\def\fileversion{2.0i} \def\filedate{1997/01/02} % % The above line define the file version, and must remain the first % line with any `assignment' in the file, or things will blow up % nastily % \ifnotreadCTAN % % lists of CTAN labels % % ... directories \input dirctan.tex % % ... files \input filectan.tex % % don't need to read them again, though \notreadCTANfalse \fi \section{Introduction} This article was prepared by the Committee of the \acro{UK} \TeX{} Users Group (\acro{UK}~\acro{TUG})\begin{footnoteenv} For 1996--97: Peter Abbott, Kaveh Bazargan, David Carlisle, Malcolm Clark, Robin Fairbairns, Hewlett, Alan Jeffrey and Sebastian Rahtz \end{footnoteenv} as a development of a regular posting to the \emph{Usenet} newsgroup \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex| that was maintained for some time by Bobby Bodenheimer (\Email|bobby@hot.caltech.edu|). Usenet is a mechanism for exchanging articles between people who share interests or needs\begin{footnoteenv} Usenet, as its name implies, is a means of using some sort of network; in the earliest days the network was made by stringing together a series of telephone lines, but nowadays Usenet is most often carried over the Internet \end{footnoteenv}; a newsgroup is an area within Usenet carrying a particular class of articles. Since a common sort of article asks for help, advice or information, and since certain of these questions are regularly repeated (often with monotonous regularity), some public-spirited souls took to writing articles which listed ``Frequently Asked Questions'' and answers to them. Many members of \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} do not have access to Usenet, but could be expected to value the answers about \TeX{} that have accumulated over the years; so we decided to update the list and publish it in \BV{}; we are grateful to Bobby for his permission to use his article in this way. As a \emph{quid pro quo}, we are making the source of the article freely available, and it can be compiled by anyone who runs a production \htmlignore \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{LaTeXe}{latex2e}, \end{htmlversion} and has the required fonts. It is the committee's hope that it will also be possible for the content of this article to feed back to the world-wide \TeX{} community via Bobby's regular posting. \htmlignore In addition, a translation of the article is available on the World-Wide Web, via URL \URL|http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?introduction=yes|% \begin{footnoteenv} This is a temporary URL; a final home for the document is to be provided in due course \end{footnoteenv} \endhtmlignore We have rearranged Bobby's article quite a lot, and have added new questions and answers on the basis of our experience of answering questions about \TeX{}, writing documents in \TeX{}, and developing macros for \TeX{}, over the years. We have also pruned it to take account of the changes that have happened in the world of \TeX{} since Bobby first started. The committee is grateful for help and advice, from the following outside its number: Barbara Beeton, Karl Berry, Damian Cugley, Michael Downes, John Hobby, Berthold Horn, Werner Icking, Ted Nieland, Pat Rau, Piet van Oostrum, Joachim Schrod, Philip Taylor, Ulrik Vieth, Rick Zaccone and Reinhard Zierke. Further, Rosemary Bailey, Jonathan Fine and Chris Rowley were members of the committee during the period 1993--95, during which the entreprise of developing this FAQ was conceived and its first version was published, and we are grateful to them for their contributions to it. \htmlignore \subsection*{Finding the Files} Unless otherwise specified, all files mentioned in this article are available from a \acro{CTAN} archive, or from one of their mirrors. \Qref[Question]{}{Q-archives} % this one doesn't need anchor text gives details of the \acro{CTAN} archives, and how to retrieve files from them. If you don't have access to the Internet, \Qref[question]{}{Q-CD} tells you of sources of \CDROM{}s that offer snapshots of the archives. The reader should also note that the first directory name of the path name of every file on \acro{CTAN} has been elided from what follows, for the simple reason that it's always the same (\path|tex-archive/|). To avoid confusion, we've also elided the full stop\begin{footnoteenv} `Full stop' (British English)==`period' (American English) \end{footnoteenv} from the end of any sentence whose last item is a path name (note that such sentences only occur at the end of paragraphs). Though the path names are set in a different font from running text, it's not easy to distinguish the font of a single dot! \endhtmlignore %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{The Background} \Question{What is \TeX{}?} \TeX{} is a typesetting system written by Donald E.~Knuth, who says in the Preface to his book on \TeX{} (see \Qref[question]{TeX-related books}{Q-books}) that it is ``\emph{intended for the creation of beautiful books---and especially for books that contain a lot of mathematics}''. Knuth developed a system of `literate programming' to write \TeX{}, and he provides the literate (\acro{WEB}) source of \TeX{} free of charge, together with tools for processing the |web| source into something that can be compiled and something that can be printed; there's never any mystery about what \TeX{} does. Furthermore, the \acro{WEB} system provides mechanisms to port \TeX{} to new operating systems and computers; in order that one may have some confidence in the ports, Knuth supplied a test by means of which one may judge the fidelity of a \TeX{} system. \TeX{} and its documents are therefore highly portable. \TeX{} is a macro processor, and offers its users a powerful programming capability. For this reason, \TeX{} on its own is a pretty difficult beast to deal with, so Knuth provided a package of macros for use with \TeX{} called |plain| \TeX{}; |plain| \TeX{} is effectively the minimum set of macros one can usefully employ with \TeX{}, together with some demonstration versions of higher-level commands (the latter are better regarded as models than used as-is). When people say they're ``programming in \TeX{}'', they usually mean they're programming in |plain| \TeX{}. \Question[tex-pronounce]{How should I pronounce ``\TeX{}''?} The `X' stands for the Greek letter \htmlignore Chi ($\chi$), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} Chi, \end{htmlversion} and is pronounced by English-speakers either a bit like the `ch' in `loch' ([x] in the IPA) or like `k'. It definitely is not pronounced `ks'. \Question[Q-MF]{What is \MF{}?} \MF{} was written by Knuth as a companion to \TeX{}; whereas \TeX{} defines the layout of glyphs on a page, \MF{} defines the shapes of the glyphs and the relations between them. \MF{} details the sizes of glyphs, for \TeX{}'s benefit, and details the rasters used to represent the glyphs, for the benefit of programs that will produce printed output as post processes after a run of \TeX{}. \MF{}'s language for defining fonts permits the expression of several classes of things: first (of course), the simple geometry of the glyphs; second, the properties of the print engine for which the output is intended; and third, `meta'-information which can distinguish different design sizes of the same font, or the difference between two fonts that belong to the same (or related) families. Knuth (and others) have designed a fair range of fonts using \MF{}, but font design using \MF{} is much more of a minority skill than is \TeX{} macro-writing. The complete \TeX{}-user nevertheless needs to be aware of \MF{}, and to be able to run \MF{} to generate personal copies of new fonts. \Question[Q-MP]{What is \MP{}?} The \MP{} system implements a picture-drawing language very much like that of \MF{} except that it outputs PostScript commands instead of run-length-encoded bitmaps. \MP{} is a powerful language for producing figures for documents to be printed on PostScript printers. It provides access to all the features of PostScript and it includes facilities for integrating text and graphics. (Knuth tells us that he uses nothing else for diagrams in text that he is writing.) Much of \MP{}'s source code was copied from \MF{}'s sources with Knuth's permission. \Question{What is \LaTeX{}?