UKTeX V89 #10 Friday 17 March 1989
Essential LaTeX Document
Magnified fonts and DVI3820 (and LaTeX)
Rno-to-tex: The Final Encounter
LaTeX \cite bug
TeX/VMS
LaTeX challenge
UKTex Newsletter + LaTeX Bug?
Binary files in the TeX archive
Change of EMAIL address
TeX for IBM PC
Postscript
TeX thesis style
PostScript output from TeX
to be a bug or not to be a bug?
Editor Peter Abbott
Issue 11 will be despatched on Thursday next week due to the Easter break.
File [public.texstatus]message_013.03_mar_1989 from Barbara Beeton
announces TeX 2.96 - 2.98
Whilst I have been away I have received a number of mail messages asking
about back issues of UKTeX. I can resend however it is quite simple to get
back issues from the mailserver. The files are in [public.uktex] and if you
do not know how to use the mailserver see TugBoat (latest issue). If you do
not have Tugboat send me a mail message with one word HELP.
Latest TeXhax in the Archive is #15
Latest TeXmag in the Archive is V3N1 (received February 28 1989)
---------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 89 17:23:47 BST
From: Jon Warbrick <C20222@UK.AC.PLYMOUTH.PRIME-A>
Subject: Essential LaTeX Document
In reply to Dave Lindsey's request in the last edition of UKTEX, I
have produced a simple LaTeX document that we give away to our
students. Entitled `Essentail LaTeX' it is intended to cover just
enough to get you started producing simple documents. I think it's
quite good (though I say it myself), the only thing to prevent it
getting a wider readership is that some of the examples are stolen
from Lamports book. I'd be happy to e-mail the LaTeX source of the
document to anyone who is interested.
Jon.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Warbrick, Computing Service, Plymouth (0752) 221312
Plymouth Polytechnic, Drake Circus, Ext 5442
Plymouth PL4 8AA UK.
---------------------------------
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by ISMAIL(2.1.19); 2 Mar 1989 17:01:49 GMT
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 89 16:56:01 GMT
From: David Lloyd <QQ47@UK.AC.LIVERPOOL.IBM>
Subject: Magnified fonts and DVI3820 (and LaTeX)
We find problems whenever we specify magnified fonts, e.g. in one of
the LaTeX test jobs. The LIST3820 file produced by DVI3820 (on the TeX
tape from Maria Code) contains illegal font names. Instead of C0BX10
(corresponding to CMBX10) we get things like 10CMBX10. I can
sometimes get round this by editing in correct font references but it is a
real pain and doesn't give exactly what the user wanted. Is it an error in
the DVI to 3820 convertor or is there someway of creating these fonts which
I haven't found yet?
The other LaTeX problem I have is that the second test job fails with TeX
errors. Does anyone have any experience with this?
---------------------------------
Message-Id: <24634.8903031412@itspna.ed.ac.uk>
Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Fri, 3 Mar 89 14:12:52 GMT
Date: Fri Mar 3 14:04:17 GMT 1989
Subject: Rno-to-tex: The Final Encounter
Cc: pla@uk.ac.ed.itspna
From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis
Phil Taylor supplied me with the final missing piece of this jigsaw: there is
a blank line at the end of the .ini file which must be removed. I'm quite
pleased with the results, though it doesn't seem to cope with `.noflags xxx'
commands, and doesn't keep track of changes to flag characters (which I do
a lot - never mind, life is hard, then you die). Thanks Phil.
Paul Allen, Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd, Edinburgh.
