TeXhax Digest Friday, 11 Dec 1992 Volume 92 : Issue 022 % The TeXhax Digest is brought to you as a service of the TeX Users Group % % and UK TeX Users Group in cooperation with the UK TeX Archive group % Today's Topics: epsf figure boxes LaTeX "macro expansion" Page-selection on duplex PostScript printer TeX for a 386 PC TFM to AFM Table Macro Packages and Help LaTeX for the Mac? dvi -> VideoComp (?) TeX and TUG News latest issue First-ever Scottish UK-TuG meeting (March, 1993) Announcement: New e-mail discussion list DVGT on FILESERV/Niord MFpic 0.2 on FILESERV/Niord ITRANS 3.2 on FILESERV/Niord Administrivia: Moderators: David Osborne and Peter Abbott Contributions: TeXhax@tex.ac.uk Administration, subscription and unsubscription requests: TeXhax-request@tex.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 92 22:59:49 -0500 From: karron@karron.med.nyu.edu (Dan Karron) Subject: epsf figure boxes Has any one gotten a nice boxed figure from epsf.sty ? I need also to just draw the borders of the eps inserted figure instead if waiting for the entire bit map to print. I am working on a hack to epsf.sty, but if anyone has a nicely working version, please write me. If you would like what I am doing, and there is no previously written version, when I get the bugs out I will submit it to TeXhax and put it on my anon ftp here at karron.med.nyu.edu. Cheers! Dan | karron@nyu.edu (e-mail alias ) Dan Karron, Research Associate | | Phone: 212 263 5210 Fax: 212 263 7190 New York University Medical Center | | 560 First Avenue Digital Pager <1> 212 397 9330 | | New York, New York 10016 <2> 10896 <3> | ``Too busy doing to write about it, too busy writing to do anything about it.'' ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Nov 92 11:35:27 +0100 From: Staffan Truve' Subject: LaTeX "macro expansion" I'm being forced to produce some documentation in FrameMaker, and having found "la2mml", a program which converts LaTeX files to some FrameMaker-readable format, I was quite happy for a few minutes, until I discovered that la2mml couldn't expand macros defined by "newcommand", and hence was (almost) useless for translating anything but plain text. Has anyone written a conversion program that expands macros so as to reduce a document to "standard LaTeX", or must I do it myself? Any hints appreciated! Thanks --Staffan Truve' ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Nov 92 18:09:15 +0000 From: David_Rhead@vme.nott.ac.uk Subject: Page-selection on duplex PostScript printer Does anyone have any bright ideas about tailoring dvi-file processing software's page-selection procedures for laserprinters that can print double-sided? In particular, for a PostScript laserprinter, suppose that I provide a LaTeX style-file that goes \def\ds@twoside{\@twosidetrue \@mparswitchtrue \special{... statusdict /setduplexmode known { statusdict begin true setduplexmode end } if } } that an end-user has been using the twoside option, and one day tries to use the dvi-file processing software's page-selection facilities to select pages 4:20 from the dvi-file. The recto/verso arrangement will be different from that when the whole dvi-file is printed. Since we have to charge real money for laserprinting, there may be an argument about who pays for the pages that don't have the same recto/verso arrangement as the pages that they are intended to replace. (OK, it's the end-user's fault for starting at 4, but it may still take scarce staff time to explain this to them.) Could I, through TeXhax, ask whether any of the purveyors of dvi-file processing software have any plans to enhance their software to give better support to printers that are capable of double-sided printing? E.g., if the end-user selects a page-range that starts with an even page-number, and setduplexmode is true, could the software print a blank recto so that the first selected page appears on a verso and odd numbers appear on rectos and even numbers on versos thereafter? Or should I try to put an "envelope command" around the dvi-file processing software, such that, if the dvi-file indicates via a \special that twoside has been selected, the envelope command refuses requests involving a page-range (and doesn't invoke the dvi-file processing command at all) unless the page-range starts with an odd number? David Rhead d.rhead@uk.ac.nott.vme ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Nov 92 15:08:35 -0500 From: hurd@math.gatech.edu (Lyman Hurd) Subject: TeX for a 386 PC I am not a regular so please be patient in explaining where this question REALLY should have gone, and please reply directly yo me by email. I am currently using SBTEX for the IBM PC but it is limited by the infamous 640K limit. hat I would like ideally is a public domain version compiled in flat memory (DOS-extended) mode. The next step would be a convenient place to find the source already in C form. I know that the best solution is to dump the antiquated and benighted PC for a civilised