} \LaTeX{} is a \TeX{} macro package, originally written by Leslie Lamport, that provides a document processing system. \LaTeX{} allows markup to describe the structure of a document, so that the user need not think about presentation. By using document classes and add-on packages, the same document can be produced in a variety of different layouts. Lamport says that \LaTeX{} ``\emph{represents a balance between functionality and ease of use}''. This shows itself as a continual conflict that leads to the need for such as the present article: \LaTeX{} \emph{can} meet most user requirements, but finding out \emph{how} is often tricky. \htmlignore \begingroup\boldmath \endhtmlignore \Question{How should I pronounce ``\LaTeX{}(\twee{})''?} \htmlignore \endgroup\par \endhtmlignore Lamport never recommended how one should pronounce \LaTeX{}, but a lot of people pronounce it `Lay \TeX{}' or perhaps `Lah \TeX{}' (with \TeX{} pronounced as the program itself; see \Qref[question]{the rules for TeX}{tex-pronounce}). The `epsilon' in `\LaTeXe{}' is supposed to be suggestive of a small improvement over the old \LaTeXo{}. Nevertheless, most people pronounce the name as `\LaTeX{}-two-ee'. %... whereas Damian Cugley suggested (and we retain for the amusement %... of those who read the source ;-) %The `e' in `\LaTeXe{}' might look like a lowered one-stroke Greek %lower case epsilon (when typeset) to mere mortals such as you or me, but %it is in fact a lower case `e', and is pronounced like the name %of the letter. Some people pronounce `2e' as `twee'. \htmlignore \par \endhtmlignore \Question{Should I use \texttt{plain} \TeX{} or \LaTeX{}?} There's no straightforward answer to this question. Many people swear by |plain| \TeX{}, and produce highly respectable documents using it (Knuth is an example of this, of course). But equally, many people are happy to let someone else take the design decisions for them, accepting a small loss of flexibility in exchange for a saving of brain power. The arguments around this topic can provoke huge amounts of noise and heat, without offering much by way of light; your best bet is to find out what those around you are using, and to go with the crowd. Later on, you can always switch your allegiance; don't bother about it. If you are preparing a manuscript for a publisher or journal, ask them what markup they want before you develop your own; many big publishers have developed their own \LaTeX{} styles for journals and books, and insist that authors stick closely to their markup. \htmlignore \begingroup\boldmath \endhtmlignore \Question{What are the \acro{AMS} packages (\AMSTeX{}, \emph{etc}.)?} \htmlignore \endgroup\par \endhtmlignore \AMSTeX{} is a \TeX{} macro package, originally written by Michael Spivak for the American Mathematical Society (\acro{AMS}) during 1983--1985. It is described in ``\emph{The Joy of \TeX{}}'' by Michael D.~Spivak (second edition, \acro{AMS}, 1990, \ISBN{0-821-82997-1}). It is based on |plain| \TeX{}, but provides many features for producing more professional-looking maths formulas with less burden on authors. It pays attention to the finer details of sizing and positioning that mathematical publishers care about. The aspects covered include multi-line displayed equations, equation numbering, ellipsis dots, matrices, double accents, multi-line subscripts, syntax checking (faster processing on initial error-checking \TeX{} runs), and other things. As \LaTeX{} increased in popularity, authors asked to submit papers to the \acro{AMS} in \LaTeX{}, and so the \acro{AMS} developed \AMSLaTeX{}, which is a collection of \LaTeX{} packages and classes that offer authors most of the functionality of \AMSTeX{}. \checked{RAB}{1994/11/12} % edited by RF; input from Michael Downes, too %\htmlignore %\begingroup\boldmath %\endhtmlignore %\Question{What is \protect\LAMSTeX{}?} %\htmlignore %\endgroup\par %\endhtmlignore %\LAMSTeX{} was Michael Spivak's fusion of \AMSTeX{} and \LaTeX{}. Its %strong points are: %\begin{itemize} %\item a commutative diagram package that produces very pleasing %output; %\item a separate program \ProgName|dvipaste| for producing complex %tables separately from the main document (thus avoiding problems from %exceeding \TeX{}'s main memory capacity); and %\item extensive control at the user level over the formatting of %automatically-generated numbers. %\end{itemize} %However, \AMSLaTeX{} had come out by the time \LAMSTeX{} was released, %so that \LAMSTeX{} never really caught on. %\checked{RAB}{1994/11/12} % edited by RF; input from Michael Downes, too \Question[Q-eplain]{What is \Eplain{}?} The \Eplain{} macro package expands on and extends the definitions in |plain| \TeX{}. \Eplain{} is not intended to provide ``generic typesetting capabilities'', as do \LaTeX{} or \htmlignore Texinfo (\Qref{}{Q-texinfo}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{Texinfo}{Q-texinfo}. \end{htmlversion} Instead, it provides definitions that are intended to be useful regardless of the high-level commands that you use when you actually prepare your manuscript. For example, \Eplain{} does not have a command \cs|section|, which would format section headings in an ``appropriate'' way, as \LaTeX{}'s \cs|section|. The philosophy of \Eplain{} is that some people will always need or want to go beyond the macro designer's idea of ``appropriate''. Such canned macros are fine~--- as long as you are willing to accept the resulting output. If you don't like the results, or if you are trying to match a different format, you are out of luck. On the other hand, almost everyone would like capabilities such as cross-referencing by labels, so that you don't have to put actual page numbers in the manuscript. Karl Berry, the author of \Eplain{}, says he is not aware of any generally available macro packages that do not force their typographic style on an author, and yet provide such capabilities. \Question{What is Lollipop?} Lollipop is a macro package written by Victor Eijkhout; it was used in the production of his book ``\emph{\TeX{} by Topic}'' (see \Qref[question]{Tex-related books}{Q-books}). The manual says of it: \begin{quote} Lollipop is `\TeX{} made easy'. Lollipop is a macro package that functions as a toolbox for writing \TeX{} macros. It was my intention to make macro writing so easy that implementing a fully new layout in \TeX{} would become a matter of less than an hour for an average document, and that it would be a task that could be accomplished by someone with only a very basic training in \TeX{} programming. Lollipop is an attempt to make structured text formatting available for environments where previously only \WYSIWYG{} packages could be used because adapting the layout is so much more easy with them than with traditional \TeX{} macro packages. \end{quote} The manual goes on to talk of ambitions to ``capture some of the \LaTeX{} market share''; it's a very witty package, but little sign of \htmlignore it taking over from \LaTeX{} is detectable\dots\@ \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} it taking over from \LaTeX{} is detectable\dots{} \end{htmlversion} An article about Lollipop appeared in \TUGboat{} 13(3). \Question[Q-texinfo]{What is Texinfo?} Texinfo is a documentation system that uses one source file to produce both on-line information and printed output. So instead of writing two different documents, one for the on-line help and the other for a typeset manual, you need write only one document source file. When the work is revised, you need only revise one document. You can read the on-line information, known as an ``Info file'', with an Info documentation-reading program. By convention, Texinfo source file names end with a |.texi| or |.texinfo| extension. You can write and format Texinfo files into Info files within \acro{GNU} \ProgName|emacs|, and read them using the \ProgName|emacs| Info reader. If you do not have \ProgName|emacs|, you can format Texinfo files into Info files using \ProgName|makeinfo| and read them using \ProgName|info|. The Texinfo distribution, including a set of \TeX{} macros for formatting Texinfo files is available as \CTANref{texinfo-dist} (also available as a \texttt{.zip} file \CTANref{texinfo-dist-zip}). \Question{If \TeX{} is so good, how come it's free?