---------------------------------
Message-Id: <7357.8903061426@itspna.ed.ac.uk>
Via: tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk; Mon, 6 Mar 89 14:26:09 GMT
Date: Mon Mar 6 14:02:55 GMT 1989
From: pla@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis
Since my cries for help in issue 8, I have taken one step forward, and two
steps back. Barbara Beeton very kindly said she could let me have
cumulative changes for TeX 2.0->2.7, TeX 2.7->2.95 and MF 1.3->1.7. This
posed an immediate problem since my MF.WEB is version 1.0 (it came on the
tapes from Peter around 8 months ago and must be the version he was running
at the time, he also had TeX 2.0). I started looking through the
innumerable other files in the tapes Peter sent me, and found message_000
through message_005. Jings, Crivens and Help-ma-boab, as they say in this
part of the world, (no, I have no idea what these mean, I'm a Sassenach)
updating TeX and MF seems to be a Sisyphean task (I'm assuming, since
Barbara does not have changes for MF pre-1.3 that the master web-files are
manually updated - to at least 1.3 for MF and to ??? for TeX). Even if I
manage to merge these changes into tex.web & mf.web without error (seems
very unlikely), surely the change-files with the VMS-specific bits need
altering as well - at the very least, the banner has to change. Now the
good news - I found mf.web version 1.3 in the unix section of the archive.
So to reply to Barbara (who wasn't sure that the e-mail would reach me,
whilst I am not permitted to talk across the atlantic), please send me the
list of changes, I will forward them to Peter (who probably already has
them, if I but knew where to look).
Since I'm limited to 1200 baud transfers from Tardis to my VAX, I won't ask
anyone to ease my burden by letting me have TeX 2.95 & MF 1.7 (or whatever
the highest revision of the web-files actually is) and appropriate
change-file; but if someone out there with VAX/VMS does have both old and
new web files, they could make life a lot easier for me (and perhaps for
others) if they ran them through DIFFERENCES/SLP <old-web> <new-web>.
Incidentally, I still don't know the magic invocations that cope with the
fact that VMS can't dump a running image, so if anyone has idiot-level
instructions they would find a good home with me.
I've also found the write-white mods to MF in an old TeXMaG, but I still
don't have the mode-defs for an LN03 (actually I have 3 or 4, all
different but none of them specifically says `...for use with
write-white...'). Do the write-white mods conflict in any way with the
Sauter files for producing non-standard font sizes?
By the way, Barbara backs me up in my belief that section heads should not
be readily hyphenated, and tells me she has made an adjustment in the style
file for TuGboat to use \raggedright. I used \sloppy in the argument to the
heading because I found that \raggedright (used ad-hoc) upset the alignment
of the page-number entries in the contents, but would argue that larger
inter-word spacing is less noticeable (particularly in a large bold face)
than a ragged right margin. Still, thanks for the support Barbara (see how
I resisted the temptation to add the old line `...it fitted perfectly').
+-------------------------------+
| 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 | All I ever got from Santa Claus was
| Tel. 031 337 2442 Ext. 3246 | reindeer c*** on the roof!
+-------------------------------+
---------------------------------
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From: Nick North <ndn@uk.co.npl.seg>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 89 15:07:01 GMT
Message-Id: <2670.8903061507@guava.seg.npl.co.uk>
Subject: LaTeX \cite bug
There appears to be a hidden bug in the LaTeX \cite macro:
If the macro responsible for producing the label for a citation (\@cite)
is redefined so as not to output [1], but to output 1, and a citation
is the first text in a paragraph, then line breaking gets fouled up.
The following file:
\documentstyle{article}
\makeatletter
%\def\@cite#1#2{[{#1\if@tempswa , #2\fi}]} % default definition
\def\@cite#1#2{{#1\if@tempswa , #2\fi}} % No square brackets
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\section{Section}
Some ordinary text.
\cite{bar} which is a citation.
\begin{thebibliography}{99}
\bibitem{bar} abc
\end{thebibliography}
\end{document}
gives output like:
1 Section
Some ordinary text.
1
which is a citation.
References
[1]abc
Before I pass this on to Leslie Lamport, can anyone suggest a reason and/or
a cure for this behaviour? (We are running TeX 2.95, LaTeX 2.09 <4 Aug 88>).
Nick North ndn@seg.npl.co.uk
National Physical Laboratory
Middx., TW11 0LW
---------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 89 11:27 GMT
From: TFB@UK.AC.UCL.PH.V1
Subject: TeX/VMS
I want to modernise TeX on our Vax cluster. Currently it is based around
TeX 1.3, and .PXL files (for HP Laserjet+). VMS is a new operating system
for me, so if anyone out there could provide a tape of a running system
it would be much appreciated. We provide the tape of course.
