TeXhax Digest Sunday, March 24, 1991 Volume 91 : Issue 014 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: Additions and changes to Listserv and DANTE FTP server Re: Panasonic KX-P1124 and SBTeX3.0 desktop publishing, astronomy, space sciences use of PK fonts under MS-DOS Incorporation of graphics via encapsulated PostScript Official new lplain and splain files Forward from Eberhard Mattes: [use of PK founts under MS-DOS] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 13:43:46 CET From: Rainer Schoepf Subject: Additions and changes to Listserv and DANTE FTP server Keywords: Listserv, Dante, ftp There have been a few interesting additions to the LISTSERV@DHDURZ1: In TEX FILELIST, there are two new important files called README FIRST CHANGES LISTING Before ordering stuff from the list server you should indeed read the first of these. The second one contains a reverse chronological listing of what has been added/changed. I append it here for the time being: File: CHANGES LISTING Date: 91/03/11 General: We are currently in the process of reducing all file sizes to below 64kB. DATE FILELIST FILENAME FILETYPE DESCRIPTION 91/03/11 DRIVER DVIPS * dvips 5.47, by Tom Rokicki 91/03/06 TTOOLS EDMAC * EDMAC macro package 91/03/05 TEX-UTIL ZOOMIPSU UUE ZOO executable for MIPS/ULTRIX 91/03/05 TEX-UTIL FIZMIPSU UUE FIZ executable for MIPS/ULTRIX 91/03/04 MFSOURCE OCRB * OCR B fonts 91/03/04 MFSOURCE DCFONT * 256 character fonts 91/03/04 TUGBOAT TUGPROC * TUG proceedings abstracts 91/03/01 TEX-UTIL UNZIP401 * Sources for public domain unzip 91/03/01 TEX-UTIL UNZ_SUN4 UUE Executable for Sun Sparc 91/02/28 PC-MSDOS RUMGRAPH * Update 91/02/28 TEX README FIRST Updated version 91/02/28 TEX DIRTY TRICKS How to access the archive 91/02/26 TEX CHANGES LISTING Lists recent changes 91/02/25 LATEX LATEX BUG New version 91/02/25 LATEX LPLAIN TEX New version 91/02/25 LATEX SFONTS TEX New version 91/02/25 LATEX SPLAIN TEX New version The DANTE FTP server at Stuttgart is currently being reorganized, which has already caused some confusion (the most frequently asked question being ``Where has emTeX gone???!!!''). If you cannot find something under soft/tex, try soft/texold. We hope to have this settled by the end of March. The probably most interesting item on the above list, namely the 256 character fonts can be found in soft/tex/fonts/metafont/dc. Finally, to stall another frequently asked question: To access the listserv, send mail to . If you have never accessed a LISTSERV-type server before, put the following two lines into your mail message: HELP GET README FIRST TEX To access the Dante FTP server, do FTP to rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de, 129.69.1.12. Rainer Sch"opf DANTE-coordinator for servers Dr. Rainer Schoepf Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum ,,Ich mag es nicht, wenn fuer Informationstechnik Berlin sich die Dinge so frueh Heilbronner Str. 10 am Morgen schon so D-1000 Berlin 31 dynamisch entwickeln!'' Federal Republic of Germany Email: or ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 11:20:02 GMT From: David Shepherd Subject: Re: Panasonic KX-P1124 and SBTeX3.0 Keywords: Panasonic, SBTeX 3.0 GLENNOX%CALSTATE.BITNET@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU has said: > The problem is that it will only output about the first 8 lines of > the input file, and then it starts throwing pages for awhile, then > stops after outputting maybe another 2-3 lines of the input text file. > I've been using SBTEXv3.0 with CM fonts on a PC-clone. I have had a problem like this before with a modified Beebe epson printer driver and it was caused by 0x1a (control-z) characters appearing in the output stream. Unfortunately MS-DOS considers this to be an end of file marker or something like that and doesn't pass it over to the printer. Hence, as one byte of a bitmap array is missing then it gobbles an extra character at the end. This is undoubtably the escape for the next control sequence. The data for the control sequence is then sent to the printer and everything gets garbled. Somewhere along the line control-Ls appear etc and paper is spewed out. Eventually it gets back in sync again and you get some more text. Assuming you are producing a print file which you copy to the printer the use the /b option on COPY to consider the file to be binary which will fix the problem I had. If you redirect output from the driver to the printer directly (something I had hacked the sources to allow) then you may have more serious difficulties .... I didn't know enough about the innards of MS-DOS to sort this one so I hacked the sources to changed all 0x1a bitmaps to 0x18 ! (no a complete fix as occasionally 0x1a comes in a length parameter or somewhere else but by the time i found out about that i'd decided that a bit mapped graphics dumps of DVI files took far too long on my home system for normal use!) david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk or des@inmos.com tel: 0454-616616 x 529 inmos ltd, 1000 aztec west, almondsbury, bristol, bs12 4sq Leland says, you're going back to Missoula ... MONTANA --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 07 Mar 91 18:12 CET From: U01105%FRCCSC21.BITNET@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: desktop publishing, astronomy, space sciences Keywords: desktop publishing, astronomy, space sciences ***************************************************************** * * * PLEASE POST, CIRCULATE and DISSEMINATE * * * ***************************************************************** DESKTOP PUBLISHING in ASTRONOMY and SPACE SCIENCES (Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory) (1 - 3 October 1991) Strasbourg Observatory / Astronomical Data Centre will be organizing from Oct. 1 to 3, 1991, a meeting on 'Desktop Publishing in Astronomy and Space Sciences'. Desktop