} It's free because Knuth chose to make it so. He is nevertheless apparently happy that others should earn money by selling \TeX{}-based services and products. While several valuable \TeX{}-related tools and packages are offered subject to restrictions imposed by the \acro{GNU} General Public Licence (`Copyleft'), \TeX{} itself is not subject to Copyleft. There are commercial versions of \TeX{} available; for some users, it's reassuring to have paid support. What is more, some of the commercial implementations have features that are not available in free versions. (The reverse is also true: some free implementations have features not available commercially.) Usually, this article does not describe commercial \htmlignore versions; \Qref[Question]{}{Q-commercial} lists the major vendors. \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} versions; see \Qref{major vendors}{Q-commercial} for some details. \end{htmlversion} \Question[tex-future]{What is the future of \TeX{}?} Knuth has declared that he will do no further development of \TeX{}; he will continue to fix any bugs that are reported to him (though bugs are rare). This decision was made soon after \TeX{} version~3.0 was released; at each bug-fix release the version number acquires one more digit, so that it tends to the limit~$\pi$ (at the time of writing, Knuth's latest release is version 3.14159). Knuth wants \TeX{} to be frozen at version~$\pi$ when he dies; thereafter, no further changes may be made to Knuth's source. (A similar rule is applied to \MF{}; its version number tends to the limit~$e$, and currently stands at 2.718.) There are projects (some of them long-term projects: see, for example, \Qref[question]{the LaTeX3 project}{LaTeX3}) %\Qref[and]{and the SGML work}{Q-SGML}) to build substantial new macro packages based on \TeX{}. For the even longer term, there are various projects to build a \emph{successor} to \TeX{}; see \Qref[questions]{the Omega project}{Q-omega} and \Qref[]{NTS}{Q-NTS}. %\Question{Why isn't \TeX{} \WYSIWYG{}?} % % hmmm; had a request for this, but can't think what to write \Question[Q-TUG]{What are \acro{TUG} and \textsl{TUGboat}?} \acro{TUG} is the \TeX{} Users Group. \textsl{TUGboat} is \acro{TUG}'s main journal, containing useful articles about \TeX{} and \MF{}. \acro{TUG} also produces a newsletter for members (\TeX{} and \acro{TUG} News), organises a yearly conference, runs training courses, sells almost all \TeX{}-related books, and distributes \TeX{}-related microcomputer software on disk. \acro{TUG} has a Technical Council to coordinate \TeX{}-related developments (\Qref{TUG Technical Working Groups}{Q-TUGTC}). Enquiries should be directed to: \begin{quote} \TeX{} Users Group\\ 1850 Union Street, \#1637\\ San Francisco CA 94123\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 805-963-1338\\ Fax: (+1) 805-963-8358\\ Email: \Email|tug@tug.org|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.tug.org/|\\ \acro{CTAN} details: \CTANref{tug} \end{quote} \Question[Q-othergroups]{Are there nationally-based user groups, too?} The following groups publish their membership (\emph{etc}.) information electronically on \acro{CTAN} archives: \begin{quote} \htmlignore \acro{DANTE}, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung\\ \hspace*{1em}\TeX{} e.V.\\ \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} DANTE, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung \TeX{} e.V.\\ \end{htmlversion} Postfach 10\,18\,40\\ D-69008 Heidelberg\\ Germany\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+49) 06221 2\,97\,66\\ Fax: (+49) 06221 16\,79\,06\\ Email: \Email|dante@dante.de|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.dante.de/|\\ \acro{CTAN} details: \CTANref{dante} \end{quote} \begin{quote} Association \acro{GUT}enberg,\\ BP 10,\\ 93220 Gagny principal,\\ France\\[.25\baselineskip] Email: \Email|gut@irisa.fr|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.ens.fr/gut/|\\ \acro{CTAN} details: \CTANref{gut} \end{quote} \htmlignore \begin{list}{}{}\item\relax \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \begin{quote} \end{htmlversion} \acro{NTG} \\ Postbus 394, 1740AJ Schagen,\\ The Netherlands\\[.25\baselineskip] Email: \Email|ntg@nic.surfnet.nl|\\ Web: \URL|http://ei0.ei.ele.tue.nl/ntg/ntg.html|\\ \htmlignore \hphantom{Web: }(note that this is a temporary address)\\ \endhtmlignore \acro{CTAN} details: \CTANref{ntg} \htmlignore \end{list} \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \end{quote} \end{htmlversion} \begin{quote} \acro{UK} \TeX{} Users' Group,\\ \htmlignore \careof{} Peter Abbott,\\ \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} c/o Peter Abbott,\\ \end{htmlversion} 1 Eymore Close,\\ Selly Oak,\\ Birmingham B29 4LB\\ \acro{UK}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+44) 0121 476 2159\\ Email: \Email|UKTuG-Enquiries@tex.ac.uk|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.tex.ac.uk/UKTUG/home.html|\\ \acro{CTAN} details: \CTANref{uktug} \end{quote} A listing of all known groups is available as \CTANref{usergrps-list} \Question[Q-TUGTC]{\acro{TUG} Technical Working Groups} \htmlignore \acro{TUG} (\Qref{}{Q-TUG}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{TUG}{Q-TUG} \end{htmlversion} has an autonomous Technical Council which oversees a number of working groups on areas of common interest to the \TeX{} community. The Council has three members (current chair is Michael Ferguson, assisted by Yannis Haralambous and Sebastian Rahtz), who liaise with chair people of each working group. Each group establishes its own working methods and membership, and anyone interested in taking part should contact the chair. Suggestions for new groups should be addressed to Michael Ferguson (\Email|mike@inrs-telecom.uquebec.ca|). A brief list of the active groups follows: \begin{description} \item[WG-92-00 (IRP-TWG)]\emph{Independent Research Project TWG.}\\ To recognise and report to the \TeX{} Board and the \TeX{} Community on important projects which are independent of \acro{TUG} but are of concern to the entire \TeX{} Community. Contact: Alan Hoenig (\Email|ajhjj@cunyvm.cuny.edu|) \item[WG-92-01]\emph{\TeX{} Extended Mathematics Font Encoding.}\\ To create font encoding standards for Mathematical fonts used in \TeX{} systems. Contact: Barbara Beeton (\Email|bnb@math.ams.org|) \item[WG-92-03]\emph{Multiple Language Coordination.}\\ The primary purpose of this working group is to obtain, for \TeX{} systems, a consistent means for implementing, accessing, and describing, the fonts, ligature rules, hyphenation patterns and other special requirements for a given linguistic group. Contact: Yannis Haralambous (\Emaildot|Yannis.Haralambous@univ-lille1.fr|) \item[WG-92-04]\emph{\TeX{} for the Disabled.}\\ The primary purpose of this working group is as a forum for those people interested in using and/or enhancing \TeX{} to serve the needs of those with visual and other disabilities. Contact: T.V. Raman (\Email|raman@adobe.com|) \item[WG-92-05]\emph{\TeX{} Archive Guidelines.}\\ The purpose of this Technical Working Group is to develop guidelines for the effective management and utilisation of major \TeX{} archives, and to initiate communication among the maintainers of the existing archives for the purpose of coordination and synchronisation. Contact: %George Greenwade (\Email|bed_gdg@shsu.edu|) Sebastian Rahtz (\Email|s.rahtz@elsevier.co.uk|) \item[WG-94-07]\emph{\TeX{} Directory Structures.}\\ The primary purpose of this TWG is to identify a universal directory structure for macros, fonts and other related \TeX{} software so that recommendations can be made to all suppliers of \TeX{} software. The group's current set of proposals are to be found on \acro{CTAN} at \CTANref{tds} Contact: %Norm Walsh (\Email|norm@ora.com|) Karl Berry (\Email|kb@cs.umb.edu|) \item[WG-94-08]\emph{DVI Driver Implementation and Standardisation Issues.