Thanks in advance
- --Tim Bradshaw
JANET: tfb@uk.ac.ucl.ph.v1
tfb@uk.ac.soton.maths
+++Editor - We can supply the material you need from the archive, just send
the tape with return labels and return postage. +++
---------------------------------
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From: Nick North <ndn@uk.co.npl.seg>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 89 10:47:03 GMT
Message-Id: <7859.8903071047@guava.seg.npl.co.uk>
Subject: LaTeX challenge
Here is a challenge, for those who enjoy such things:
A colleague is writing a book in which paragraphs on facing pages must
line up with each other; so a typical pair of facing pages looks like
this:
---------------------------------------------------
| | |
| The first paragraph | Matching paragraph on |
| on a page. | the opposite page, but |
| | a bit longer. |
| | |
| Second paragraph on | Another paragraph. |
| the left page. | |
| | |
| And so on... | And so on... |
| | |
| 234 | 235 |
---------------------------------------------------
The text will be entered in a form like:
\twopars{The first paragraph on a page.}
{Matching paragraph on ... longer.}
\twopars{Second paragraph on the left page.}
{Another paragraph.}
etc.
Ideally I would like a definition of \twopars and any necessary output
routine changes to run under LaTeX and have it set pages as above, in
the current document style, but I would be happy with anything that
even approximates that.
Please e-mail me any ideas you have,
Nick North ndn@seg.npl.co.uk
National Physical Laboratory mcvax!ukc!nplseg!ndn
Middlesex, UK.
---------------------------------
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 89 11:36:23
From: Mike Piff,Pure Maths,Ext.4431 <PM1MJP @ SHEFFIELD.PRIMEA>
Subject: UKTex Newsletter + LaTeX Bug?
Dr M. J. Piff
Department of Pure Mathematics
University of Sheffield
The Hicks Building
Hounsfield Road
SHEFFIELD S3 7RH
Dear Peter,
Could you please send me details of how to receive the UKTeX newsletter?
+++Editor - Added +++
Do you know why an \itemize or \enumerate gets corrupted inside LaTeX's
\newtheorem environment? Being as I am using these theorems to generate
Examples and Exercises, I would occasionally like to display some cases!
Mike Piff.
---------------------------------
From: Jack Levy (on GEC 4190 Rim-A at UCL) <CCAAJRL@UK.AC.UCL.EUCLID>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 89 19:30
Subject: Binary files in the TeX archive
Message-Id: <08 MAR 1989 19:34:27 CCAAJRL@UK.AC.UCL.EUCLID>
I hate to gripe about the magnificent collection of goodies in the
TeX archive, but there are some files, such as pixel files or files
in ARC format, that I cannot FTP to my non-Vax machine because they
are binary. It would be easer if they were held in BOO or `uuencode'
format. Do other people have similar problems?
Jack Levy (UCL Computer Centre)
+++Editor - The group of us that are attempting to improve the facilities
of the archive are well aware of this problem and we hope to announce ways
of overcoming these problems in the near future. It is intended to provide
'on the fly' conversion for binary files with suitable software at the
destination for re conversion. +++
---------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 89 16:25:12 GMT
From: A42JR@UK.AC.NE-LONDON-POLY
Subject: Change of EMAIL address
Message from A42JR at NE-LONDON-POLY on 10/03/89 at 15:47:34
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 89 15:58:33
From: A42JR @ NE-LONDON-POLY
Subject: Change of EMAIL address
(Forwarded by A42JR at NE-LONDON-POLY Fri, 10 Mar 89 16:24:21)
Although I have been receiving the UKTeX digests regularly, I have still
not received any information about file transfer. This has not stopped
me obtaining material from the archive. I would however be interested
to see how it should be done `properly'.