machine. Unfortunately the decision is not in my hands, and I struggle desparately to keep using my favorite word processing system. Thanks for any help, Lyman Hurd Iterated Systems, Inc. Norcross, GA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 14:59:33 -0700 From: Brett Perkes Subject: TFM to AFM I have been looking around for a TFM to AFM converter. I haven't been very successful. Does anyone know of such a utility or a possible round about way of achieving the same results? I would appreciate any help that can be given. Thanks, Brett Perkes bperkes@cases.cs.usu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 15:26:51 -0700 From: Brett Perkes Subject: Table Macro Packages and Help Recently while doing some typesetting work with TeX I found it neccessary to write some macros for setting tables. For some reason they do not work as well as I had hoped. Since then I have ordered a copy of the new Tables macro package. I haven't been able to find all of the capabilities in the macro package as I had hoped. Could someone suggest some other Table macro packages that I could look into? Some how I need to develop some general purpose table macros that authors and myself can use. Any help would be very appreciated. Thanks, Brett Perkes bperkes@cases.cs.usu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Dec 92 13:13:02 -0600 From: jhandler@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Jonathan B. Handler) Subject: LaTeX for the Mac? I'm a new LaTeX user, and I heard that LaTeX is available on the Macintosh. I have a IIfx and enough memory, HD, etc.. Where might I encounter such a thing? Please email. Thanks, Jon Handler jhandler@ils.nwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Dec 92 09:55:37 -0500 From: mis@aps.org (mis liaison) Subject: dvi -> VideoComp (?) I know this is a long shot, but . . . does anyone out there have experience getting TeX output from a III VideoComp? We have access to a VideoComp 570 and can run with either upf or bil as input. Thanks for any info. C. Hamlin, mis@aps.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Dec 92 15:14:59 -0500 From: Chris Carruthers Subject: TeX and TUG News latest issue The latest issue of TeX and TUG News is now available for anonymous ftp at rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (129.69.1.12) as soft/tex/digests/ttn/ttn1n3.*, at niord.shsu.edu (192.92.115.8), in directory ttn, ttn1n3.* (in VMSSpeak [FILESERV.TTN]TTN1N3.*) and at tex.ac.uk (134.151.40.18) as [TEX-ARCHIVE.DIGESTS.TTN]TTN1N3.* (as of 1992.12.7 it is not yet available at tex.ac.uk but should be any day now). In addition, all previous issues have been slightly modified and renamed to make it easier to retrieve them with wildcards (e.g. to retrieve all of volume 1: 'mget ttn1*'). The convention is that all names start with the letters 'ttn' followed by a number representing the volume followed by the letter 'n' ('n' for number) followed by the issue number, followed by a '.', followed by an extension---usually 'tex' or 'sty'. This naming convention also corresponds with dek's suggestion in the TeXbook (p.278 in my copy). ...Chris Carruthers, Informatics Product Support, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario Canada and ttn roustabout. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 19:04:46 +0000 From: CHAA006@VAX.RHBNC.AC.UK Subject: First-ever Scottish UK-TuG meeting (March, 1993) TeX for non-American languages -------- MetaFont in Theory and Practice The U.K. TeX Users' Group are pleased to announce their first ever Scottish Conference, to take place at the University of Glasgow on March 29th--31st, 1993. The theme of the conference is the use of TeX and MetaFont for languages other than American English. It is hoped that Dominik Wujastyk, for example, will talk on the development of the British English hyphenation patterns produced by himself and Graham Toal, and on his use of TeX and MetaFont for typesetting Sanskrit texts; that Bernard Gaulle will present `good typesetting practice' for French texts; and that Yannis Haralambous will discuss the various exotic languages which he typesets in TeX and for which he has developed the most beautiful fonts. The Conference is scheduled to last three days, but the first of these is purely for travel and socialisation; we assemble late Monday afternoon, and adjourn for the Conference dinner that same evening. On Tuesday, a distinguished panel of invited speakers will present a variety of papers on the use of TeX and MetaFont for non-American languages, and there will be plenty of time for discussion and questions. On Wednesday, we offer for the first time in the U.K. two tutorials on the use of MetaFont, both in practice (e.g. `how do I build a complete set of Computer Modern fonts for a new laser printer which we have just acquired?') and in theory (`How would I go about designing and implementing an entirely new font in MetaFont, for a language which has never before been printed using TeX?') In order to get an accurate estimate of potential numbers, which will allow us to make an early reservaton with the University and keep costs to a minimum, it would be appreciated if those who would hope to attend could communicate immediately with the conference organiser, preferably through the medium of electronic mail: please send a brief message indicating your interest to: (JANET/UK) (Internet/rest of world) A more formal announcement, including full details of costs, will be distributed as soon as likely numbers are known. Philip Taylor, RHBNC, University of London. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 13:35:34 -0500 From: Anita Zanolini Hoover Subject: Announcement: New e-mail discussion list *********************** New e-mail discussion list ******************* The programming language METAFONT is a faithful companion of TeX. To use TeX, you must have some notions of it; this is not the case of METAFONT. Many people use it inside batch mode processes to create missing fonts, without ever having looked inside a ".mf" file. Other people --- adventurers --- have ignored D. E. Knuth's warning on p. viii of the METAFONT book, and have inevitably got hooked by METAFONT. Thanks to the French-speaking TeX Users Group GUTenberg a new email discussion list has been created, 1. as a means of communication between hooked METAFONT ers; 2. as a way to bring the "rest of us" closer to them; 3. as a means to get quick and efficient answers to questions such as o why do I always get a ".2602gf" file? o what is a "strange path" and what can I do to avoid it? o is there a way to go from METAFONT to PostScript and vice-versa? o where can I find a Stempel Garamond font written in METAFONT? o what is metaness? 4. and finally, as a first step to encourage people to undertake METAFONTing, and start a new post-Computer Modern era of METAFONT! To subscribe to this list, send the following two lines to "listserv@ens.fr" on the Internet: SUBSRIBE METAFONT $<$Your name and affiliation$>$ SET METAFONT MAIL ACK The adress of the list is "metafont@ens.fr" (at the notorious Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris). Owner of the list is Jacques Beigbeder; ("beig@ens.fr"), coordinator is Yannis Haralambous ("yannis@gat.citilille.fr"). Language of the list is English; intelligent mottos are encouraged. FAQ files will be written from times to times; their location and contents will be announced through the list. Come and join us! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 92 10:33:53 -0600 From: "George D. Greenwade" Subject: DVGT on FILESERV/Niord Geoffrey Tobin kindly worked through some network difficulties to get me his DVGT package. Notably, this port of DVItoVDU/dvi2vdu/dv/... is make-able under AIX, as well as other platforms. As one would expect, DVGT has the usual bells and whistles associated with version 3.0. Attached is the description listing from FILESERV/Niord. Regards and my thanks to Geoffrey on this, George *************************************************************************** DVGT ---- The DVGT package includes a UUENCODEd ZIP file containing Geoffrey Tobin's modifications to Ian Dall's 3.0 C version of dv (available at anonymous@augean.ua.oz.au:/pub/misc/dv.tar.Z), which is a C port of the original Modula-2 version of DVItoVDU by Andrew Trevorrow. This version is Tobin's modification 4 (1 December 1992) of DVItoVDU version 3.0. As with all programs related to Trevorrow's original effort, this driver allows the visual display of DVI files using PK fonts on a monitor or terminal. Two Makefiles are provided: Makefile.aix for IBM machines (such as the Risc/6000) running AIX. Makefile.sun for Suns and Sparcs running Sun/OS, with gcc. These can serve as templates for other Makefiles. (The AIX one originated from the Sun Makefile.) In developing this release, Tobin was in contact with Trevorrow, as well as Masahiro Kitagawa , the author of the Japanese version 1.1J. Users of terminals that emulate tek4010 can use the vis550 of one of the other tek4010 emulating terminal drivers listed in the README. An explicit "tek4010" option is not provided, as this would be misleading and so as to make provisions for a real tek4010 driver in a (hypothetical) later release. MS-Kermit 3.xx has a tek4010 emulator which is compatible with the tek4010 emulation modes of DVGT drivers, such as vis550. This version includes the useful ZI/ZO features of 3.0. Zoom is now adjustable. For example, one can say "ZI 1.2" to zoom in by a factor of 1.2. Subsequent uses of ZI and ZO with no explicit factor will continue to zoom 1.2 fold. DVGT supports many other features of 3.0, such as wisely ignoring \special's. To retrieve the set of 6 UUENCODEd files, include: SENDME DVGT in the body of a mail message to FILESERV@SHSU.BITNET (FILESERV@SHSU.edu). The ZIP file upon which this distribution is based in available for anonymous ftp retrieval from Niord.SHSU.edu (192.92.115.8) in [FILESERV.DVGT] as