}\\ The major objective shall be to study the issues in the requirements of \acro{DVI} Drivers imposed by changing needs and technologies, and to make recommendations for implementation and standardisation of such drivers to enhance the uniformity of their use. Work will include, but not be limited to, the examination of the use, syntax, and semantics of \cs|special{..}| commands. Contact: Michael Sofka (\Email|sofkam@rpi.edu|) \item[WG-94-09]\emph{\TeX{} and \acro{SGML}.}\\ The major objective is to investigate the requirements and difficulties in developing an interface technology for \TeX{} and \acro{SGML}. Contact: Ken Dreyhaupt (\Email|kend@springer-ny.com|) \item[WG-94-10]\emph{\TeX{} and Linguistics.}\\ The main goal is to study and discuss the requirements for typesetting linguistics in \TeX{} and as a means of identifying, examining, testing, and comparing macros, fonts, style files and other aids for typesetting linguistics. Contact: Christina Thiele (\Email|cthiele@ccs.carleton.ca|) \end{description} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Documentation and Help} \Question[Q-books]{Books on \TeX{} and its relations} While Knuth's book is the definitive reference for \TeX{}, there are other books covering \TeX{}: \begin{booklist} \item[The \TeX{}book]by Donald Knuth (Addison-Wesley, 1984, \ISBN{0-201-13447-0}, paperback \ISBN{0-201-13448-9}) \item[A Beginner's Book of \TeX{}]by Raymond Seroul and Silvio Levy, (Springer Verlag, 1992, \ISBN{0-387-97562-4}) \item[Introduction to \TeX{}]by Norbert Schwarz (Addison-Wesley, 1989, \ISBN{0-201-51141-X}) \item[A Plain \TeX{} Primer]by Malcolm Clark (Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBNs~0-198-53724-7 (hardback) and~0-198-53784-0 (paperback)) \item[\TeX{} by Topic]by Victor Eijkhout (Addison-Wesley, 1992, \ISBN{0-201-56882-9}) \item[\TeX{} for the Beginner]by Wynter Snow (Addison-Wesley, 1992, \ISBN{0-201-54799-6}) \item[\TeX{} for the Impatient]by Paul W.~Abrahams, Karl Berry and Kathryn A.~Hargreaves (Addison-Wesley, 1990, \ISBN{0-201-51375-7}) \item[\TeX{} in Practice]by Stephan von Bechtolsheim (Springer Verlag, 1993, 4 volumes, \ISBN{3-540-97296-X} for the set, or % nos in brackets are for German distribution (Springer Verlag, Berlin) Vol.~1: 0-387-97595-0, % (3-540-97595-0) Vol.~2: 0-387-97596-9, % (3-540-97596-9) Vol.~3: 0-387-97597-7, and % (3-540-97597-7) Vol.~4: 0-387-97598-5)% (3-540-97598-5) \htmlignore \item[\TeX{}: Starting from \sqfbox{1}\thinspace\footnotemark]% \footnotetext{That's `Starting from Square One'}% \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \item[\TeX{}: Starting from Square One] \end{htmlversion} by Michael Doob (Springer Verlag, 1993, \ISBN{3-540-56441-1}) \item[The Advanced \TeX{}book]by David Salomon (Springer Verlag, 1995, \ISBN{0-387-94556-3}) \end{booklist} For \LaTeX{}, see: \begin{booklist} \item[\LaTeX{}, a Document Preparation System]by Leslie Lamport (second edition, Addison Wesley, 1994, \ISBN{0-201-15790-X}) \item[A guide to \LaTeXe{}]Helmut Kopka and Patrick W.~Daly (second edition, Addison-Wesley, 1995, \ISBN{0-201-42777-X}) \item[The \LaTeX{} Companion]by Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, and Alexander Samarin (Addison-Wesley, 1993, \ISBN{0-201-54199-8}) \item[\LaTeX{} Notes:]\emph{Practical Tips for Preparing Technical Documents} by J.~Kenneth Shultis (Prentice Hall, 1994, \ISBN{0-131-20973-6}) \item[\LaTeX{} Line by Line]by Antoni Diller (John Wiley \& Sons, 1993, \ISBN{0-471-93471-2}) \item[\LaTeX{} for Scientists and Engineers]by David J.~Buerger (McGraw-Hill, 1990, \ISBN{0-070-08845-4}) \item[Math into \TeX{}:]\emph{A Simplified Introduction using \AMSLaTeX{}} by George Gr\"atzer (Birkh\"auser, 1993, \ISBN{0-817-63637-4}, or, in Germany, \ISBN{3-764-33637-4}) \item[Math into \LaTeX{}:]\emph{An Introduction to \LaTeX{} and \AMSLaTeX{}} by George Gr\"atzer (Birkh\"auser, 1996, \ISBN{0-817-63805-9}) \end{booklist} Of the list, Lamport's, Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin's, Kopka and Daly's, and Gr\"atzer's ``\emph{Math into \LaTeX{}}'' cover \LaTeXe{}. A sample of the last, in Adobe Acrobat format, is also available (\CTANref{mil}). The list for \MF{} is rather short: \begin{booklist} \item[The \MF{}book]by Donald Knuth (Addison Wesley, 1986, \ISBN{0-201-13445-4}) \end{booklist} A book covering a wide range of topics (including installation and maintenance) is: \begin{booklist} \item[Making \TeX{} Work]by Norman Walsh (O'Reilly and Associates, Inc, 1994, \ISBN{1-56592-051-1}) \end{booklist} This list only covers books in English: \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} cannot hope to maintain a list of books in languages other than our own. \Question{Where to find this article} Bodenheimer's article, from which the present one was developed, is posted (nominally monthly) to newsgroup \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex| and cross-posted to newsgroups \Newsgroup|news.answers| and \Newsgroup|comp.answers|. The most recently posted copy of Bodenheimer's article is kept on \acro{CTAN} in \CTANref{TeX-FAQ}; it is also archived at any site that archives \Newsgroup|news.answers|, such as \FTP|rtfm.mit.edu| (\FTP|18.181.0.24|), and the article is available there \checked{RF}{1994/11/24}% via anonymous |ftp| (in the directory \File|pub/usenet/news.answers/tex-faq|). If you have access to email, but not to |ftp|, use the \Package|ftpmail| server (see \Qref[]{access to the archives}{Q-archives}). %\htmlignore %`\acro{\texttt{SENDME FAQ}}' %\endhtmlignore %\begin{htmlversion} % `|SENDME FAQ|' %\end{htmlversion} %to \Email|fileserv@shsu.edu| % Another way to retrieve it via email is through the mailserver at % |rtfm|: send a message containing the lines `|help|' and % `|index|' to \Email|mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu| for information on % how to obtain it. \htmlignore A version of the present article may be browsed via the World-Wide Web, at URL \URL|http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?introduction=yes|% \begin{footnoteenv} This is a temporary URL; a final home for the document is to be provided in due course \end{footnoteenv} \endhtmlignore %Other \Newsgroup|news.answers|/FAQ archives are: \FTP|cnam.cnam.fr| %(163.173.128.6) in the anonymous ftp directory \path|/pub/FAQ|; %\FTP|ftp.uu.net| (192.48.96.2) in the anonymous ftp directory %\path|/pub/usenet| (also available via mail server requests to %\path|netlib@uunet.uu.net|, or via uunet's 1-900 anonymous UUCP phone %number); and \FTP|ftp.cs.ruu.nl| (131.211.80.17) in the anonymous ftp %directory \path|./pub/NEWS.ANSWERS| (also accessible via mail server %requests to mail-server@cs.ruu.nl). Many of the archives mentioned %below (\Qref{Q-archives}) also maintain current versions of this document. \Question[Q-maillists]{Mailing lists about \TeX{} and its friends} There are (still) people who can use networks but can't read Usenet news; for them, not all is lost if they can send and receive email. The \TeX{}hax digest is operated as a mailing list. Send a message `\texttt{subscribe texhax}' to \Email|texhax-request@tex.ac.uk| to join it. The mailing list |info-tex| offers a mail analogue of the Usenet group \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex|; mail to the list us automatically submitted to the newsgroup, and thus answers to questions may be given by people who only read the newsgroup. Subscribe to the list by sending a message `\texttt{subscribe info-tex }' to \Email|listserv@shsu.edu| The (rather high volume of) postings to \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex| may be had in digested form through the mailing list |ctt-digest|. Subscribe to the list by sending a message `\texttt{subscribe ctt-Digest }' to \Email|listserv@shsu.edu| Announcements of \TeX{}-related installations on the \acro{CTAN} archives are sent to the mailing list |ctan-ann|. Subscribe to the list by sending a message `\texttt{subscribe ctan-ann }' to \Email|listserv@urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de| Issues related to \MF{} (and, increasingly, \MP{}) are discussed on the |metafont| mailing list; subscribe by sending a message `\texttt{subscribe metafont }' to \Email|listserv@ens.fr| Several other \TeX{}-related lists may be accessed via \Email|listserv@urz.uni-heidelberg.de|. Send a message containing the line `|help|' to this address.