+++Editor - FTP facilities should be described in help files or other
documentation at your site. The only information I can provide is
Site uk.ac.aston.spock
Username public
password public
This information is now included in the 'tail' of UKTeX. +++
As from April 1st, my institution (the North-East London Polytechnic) is
changing its name (for reasons of its own, not that we have been
informed) to the POLYTECHNIC OF EAST LONDON!!!
This means that, not only do we have to change all our letteheads, but
we have to inform our email correspondents that out JANET address will
now be PEL and not NELP.
Would you please amend your distribution list accordingly.
+++Editor - Our site tables do not as yet include uk.ac.pel +++
I hope to be at the UKTeX Users meeting at LSE, at least for the
morning. Perhaps I could find out how to transfer then?
John Rostron
North East London Polytechnic (Polytechnic of East London)
---------------------------------
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Date: Mon, 13 Mar 89 10:02:52 GMT
Message-Id: <8903131002.AA26658@uk.ac.oxford.prg.client66>
From: Mike Spivey <mike@uk.ac.oxford.prg>
Sender: mike@uk.ac.oxford.prg
Subject: TeX for IBM PC
Does your archive contain DOSTeX or any other implementation of TeX
for the IBM PC? What is the procedure for retrieving software from
the archive?
- -- Mike Spivey
+++Editor - At present some files cannot be extracted from the archive due
to the problems described earlier but this should be cured soon. +++
---------------------------------
Date: 13-MAR-1989 14:40:49 GMT
From: CENSWM@UK.AC.HW.VAXB
Subject: Postscript
To all you (very helpfull) Postscript experts out there!
This is just to say thanks to all those who replied to my plea for help,
there were so many offers of help that I havent got around to replying
to all of you ( around 30 people).
In the end the problem was solved by phoning MicroSoft and they sent me
an LN03R driver and initialisation file.
So its seems that all PS printers are not created equal.
Thanks again
Stuart Munn
---------------------------------
Date: 14-MAR-1989 07:38:31 GMT
From: MARK@UK.AC.CAM.PHY-RAVX
I've been trying to obtain SBTeX from [PUBLIC.PC] in the Archive. I
tried retrieving SBTEX.ARC to the Radio Astronomy MicroVAX here in
Cambridge using TRANSFER/CODE=FAST, which seemed to be successful, in
the sense that the results of DIR SBTEX.ARC/FULL were the same on both
VAXes. The transfer to PC was done using KERMIT, as a binary transfer
("set file type binary"). However, I couldn't unpack it, using either
ARC Version 5.20, or PKUNPAK Version 3.61. PKUNPAK said that all the
files failed the CRC. I then noticed from the listing that there was
another file SB08TEX.ARC, of similar size, also in [PUBLIC.PC]. I used
just the same process to transfer that, and everything went fine.
PKUNPAK unpacked the file with no complaints at all.
The two .ARC files seem to have rather different file structures:
$1$DUA14:[PUBLIC.PC]SB08TEX.ARC;1 File ID: (16175,30,0)
Size: 651/651 Owner: [VTX,PUBLIC]
Created: 6-DEC-1988 11:48 Revised: 16-JAN-1989 10:33 (8)
Expires: <None specified> Backup: 10-MAR-1989 02:09
File organization: Sequential
File attributes: Allocation: 651, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, Version
limit: 3
Record format: Variable length, maximum 510 bytes
Record attributes: None
Journaling enabled: None
File protection: System:RWED, Owner:RWED, Group:RE, World:RE
Access Cntrl List: None
$1$DUA14:[PUBLIC.PC]SBTEX.ARC;1 File ID: (12449,5,0)
Size: 658/660 Owner: [VTX,PUBLIC]
Created: 18-NOV-1988 14:00 Revised: 19-JAN-1989 15:46 (6)
Expires: <None specified> Backup: 10-MAR-1989 02:09
File organization: Sequential
File attributes: Allocation: 660, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, Version
limit: 3
Record format: Variable length, maximum 1197 bytes
Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control
Journaling enabled: None
File protection: System:RWED, Owner:RWED, Group:RE, World:RE
Access Cntrl List: None
and I wonder if that has something to do with my failure to retrieve
SBTEX.ARC properly.
