Wed, 22 Feb 89 1625 GMT > I have a more recent version of dvipage which understands gf fonts > (we don't bother with pk, and I don't know whether it accepts them). * Does ASTON know about it / have a copy ? > You can get it by anonymous niftp from us. Use the command > > cpf 'dvipage.tar'@ed.aiai dvipage.tar > or > hhcp ed.aiai:'dvipage.tar' dvipage.tar * No binary switch ?? +++Editor - We have the space if someone cares to send it. +++ --------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:25:53 GMT Message-Id: <12644.8902221825@aiai.ed.ac.uk> From: Richard Tobin Subject: Re: Suntools TeX previewing with .pk fonts In-Reply-To: Piete Brooks's message of Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:01 GMT Cc: uktex-request@uk.ac.aston > > I have a more recent version of dvipage which understands gf fonts > > (we don't bother with pk, and I don't know whether it accepts them). > * Does ASTON know about it / have a copy ? Well, if they didn't, they should now :-) I got it by mailing the author. > * No binary switch ?? Tar'd text files appear to not need it. There are no bytes in the file with the high-order bit set. Should one use binary mode to inhibit e.g. lf <-> cr/lf transformations? Such things would presumably only matter for non-unix sites, for whom transferring the data is but the least of their problems... - -- Richard --------------------------------- !! !! Files of interest [public]000aston.readme !! [public]000directory.list !! [public]000directory_dates.list !! [public]000directory.size !! [public]000last30days.files !! !! Editor - I have a tape labelled TeX 2.95 LaTeX 2.09 Metafont 1.7 !! Unix 4.2/3BSD & System V. Tar 1600 bpi blocked !! 20 1 file dated 30 January 1989 (from washington.edu). !! !! I have the facility to copy this tape for anyone who sends the following !! 1 2400 tape with return labels AND RETURN postage. !! !! Send to !! !! P Abbott !! Computing Service !! Aston University !! Aston Triangle !! Birmingham B4 7ET !! !! A VMS backup of the archive requires 2 (two ) 2400' tapes at 6250bpi. !! Remaining details as above. !! Other tape options in the pipeline. !! !! Replies/submissions to info-tex@uk.ac.aston please !! distribution changes to info-tex-request@uk.ac.aston please !! !! end of issue