\checked{RF}{1994/11/18} % \Q{This is going some time soon; when?}% The \htmlignore literate programming newsgroup (\Qref{}{Q-lit}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{literate programming}{Q-lit} newsgroup \end{htmlversion} \Newsgroup|comp.programming.literate| is gatewayed to the |litprog| mailing list; subscribe by sending a message `\texttt{subscribe litprog }' to \Email|listserv@shsu.edu|. \Question[BibTeXing]{\BibTeX{} Documentation} \BibTeX{}, a program originally designed to produce bibliographies in conjunction with \LaTeX{}, is explained in Section 4.3 and Appendix B of Leslie Lamport's \LaTeX{} manual (see \Qref[question]{TeX-related books}{Q-books}). The document ``\BibTeX{}ing'', contained in the file |btxdoc.tex|, gives a more complete description. \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion} (see \Qref[question]{TeX-related books}{Q-books}) also has information on \BibTeX{} and writing \BibTeX{} style files. The document ``Designing \BibTeX{} Styles'', contained in the file |btxhak.tex|, explains the postfix stack-based language used to write \BibTeX{} styles (|.bst| files). The file |btxbst.doc| is the template for the four standard styles (|plain|, |abbrv|, |alpha|, |unsrt|). It also contains their documentation. The complete \BibTeX{} documentation set (including the files above) is in \CTANref{bibtex-doc} There is a Unix \BibTeX{} \ProgName|man| page in the \ProgName|web2c| package (see \Qref[question]{TeX systems}{TeX-systems}). Any copy you may find of a \ProgName|man| page written in 1985 (before ``\BibTeX{}ing'' and ``Designing \BibTeX{} Styles'' appeared) is obsolete, and should be thrown away. \Question{The \PiCTeX{} manual} \PiCTeX{} is a set of macros for drawing diagrams and pictures. The macros are freely available in \CTANref{pictex}; however, the \PiCTeX{} manual itself is not free. It is available for \$30 (\$35 with the disk) from the \TeX{} Users Group (see \Qref[question]{TUG}{Q-TUG}). The proceeds from the sales go to Michael Wichura, the author of \PiCTeX{}, and to \acro{TUG}. \Question[index]{Finding \AllTeX{} macro packages} Before you ask for a \TeX{} macro or \LaTeX{} class or package file to do something, try searching Graham Williams' (\Email|Graham.Williams@dit.csiro.au|) catalogue, available as \CTANref{catalogue}; this lists many macro packages together with brief descriptive texts. %An older (indeed, increasingly out-of-date) resource that is sometimes %worth %searching is the \TeX{} macro index written by David M. %Jones (\Email|dmjones@theory.lcs.mit.edu|), available in %\CTANref{TeX-index}; however, remember that %any location quoted in the index is almost bound to be incorrect. Having learnt of a file that seems interesting, search a \acro{CTAN} archive for it (see \Qref[question]{finding files on CTAN}{siteindex}). For packages listed in \htmlignore \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion} (% \endhtmlignore \Qref{The LaTeX Companion}{Q-books}% \htmlignore ), \endhtmlignore the file \CTANref{compan-ctan} may be consulted as an alternative to searching the archive's index. It lists the current location in the archive of such files. An alternative procedure is to use \URL|http://www.ora.com/homepages/CTAN-Web/|, which permits limited `keyword' searching for files on the \acro{CTAN} sites. \Question[siteindex]{Finding files in the \acro{CTAN} archives} To find software at a \acro{CTAN} site, you can use anonymous |ftp| to the host with the command `\texttt{quote site index }', or the searching script at \URL|http://www.dante.de/cgi-bin/ctan-index| To get the best use out of the |ftp| facility you should remember that \texttt{} is a \emph{Regular Expression} and not a fixed string, and also that many files are distributed in source form with an extension different to the final file. (For example \LaTeX{} packages are often distributed sources with extension |dtx| rather than as package files with extension |sty|.) One should make the regular expresion general enough to find the file you are looking for, but not too general, as the |ftp| interface will only return the first 20 lines that match your request. The following examples illustrate these points. To search for the \LaTeX{} package `|caption|', you might use the command: \begin{verbatim} quote site index caption.sty \end{verbatim} but it will fail to find the desired package (which is distributed as |caption.dtx|) and does return unwanted `hits' (such as |hangcaption.sty|). Also, although this example does not show it the `|.|' in `|caption.sty|' is used as the regular expression that matches \emph{any} character. So \begin{verbatim} quote site index doc.sty \end{verbatim} matches such unwanted files as \path|language/swedish/slatex/doc2sty/makefile| Of course if you \emph{know} the package is stored as |.dtx| you can search for that name, but in general you may not know the extension used on the archive. The solution is to add `|/|' to the front of the package name and `|\\.| to the end. This will then search for a file name that consists solely of the package name between the directory separator and the extension. The two commands: \begin{verbatim} quote site index /caption\\. quote site index /doc\\. \end{verbatim} do narrow the search down sufficiently. (In the case of doc, a few extra files are found, but the list returned is sufficiently small to be easily inspected.) If the search string is too wide and too many files would match, the list will be truncated to the first 20 items found. Using some knowledge of the \acro{CTAN} directory tree you can usually narrow the search sufficiently. As an example suppose you wanted to find a copy of the |dvips| driver for \MSDOS{}. You might use the command: \begin{verbatim} quote site index dvips \end{verbatim} but the result would be a truncated list, not including the file you want. (If this list were not truncated 412 items would be returned!) However we can restrict the search to \MSDOS{} related drivers as follows. \begin{verbatim} quote site index msdos.*dvips \end{verbatim} Which just returns relevant lines such as \path|systems/msdos/dviware/dvips/dvips5528.zip| A basic introduction to searching with regular expressions is: \begin{itemize} \htmlignore \itemsep=0.5\itemsep \endhtmlignore \item Most charcters match themselves, so |"a"| matches |"a"| etc.; \item |"."| matches any character; \item |"[abcD-F]"| matches any single character from the set \{|"a"|,|"b"|,|"c"|,|"D"|,|"E"|,|"F"|\}; \item |"*"| placed after an expression matches zero or more occurrences so |"a*"| matches |"a"| and |"aaaa"|, and |"[a-zA-Z]*"| matches a `word'; \item |"\"| `quotes' a special character such as |"."| so |"\."| just matches |"."|; \item |"^"| matches the beginning of a line; \item |"$"| matches the end of a line. \end{itemize} For technical reasons in the quote site index command, you need to `double' any |\| hence the string |/caption\\.| in the above example. The quote site command ignores the case of letters. Searching for |caption| or |CAPTION| would produce the same result. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Bits and pieces of \TeX{}} \Question[Q-dvi]{What is a \acro{DVI} file?} A \acro{DVI} file (that is, a file with the type or extension |.dvi|) is \TeX{}'s main output file, using \TeX{} in its broadest sense to include \LaTeX{}, etc. `\acro{DVI}' is supposed to be an acronym for \acro{D}e\acro{V}ice-\acro{I}ndependent, meaning that the file can be printed on almost any kind of typographic output device. The \acro{DVI} file is designed to be read by a driver (\Qref{DVI drivers}{Q-driver}) to produce further output designed specifically for a particular printer (e.g., a LaserJet) or to be used as input to a previewer for display on a computer screen. \acro{DVI} files use \TeX{}'s internal coding; a \TeX{} input file should produce the same \acro{DVI} file regardless of which implementation of \TeX{} is used to produce it. A \acro{DVI} file contains all the information that is needed for printing or previewing except for the actual bitmaps or outlines of fonts, and possibly material to be introduced by means of \htmlignore \cs|special| commands (\Qref{}{Q-specials}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\cs|special| commands}{Q-specials}. \end{htmlversion} The canonical reference for the structure of a \acro{DVI} file is the source of \ProgName|dvitype| (\CTANref{dvitype}). \Question[Q-driver]{What is a driver?