Can you tell me:
1. What is the difference between the contents of SBTEX.ARC and
SB08TEX.ARC?
2. How can I retrieve and unpack SBTEX.ARC successfully?
Mark Charter,
Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory,
Cavendish Laboratory,
Madingley Road,
Cambridge.
---------------------------------
From: comrsm@uk.ac.hatfield
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 89 13:57:23 GMT
Message-Id: <10734.8903161357@infsc1.hatfield.ac.uk>
Subject: TeX thesis style
Do you know of a TeX style file for UK PhD Theses? I have looked through
000directory.list and could only find various US thesis styles. I would
be very grateful if you could help.
Please could you add me to the UK TeX circulation circulation list, my
address is
comrsm@uk.ac.hatfield
Thanks very much
Stuart Matthews,
Computer Science
Hatfield Poly.
---------------------------------
From: Sebastian Rahtz <spqr@uk.ac.soton.cm>
Received: from drake.cm.soton.ac.uk by hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk; Thu, 16 Mar 89 19:07:06 GMT
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 89 19:04:19 GMT
Message-Id: <1741.8903161904@drake.cm.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: PostScript output from TeX
There was much discussion yesterday at the UK TUG meeting about various
aspects of PostScript. Can I report two recent successful experiments
with PostScript output from TeX? Firstly, one can reasonably easily
re-include pages of old documents back in TeX (assuming you have a
\special command and a copy of psfig or whatever), which is useful for
showing what effect a style will have when documenting it; secondly,
it is at least in theory possible to include pages of PostScript from
TeX into Adobe Illustrator. I have been trying this, with some success
and some failure. When I take pages which only have PostScript fonts,
its fine, and I get objects I can transform in normal Illustrator ways
to print them as I want; but when I have pages with bitmap fonts, all
does not go quite as well, in fact I get blank pages..... there may be
a rational explanation for this, and I'd be interested to hear how
others get on with it. No, I have not tried putting the Illustrator
back into the TeX document as a figure!
I did these experiments using James Clark's 'dvitops', which I think
is probably producing the cleanest PostScript - all you have to do is
edit in a BoundingBox by hand (so its not for the casual hacker as
yet, though one should be able to automate this).
To be honest, this route is such a lot of mucking about, one can
hardly recommend it as a route for integrating graphics and TeX, but
its worth a look I suppose
Sebastian Rahtz
PS dvitops is in [public.pc.dvitops]
---------------------------------
From: Sebastian Rahtz <spqr@uk.ac.soton.cm>
Received: from caxton.cm.soton.ac.uk by hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk; Fri, 17 Mar 89 09:34:57 GMT
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 89 09:36:25 GMT
Message-Id: <8960.8903170936@caxton.cm.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: to be a bug or not to be a bug?
I've been running my TeX on a Sun 3 for about 9 months as a
compilation by Gnu C of Morgan's web2c translation of tex.web into C,
and have never had any reason to doubt it. When, however, I recently
upgraded to 2.95, and a more recent version of web2c, I get two
effects:
a) the TeX no longer passes its trip (if it ever did), and there is
a very visible error in placement of large delimiters around arrays
b) doing an EOF when TeX is asking for something from the keyboard
sends the TeX into an infinite loop
Effect a) goes away if I do not use the -O option on the compiler (Gnu
C 1.32), and effect b) appears to have arrived with TeX 2.95.
I am not suggesting there is a bug in TeX, or indeed some new problem
in gcc, but I offer this as an interim warning to anyone using a
comparable setup; they may like to actually try their trip, rather
than assuming it works (as I do). Of course, if anyone has found the
same problems, and a solution, I'd love to hear about it. If I had the
time, I'd have found out by myself, but life is so short...
Sebastian Rahtz, Computer Science, University, Southampton
---------------------------------
!!
!! 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).
!!
!! FTP access site uk.ac.aston.spock
!! username public
!! password public
!!
!! 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