publishing is widespread nowadays and a number of packages are used by astronomers, space scientists, engineers and technicians for producing their papers, reports, etc., as well as their everyday mail (typically Word, TeX, LaTeX, ...). The motivations behind the choice of a given package are various and not always rational ones (availability, financial constraints, mouth-to-ear recommendations, ...). There is anyway an experience to be shared openly for the benefit of everybody and it would certainly be useful to confront performances, capabilities, as well as possible complementarities of the text processing S/W packages that are presently most frequently used in the astronomy and space sciences communities. There is most likely no 'best' system, but it might be possible to get a digest of the best parts of the major ones without having to review lengthily computer journals. Not only the point of view of the authors or writers should matter here, but also the reasons behind the choices that a few publishers have already made (typically Springer TeX Macros, ...). On this side, the advantages are obvious: the manuscripts are delivered directly by the authors/scientific editors in a standardized machine-readable way (saving money) and the final appearance of the publications is substantially enhanced, be it only through its harmonization. What happens in other communities of related fields should also be investigated. Some publishers represent up to 500 scientific journals. It would be interesting to listen to their explanations as to how their choices have been made and for them to hear what scientists have to say in that respect. Another aspect of the proposed colloquium is related to the developments carried out by auxiliary software companies or individuals. They are producing self-sustained packages, complementary tools and/or utilities to be plugged into already well-established text processing systems. Here again scientists should express their views, needs and wishes. The meeting is timely as desktop publishing reaches such a development that it would be appropriate for the corporation and for publishers to issue now recommendations for standardization, compatibility and/or complementarity from the S/W producers. Sessions will be organized in such a way that each of the parties will be able to make their points as to the advantages they find with given packages, the constraints they have to comply with, the requirements they would have for further developments. We shall also attempt to set up exhibitions and/or demonstrations. If you are interested in attending this colloquium, please return the registration form below in order to be put on the mailing list to receive additional information (list of hotels, etc.). As audience might have to be limited, we advise you to do it as soon as possible. We would also appreciate if you could advertise as much as possible this meeting in your institution and through your electronic mailing list. Please feel also free to send us your comments and to recommend people (scientists, journals, publishers, software producers, companies, ..) you think we should contact, if not yet done. Yours sincerely, Andre HECK. ***************************************************************** DESKTOP PUBLISHING in ASTRONOMY and SPACE SCIENCES (1 - 3 October 1991) =================================== Registration Form Name:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Address: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Country: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telephone: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telefax: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telex: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-mail:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - will attend the meeting (*) - would like to present a communication (*) Title: Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . This form should be returned to: Dr. Andre HECK Observatoire Astronomique 11, rue de l'Universite F-67000 Strasbourg France. Additional information can be obtained by: telephone: +33-88.35.82.22 telex: 890506 starobs f telefax: +33-88.25.01.60 EARN/BITNET: HECK @ FRCCSC21 (*) circle as appropriate ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 14:39:30 +0100 From: schoepf@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (Rainer Schoepf) Subject: use of PK fonts under MS-DOS Keywords: fonts, PK, MS-DOS From: CUDAT@CU.WARWICK.AC.UK I have recently been setting up LaTeX for someone on an IBM PC compatible. I have been using DVISCRS (version 1.3i) from the emTeX collection as a previewer, and DVITOPS (by James Clark) to convert DVI files to PostScript. Both DVISCRS and DVITOPS use the fount name, printer resolution and fount magnification to find the required PK file for a fount. To do this, DVITOPS can substitute (resolution x magnification) in the name of a file it is looking for (the resolution is in dots per inch). DVISCRS does something similar, but it uses (resolution x magnification x 5). This makes it awkward to have the previewer and the printer driver use the same set of founts. (DVISCRS gives pretty good results with 300 d.p.i. founts and it seems silly to have two sets of PK files when one will do.) Fortunately DVITOPS is persistent enough to look in all the MS-DOS directories it is given until it finds exactly the right fount file, so I name the directories according to emTeX's convention and tell DVITOPS about each directory individually. This is a nuisance as the directory names then need to be kept short so that they can all fit into an MS-DOS environment variable. Is there any chance that developers might be encouraged to agree on the general principles of how to locate a required fount file? This is yet another chapter of a very sad story... The (resolution x magnification