} A driver is a program that takes as input a |dvi| file (\Qref{\acro{DVI} files}{Q-dvi}) and (usually) produces a file that can be sent to a typographic output device, called a printer for short. A driver will usually be specific to a particular printer, although any PostScript printer ought to be able to print the output from a PostScript driver. % (these are also called PostScript conversion programs). As well as the \acro{DVI} file, the driver needs font information. Font information may be held as bitmaps or as outlines, or simply as a set of pointers into the fonts that the printer itself `has'. Each driver will expect the font information in a particular form. For more information on the forms of fonts, see questions \Qref[]{|pk| files}{Q-pk}, % beware of fill-paragraph here!!!! \Qref[]{|tfm| files}{Q-tfm}, \Qref[]{virtual fonts}{virtualfonts} and \Qref[]{Using PostScript fonts with \TeX{}}{Q-usepsfont}. \Question[Q-pk]{What are \acro{PK} files?} \acro{PK} files (packed raster) contain font bitmaps. The output from \htmlignore \MF{} (\Qref{}{Q-mf}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\MF{}}{Q-mf} \end{htmlversion} includes a generic font (\acro{GF}) file and the utility \ProgName|gftopk| produces the \acro{PK} file from that. There are a lot of \acro{PK} files, as one is needed for each font, that is each magnification (size) of each design (point) size for each weight for each family. Further, since the \acro{PK} files for one printer do not necessarily work well for another, the whole set needs to be duplicated for each printer type at a site. As a result, they are often held in an elaborate directory structure, or in `font library files', to regularise access. \Question[Q-tfm]{What are \acro{TFM} files?} \acro{TFM} stands for \TeX{} font metrics, and \acro{TFM} files hold information about the sizes of the characters of the font in question, and about ligatures and kerns within that font. One \acro{TFM} file is needed for each font used by \TeX{}, that is for each design (point) size for each weight for each family; one \acro{TFM} file serves for all magnifications, so that there are (typically) fewer \acro{TFM} files than there are \acro{PK} files. The important point is that \acro{TFM} files are used by \TeX{} (\LaTeX{}, etc.), but are not, generally, needed by the printer driver. \Question[virtualfonts]{Virtual fonts} Virtual fonts for \TeX{} were first implemented by David Fuchs in the early days of \TeX{}, but for most people they started when Knuth redefined the format, and wrote some support software, in 1989. Virtual fonts provide a way of telling \TeX{} about something more complicated than just a one-to-one character mapping. The entities you define in a virtual font look like characters to \TeX{} (they appear with their sizes in a font metric file), but the \acro{DVI} processor may expand them to something quite different. You can use this facility just to remap characters, to make a composite font with glyphs drawn from several sources, or to build up an effect in arbitrarily complicated ways~--- a virtual font may contain anything which is legal in a \acro{DVI} file. In practice, the most common use of virtual fonts is to remap PostScript fonts (see \Qref[question]{font metrics}{Q-metrics}) or to build `fake' maths fonts. It is important to realise that \TeX{} itself does \emph{not} see virtual fonts; for every virtual font read by the \acro{DVI} driver there is a corresponding \acro{TFM} file read by \TeX{}. Virtual fonts are normally created in a single \acro{ASCII} |vpl| (Virtual Property List) file, which includes both sets of information. The \ProgName|vptovf| program is then used to the create the binary \acro{TFM} and \acro{VF} files. The commonest way (nowadays) of generating |vpl| files is to use the \ProgName|fontinst| package, which is described in detail \htmlignore \Qref[in question]{}{Q-metrics}. \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} together with the discussion of \Qref{PostScript font metrics}{Q-metrics}. \end{htmlversion} \CTANref{qdtexvpl} is another utility for creating ad-hoc virtual fonts. \Question[Q-specials]{\cs|special| commands} \TeX{} provides the means to express things that device drivers can do, but about which \TeX{} itself knows nothing. For example, \TeX{} itself knows nothing about how to include PostScript figures into documents, or how to set the colour of printed text; but some device drivers do. Such things are introduced to your document by means of |\special| commands; all that \TeX{} does with these commands is to expand their arguments and then pass the command to the \acro{DVI} file. In most cases, there are macro packages provided (often with the driver) that provide a comprehensible interface to the |\special|; for example, there's little point including a figure if you leave no gap for it in your text, and changing colour proves to be a particularly fraught operation that requires real wizardry. \LaTeXe{} has standard graphics and colour packages that make file inclusion, rotation, scaling and colour via |\special|s all easy. The allowable arguments of |\special| depend on the device driver you're using. Apart from the examples above, there are |\special| commands in the em\TeX{} drivers (e.g., \ProgName|dvihplj|, \ProgName|dviscr|, \emph{etc}.)~that will draw lines at arbitrary orientations, and commands in \ProgName|dvitoln03| that permit the page to be set in landscape orientation. \Question[Q-dtx]{Documented \LaTeX{} sources (\texttt{.dtx} files)} \LaTeXe{}, and many support macro packages, are now written in a \htmlignore literate programming style (\Qref{}{Q-lit}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{literate programming}{Q-lit} style, \end{htmlversion} with source and documentation in the same file. This format, known as `doc', was originated by Frank Mittelbach. The documented sources conventionally have the suffix \texttt{.dtx}, and should normally be stripped of documentation before use with \LaTeX{}. Alternatively you can run \LaTeX{} on a \texttt{.dtx} file to produce a nicely formatted version of the documented code. An installation script (with suffix \texttt{.ins}) is usually provided, which needs the standard \LaTeXe{} \ProgName|docstrip| package (among other things, the installation process strips all the comments that make up the documentation for speed when loading the file into a running \LaTeX{} system). Several packages can be included in one \texttt{.dtx} file, with conditional sections, and there facilities for indices of macros etc. Anyone can write \texttt{.dtx} files; the format is explained in \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion} (see \Qref[question]{books on \TeX{}}{Q-books}). There are no programs yet to assist in composition. \texttt{.dtx} files are not used by \LaTeX{} after they have been processed to produce \texttt{.sty} or \texttt{.cls} (or whatever) files. They need not be kept with the working system; however, for many packages the \texttt{.dtx} file is the primary source of documentation, so you may want to keep \texttt{.dtx} files elsewhere. \Question[dc-fonts]{What are the \acro{DC} fonts?