DVGT-3_4.ZIP. Files in this package: (1 Block = 512 bytes) File Blocks DVGT.UUE_1OF6 through DVGT.UUE_5OF6 77 (each) DVGT.UUE_6OF6 28 Approximate total blocks in full DVGT package = 413 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 92 15:32:25 -0600 From: "George D. Greenwade" Subject: MFpic 0.2 on FILESERV/Niord Geoffrey Tobin also forwarded me a more comprehensive fileset for Thomas Leathrum's MFpic 0.2. It includes a few fixes and extra files which have appeared on the net since it's original posting on 8 September 1992. Attached is the FILESERV description file. - --George *************************************************************************** MFPIC ----- The MFPIC package includes version 0.2 (8 September 1992, updated as of 26 November 1992) of Thomas Leathrum's set of TeX and Metafont macros that essentially draw pictures in a TeX document using Metafont. Additional related files subsequently posted to the network, including support for 4DOS. Also, there's a valuable patch to the new "mfpic.tex", which takes care of the problem that the graphics TFM file is initially absent, and therefore cannot be read. In MFpic, each picture comes out as a single Metafont character; the TeX macros actually write the Metafont file for you, so there's no need to learn Metafont (although you do have to be able to run Metafont); and the TeX macros are things like \axes, \arrow, \circle, \curve, etc., similar in nature (but nowhere near the scope) of PiC-TeX. The advantages of this technique: significantly faster than PiC-TeX (especially on curves), totally printer-independent (unlike \special's). To retrieve the package of 2 UUENCODEd files necessary to recreate the ZIP archive file distribution, please include: SENDME MFPIC in the body of a mail message to FILESERV@SHSU.BITNET (FILESERV@SHSU.edu). The ZIP archive containing the entire distribution (MFPIC02.ZIP) may be retrieved via anonymous ftp from Niord.SHSU.edu (192.92.115.8) in the directory [FILESERV.MFPIC]; the individual files of the distribution are retained within the directory tree rooted there. Files in this package: (1 Block = 512 bytes) File Blocks Save file as: MFPIC.UUE_1OF2 78 MFPIC.UUE_2OF2 33 Approximate total blocks in full MFPIC package = 111 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Dec 92 11:30:33 -0600 From: "George D. Greenwade" Subject: ITRANS 3.2 on FILESERV/Niord In <3179@contex.contex.com> (comp.text.tex, 7 Dec 92 22:29:43 GMT), avinash@felix.contex.com (Avinash Chopde) announced the release of ITRANS, version 3.2 (which supercedes the prior version 2.1). I have made the files available via FILESERV and Niord. The description file is attached. Regards, George *************************************************************************** ITRANS ------ The ITRANS package includes a UUENCODEd ZIP file containing Avinash Chopde's ITRANS package (version 3.2, 5 December 1992), as well as a UUENCODEd ZIP file containing PostScript-ready documentation for the package. ITRANS provides a pre-processor to transliterate english text into Indian language scripts: currently Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali are supported. ITRANS is a translation/chararacter composition package. The task of actually placing characters on the page and spacing them correctly is left to other programs, such as TeX. TeX is the preferred interface, but, if absolutely necessary, and if the requirements of text placement are minimal, the dumb textual input interface could be used. This mode directly produces PostScript output, and contains minimal (read none) wordprocessing features; spaces and linebreaks in the input are copied to the output unchanged. This mode can only be used for fonts that are in PostScript itself, such as the Devanagari font devnac that comes bundled with the system. To retrieve the 14 parts of the UUENCODEd distribution, include: SENDME ITRANS.32* in the body of a mail message to FILESERV@SHSU.BITNET (FILESERV@SHSU.edu). To retrieve the PostScript-ready documentation, which comes in 12 parts, include: SENDME ITRANS.PS* in your mail message to FILESERV. To retrieve both distributions, you may include the single command: SENDME ITRANS in your mail to FILESERV. Compressed tar (.TAR_Z extensions) archives and the ZIP (.ZIP extensions) archives upon which this distribution are based are available for anonymous ftp retrieval from Niord.SHSU.edu (192.92.115.8) in [FILESERV.ITRANS] as ITRANS32.* and ITRANSPS.*. Files in this package: (1 Block = 512 bytes) File Blocks Save file as: ITRANS.32_UUE_01OF14 ITRANS32.UUE, UUDECODE to ITRANS32.ZIP thorugh ITRANS.32_UUE_13OF14 78 (each) ITRANS.32_UUE_14OF14 77 ITRANS.PS_UUE_01OF12 ITRANSPS.UUE, UUDECODE to ITRANSPS.ZIP through ITRANS.PS_UUE_11OF12 77 (each) ITRANS.PS_UUE_12OF12 27 Approximate total blocks in full ITRANS package = 1965 ------------------------------ 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. 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