x 5) convention is an old one, and I don't see any reason why it should still be used. Actually, I don't see a reason why the directory names should contain the resolution. There should be one directory for every output device (thus implicitly or even explicitly containing the resolution of that particular device), with subdirectories for different magnifications, each one containing the appropriate .PK files. The names of these subdirectories should not contain the resolution, but the magnification, for a very simple reason: I find it very awkward to remember that cmr10 for \magstephalf is contained in, say, pk329 for a HP Laserjet, and in 1395pk for a 1270dpi Linotype. Instead, both directories should be named something like "mag1095". Driver programs should (1) be able to read a font substitution definition file, (2) have settable paths for the pk directories, preferably with variable parts to conform to different conventions, (3) no longer use .PXL files instead of .PK files. I think we should finally put away those old conventions that have ceased to be useful. Rainer Sch\"opf Dr. Rainer Schoepf Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin Heilbronner Strasse 10 D-1000 Berlin 31 Federal Republic of Germany or ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon,25 Feb 91 14:09:05 GMT From: David_Rhead@vme.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk Subject: Incorporation of graphics via encapsulated PostScript Keywords: graphics, PostScript In TeXhax V91 #006, Laurent Siebenmann suggested a uniform way of satisfying people's requirements for incorporating graphics defined as encapsulated PostScript. With the suggested scheme, the user might go \BoxedEPSF{myfile.ps scaled 400} to place a graphic as defined by myfile.ps but scaled to 40%. Such a scaling has the advantage that, if it is applied to all artwork, the line-width and lettering on captions will end up of a uniform size (e.g. 40% of original). However, I have the impression that document-designers may well regard the sizes of "line-art" and "half-tones" as part of the overall design of a document. Here are some extracts from some gurus' views on the subject: If a book consists of a number of text pages ... and the pages include a number of squared-up illustrations, all different shapes, the unity of the book is immediately threatened. The illustrations should all have the same width as the type area ... If they can also, with captions, make the same depth as the text, so much the better ... (Ruari McLean, on page 137 of "The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography", Thames and Hudson, 1980, ISBN 0-5000-68022-1) If a designer and illustrator can agree on the dimensions of pictures before work begins, both the typography of the book and its illustrations are the more likely to succeed. (Hugh Williamson, in chapter 14 of "Book Design", Yale University Press, 1983, ISBN 0-300-03035-5). In "Design for Desktop Publishing" (Gordon Fraser, 1987, ISBN 0-86092-097-6), John Miles gives some examples of grid-based designs, e.g., an A3 design that has 5 columns each of 12pc with a 1pc gutter between each column (page 38). Presumably, such a design will work best if artwork is supplied 12pc, 25pc, 38pc, 51pc or 64pc wide Therefore, under some circumstances one might want to scale all artwork by the same percentage, but under others one might want to scale to a designer-approved width. (In some circumstances, it may make little difference, since all graphics may have the same original width, e.g. because they were all produced by the same plotting package using the package's default plotting area. Scaling by a percentage might have the same end-result as scaling to a particular width.) For the circumstances when a designer-approved width is required, it might be worth providing facilities that allow the user to go (for example) \BoxedEPSF{myfile.ps width 25pc} so as to get a graphic that is scaled to a particular width (in this case scaled to be 25pc wide). David Rhead (JANET: D.Rhead@uk.ac.nottingham.ccc.vme) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 13:48:15 CET From: Rainer Schoepf Subject: Official new lplain and splain files Keywords: lplain, splain files The new versions of the files lplain.tex and splain.tex that have been changed by Frank Mittelbach and myself to make them usable both with TeX 2.x and TeX 3.x have been included into the official LaTeX distribution at LaBrea.Stanford.edu. I have placed them into the LATEX FILELIST at listserv@dhdurz1 as well. Rainer Sch\"opf DANTE coordinator for server machines ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 16:47:28 +0100 From: schoepf@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (Rainer Schoepf) Subject: Forward from Eberhard Mattes: [use of PK founts under MS-DOS] Keywords: PK fonts, MS-DOS > dots per inch). DVISCRS does something similar, but it > uses (resolution x magnification x 5). Use (for instance) /pf\texfonts\canon\$rpk with dviscrs to use resolution x magnification. $r will be replaced with the font size (resolution x magnification). The 1.4d release of dvidrv ceased to use resolution x magnification x 5, but still supports $s for the old (pxl) convention. > Driver programs should > (1) be able to read a font substitution definition file, > (2) have settable paths for the pk directories, preferably with > variable parts to conform to different conventions, > (3) no longer use .PXL files instead of .PK files. All this can be done with the emTeX drivers. The /texfonts/canon/cmr10.300pk font naming scheme will be supported by the next release. You may want to use dvips 5.47, it can read the emTeX font libraries. Eberhard Mattes (mattes@azu.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %%% 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 ************************** -------