} A font consists of a number of \emph{glyphs}. In order that the glyphs may be printed, there has to be some way of accessing them; in \TeX{} they're arranged in a numerical order called an \emph{encoding}, and their number in the encoding is used. For various reasons, Knuth chose rather eccentric encodings; in particular, he chose different encodings for different fonts. When \TeX{} version 3 arrived, some at least of the reasons for the eccentricity of Knuth's encodings went away, and at \acro{TUG}'s Cork meeting, an encoding for a set of 256 glyphs, for use in \TeX{} text, was defined. The intention was that these glyphs should cover `most' European languages, in the sense of including all accented letters needed. (Knuth's \acro{CMR} fonts missed things necessary for Icelandic, Polish and Sami, for example, but the Cork fonts have them.) \htmlignore \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e} \end{htmlversion} refers to the Cork encoding as \acro{T}1, and provides the means to use fonts thus encoded to avoid problems with the interaction of accents and hyphenation % beware!!! fill-paragraph!!! (\Qref{hyphenation of accented words}{hyphenated-accents}). % beware!!! fill-paragraph!!! The only \MF{}-fonts that conform to the Cork encoding are the \acro{DC} fonts (available as \CTANref{dc}; ensure you have version 1.2, patch level 1, released in December 1995, or later). They look \acro{CM}-like, and should be regarded as an interim version of a hypothetical set of \acro{EC} fonts (which, it is hoped, will be available some time in 1996). Their serious disadvantage for the casual user is that they are large~--- each \acro{DC} font is roughly twice the size of the corresponding \acro{CM} font; what's more until corresponding fonts for mathematics are produced, the \acro{CM} fonts must be retained. The Cork encoding is also implemented by the \htmlignore \acro{PSNFSS} system (\Qref{}{Q-usepsfont}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{PSNFSS} system}{Q-usepsfont}, \end{htmlversion} for PostScript fonts. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Acquiring the Software} \Question[Q-archives]{Repositories of \TeX{} material} To aid the archiving and retrieval of of \TeX{}-related files, a \acro{TUG} working group developed the Comprehensive \TeX{} Archive Network (\acro{CTAN}). Each \acro{CTAN} site has identical material, and maintains authoritative versions of its material. These collections are extensive; in particular, almost everything mentioned in this article is archived at the \acro{CTAN} sites, even if its location isn't explicitly stated. The \acro{CTAN} sites are currently \FTP|ftp.dante.de| (\FTP|129.206.100.192|) and \FTP|ftp.tex.ac.uk| (\FTP|128.232.1.87|). % , and \FTP|ftp.shsu.edu| (\FTP|192.92.115.10|). The organisation of \TeX{} files on % all these sites is identical and starts at \path|tex-archive/|. To reduce network load, please use the \acro{CTAN} site or mirror closest to you. A complete and current list of \acro{CTAN} sites and known mirrors can be obtained by using the \ProgName|finger| utility on `user' \Email|ctan@ftp.tex.ac.uk| or \Email|ctan@ftp.dante.de|; it is also available as file \CTANref{CTAN-sites} To find software at a \acro{CTAN} site, use anonymous |ftp| to the host, and then execute the command `\texttt{quote site index }' (see \Qref[question]{finding files}{siteindex} for details). The email server \Email|ftpmail@ftp.dante.de| provides an |ftp|-like interface through mail. Send a message containing just the line `|help|' to your nearest server for details of use. % \item \FTP|ftp.cs.ruu.nl| (131.211.80.17) also contains a substantial % \TeX{} archive with |ftp| access. To use it via email, send a message % containing the line `|help|' to \Email|mail-server@cs.ruu.nl|. This mail % server can send binary files in a variety of different formats. %\item % this one actually still exists Users on \acro{BITNET} may access anonymous |ftp| for some files indirectly by sending mail to \Email|BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET|.\@ Send a message containing the line `|help|' to this address for more information.% \checked{RF}{1994/10/28} There is also the \acro{DECUS} \TeX{} collection of material for \acro{VMS}, Unix, \MSDOS{}, and the Macintosh. % The material for \acro{VMS} has not been kept up-to-date, but % continues to run on Open\acro{VMS} on the \acro{VAX}. % NOTE: wuarchive doesn't seem to be working just now... It is available via anonymous |ftp| from \FTP|wuarchive.wustl.edu| (128.252.135.4) in \path|decus/tex/|. It can also be obtained from the \acro{DECUS} Library (reference number VS0058) in the US, or through your \acro{DECUS} office outside of the US. To contact the \acro{DECUS} Library, send mail or telephone: \begin{quote} \acro{DECUS}\\ LIBRARY ORDER PROCESSING\\ 334 South Street, SHR3-1/T25\\ Shrewsbury, MA 01545-4195\\ \acro{USA}\\[0.25\baselineskip] Tel: 800-DECUS55 (within the \acro{USA}, for information)\\ Fax: (+1) 508-841-3373 (for inquiries) \end{quote} or send electronic mail for information to the \acro{DECUS} \TeX{} Collection Editor, Ted Nieland (\Email|nieland@ted.hcst.com|). \checked{RF}{1994/11/17} Finally, of course, the \TeX{} user who has no access to any sort of network may buy a copy of the archive on \CDROM{} (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{} \CDROM{}s}{Q-CD}). \Question{Contributing a file to the archives} Use anonymous |ftp| to any \acro{CTAN} archive (see \Qref[question]{sources of software}{Q-archives}) and retrieve the file \CTANref{CTAN-uploads} in the root directory. It contains instructions for uploading files and notifying the appropriate people for that site. If you cannot use |ftp|, mail your contribution to \Email|ctan@urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de| and it will be passed along. You will make everyone's life easier if you choose a descriptive and unique name for your submission, so it's probably a good idea to check that your style file's name is not already in use by means of the %CAREFUL ... wraps here, given a chance! `\texttt{site index}' command (\Qref{finding files in the archives}{siteindex}). \Question{Finding new fonts} A comprehensive list of \MF{} fonts is posted to \Newsgroup|comp.fonts| and to \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex|, roughly every six weeks, by Lee Quin (\Email|lee@sq.sq.com|); it is available as \CTANref{mf-list} The list contains details both of commercial fonts and of fonts available via anonymous |ftp|. Most of the fonts are available via anonymous |ftp| from the \acro{CTAN} archives (see \Qref[question]{sources of software}{Q-archives}). % An article on % fonts by Dominik Wujastyk, available from \acro{CTAN} in % \CTANref{wujastyk-txh}, contains information on \MF{} fonts as well. % (Dominik's article is corrupt on the archive; let's forget it for % now) \Question[Q-CD]{\TeX{} \CDROM{}s} If you don't have access to the Internet, you can get the \acro{CTAN} collections on a \CDROM{}. Even those who do will find it very convenient to have large quantities of \TeX{}-related files to hand. Prime Time Freeware produced \emph{\TeX{}cetera} 1.1 in July 1994, which is a snapshot of \acro{CTAN} taken in June 1994. Regular updates are planned. The material is all compressed in \acro{ZIP} format to fit it all on one \acro{CD}, and to avoid the limitations of the \acro{ISO}~9660 file system directory. You can buy the \acro{CD} from: \begin{quote} Prime Time Freeware\\ 370 Altair Way, Suite 150\\ Sunnyvale \acro{CA} 94086 \\ \acro{USA}\\ Tel: (+1) 408 433 9662\\ Fax: (+1) 408 433 0727\\ Email: \Email|ptf@cfcl.com| \end{quote} or from many \CDROM{} resellers, or the \htmlignore \acro{TUG} office (\Qref{}{Q-TUG}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG} office. \end{htmlversion} Price will be around \$60. Please note that \acro{PTF} is not a big commercial firm, and is a good friend of the \TeX{} community. Walnut Creek \acro{CDROM} also provide a two-disc \CDROM{} set, holding 1000Mb of \TeX{}-related information. Information about the \CDROM{} is available at \URL|http://www.cdrom.com/titles/tex.html|, which also has a link to an ordering page. Walnut Creek's address, etc., are: \begin{quote} Walnut Creek \acro{CDROM}\\ 4041 Pike Lane, Ste \acro{D}-www\\ Concord, \acro{CA} 94520\\ \acro{USA}\\ Tel: (+1) 510 674-0783 or \htmlignore \\ \hphantom{Tel: }% \endhtmlignore 800 786-9907 (within the \acro{USA} and Canada)\\ Fax: (+1) 510 674-0821\\ Email: \Email|info@cdrom.com| (for questions) and \htmlignore \\ \hphantom{Email: }% \endhtmlignore \Email|orders@cdrom.com| (for orders) \end{quote} If you want a ready-to-run \TeX{} system on \CDROM{}, one is available for \MSDOS{} only (so far). The Dutch \TeX{} Users Group (\acro{NTG}) publish the whole 4All\TeX{} workbench on a 2-\CDROM{} set packed with all the \MSDOS{} \TeX{} software, macros and fonts you can want. It is available from \acro{NTG} direct (see \Qref[question]{user groups}{Q-othergroups}), from \acro{TUG} for \$40 and from \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} for \pounds30 (a manual is included). It is a useful resource for anyone to browse, not just for \MSDOS{} users. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{\TeX{} Systems} \Question[TeX-systems]{\AllTeX{} for different machines} We list here the free or shareware packages; see \Qref[question]{vendors}{Q-commercial} for commercial packages. \begin{description} \item[Unix] Instructions for retrieving the Unix \TeX{} distribution via anonymous |ftp| are available in the document \CTANref{unixtexftp} A useful set of binaries for various common Unix systems is to be found as part of the te\TeX{} distribution (\CTANref{tetex-bin}); te\TeX{} will compile on most Unix systems, though it was originally developed for use under Linux (see below). \item[AIX] \TeX{} for the \acro{IBM} RS6000 running AIX is available in \CTANref{aix3.2} \item[386/ix] Executables for 386/ix are available in \CTANref{386ix} \item[Linux] There are at least two fairly complete implementations of \TeX{} to run on Linux. The Slackware distribution includes N\TeX{} (available as \CTANref{ntex}), which probably contains more \TeX{}-related material than you would ever want. The more recent te\TeX{} (available as \CTANref{tetex}) is based on Karl Berry's path-searching mechanisms, and is more compact than N\TeX{} while still being pretty comprehensive. \item[\acro{PC}] The em\TeX{} package for \acro{PC}s running \acro{OS/}2, \MSDOS{} or Windows includes \LaTeX{}, \BibTeX{}, previewers, and drivers, and is available in \CTANref{emtex} as a series of zip archives. The package was written by Eberhard Mattes, and documentation is available in both German and English. Appropriate memory managers for using em\TeX{} with 386 (and better) processors and under Windows, are included in the distribution. A second package, g\TeX{}, runs under \MSDOS{} or Windows (and its users speak well of it). It is available from \CTANref{gtex} \acro{TUG} (and some of the other user groups) offer all freely-available \TeX{} software for the \acro{PC}. A catalogue is available free from \htmlignore \acro{TUG} (\Qref{}{Q-TUG}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG}. \end{htmlversion} \item[\acro{PC}: Win32] Mik\TeX{}, by Christian Schenk, first arrived on CTAN in 1996. It has been welcomed by those that have used it and reported their experiences. It will run under Windows'95 or Windows/NT, and is available from \CTANref{miktex} \item[Mac] Oz\TeX{} is a shareware version of \TeX{} for the Macintosh. A \acro{DVI} previewer and PostScript driver are also included. It should run on any Macintosh Plus, SE, II, or newer model, but will not work on a 128K or 512K Mac. It was written by Andrew Trevorrow, and is available in \CTANref{oztex}, or on floppy disks from \htmlignore \acro{TUG} (\Qref{with details of \acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG}. \end{htmlversion} \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} prepays the shareware fee, so that members of \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} may acquire the software without further payment. Questions about Oz\TeX{} may be directed to \Email|oztex@midway.uchicago.edu| Another partly shareware program is \acro{CM}ac\TeX{} (available as \CTANref{cmactex}), put together by Tom Kiffe. This is much closer to the Unix \TeX{} setup (it uses \ProgName|dvips|, for instance). %\item[Mac] Oz\TeX{} (\Qref{Q-oztex}) is a shareware version. Another % version is CMacTeX, which has \TeX{} 3.14, \MF{} 2.7, a screen % previewer, dvips, a PostScript printing utility for the LaserWriter, % and some font managing utilities. It is available from the \acro{CTAN} % archives (\Qref{Q-archives}). \item[\acro{VMS}] \TeX{} for \acro{VMS} is available as \CTANref{AXPVMSTeX} (for Alpha-based machines) or \CTANref{VAXVMSTeX} (for \acro{VAX} machines). Standard tape distribution is through \acro{DECUS} (see \Qref[question]{sources of software}{Q-archives}). \checked{RF}{1994/10/11} \item[Atari] \TeX{} is available for the Atari ST in \CTANref{atari} If anonymous |ftp| is not available to you, send a message containing the line `|help|' to \Email|atari@atari.archive.umich.edu| \item[Amiga] Full implementations of \TeX{} 3.1 (Pas\TeX{}) and \MF{} 2.7 are available in \CTANref{amiga} You can also order a \CDROM{} containing this and other Amiga software from Walnut Creek \acro{CDROM}, telephone (+1) 510-947-5997. \checked{RF}{1994/10/11} \item[\acro{TOPS}-20] \TeX{} was originally written on a \acro{DEC}-10 under \acro{WAITS}, and so was easily ported to \acro{TOPS}-20. A distribution that runs on \acro{TOPS}-20 is available via anonymous |ftp| from \FTP|ftp.math.utah.edu| (128.110.198.34) in \path|pub/tex/pub/web| \checked{RF}{1994/10/17} \end{description} \Question[Q-editors]{\TeX{}-friendly editors and shells} There are good \TeX{}-writing environments and editors for most operating systems; some are described below, but this is only a personal selection: \begin{description} \item[Unix] Try \acro{GNU}~\ProgName|emacs|, and the \acro{AUC}\TeX{} mode (\CTANref{auctex}). This provides menu items and control sequences for common constructs, checks syntax, lays out markup nicely, lets you call \TeX{} and drivers from within the editor, and everything else like this that you can think of. Complex, but very powerful. \item[\acro{VMS}] An \ProgName|lsedit| mode for editing \TeX{} source is available from \htmlignore \acro{TUG} (\Qref{}{Q-TUG}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG} \end{htmlversion} as \TeX{}niques 1, \acro{VAX} Language-Sensitive Editor, by Kent MacPherson (1985). \item[\MSDOS{}] There are several choices: \begin{itemize} \item The (shareware) 4All\TeX{} workbench (\CTANref{4alltex}) provides a very comprehensive environment written in 4\acro{DOS} which lets you access most \TeX{}-related software in a friendly way. You can choose your own editor; something such as \ProgName|QEdit| or \ProgName|Brief| is suitable. This whole package is available in easy-to-use form on \CDROM{} from \TeX{} user groups. \item \TeX{}shell (\CTANref{texshell}) is a simpler, easily-customisable environment, which can be used with the editor of your choice. \item Eddi4\TeX{} (\CTANref{e4t}; also shareware) is a specially-written \TeX{} editor which features intelligent colouring, bracket matching, syntax checking, online help and the ability to call \TeX{} programs from within the editor. It is highly customisable, and features a powerful macro language. \end{itemize} You can also use \acro{GNU}~\ProgName|emacs| and \acro{AUC}\TeX{} under \MSDOS{}. \item[Windows] Your best public domain bet is probably to use MicroEmacs as an editor and control centre for \TeX{} programs. The g\TeX{} package (\CTANref{gtex}) comes with MicroEmacs ready to go, integrated with \TeX{}, previewer, \ProgName|dvips| and \ProgName|GhostScript|. \TeX{}telmExtel (\CTANref{TeXtelmExtel}) is a Shell for em\TeX{} or \acro{W}\TeX{} and related tools under Windows. It includes a simple multiple-document editor, a built-in spelling checker, automatic \acro{OEM}/\acro{ANSI} character conversion, user-definable point-and-click Templates, support for the forward and inverse search mechanism of \acro{DVI} driver for Windows and for automatic font generation. Besides the predefined tools, up to 10 user-defined tools can be set up. On a \acro{PC} with large enough memory, a version of \acro{GNU}~\ProgName|emacs|, that will run under Windows, is available; thus you can also use \acro{AUC}\TeX{} under Windows. Y\&Y's commercial (and high-quality) Windows previewer, \ProgName|dviwindo|, can be used as a good \TeX{} shell, calling programs such as \TeX{}, drivers, and editors (Y\&Y supply the public domain \acro{PE}, and recommend the commercial Epsilon) from customisable menus (see \Qref[question]{commercial vendors}{Q-commercial} for details of Y\&Y). Scientific Word is a \WYSIWYG{} editing program, strong on maths, which uses \LaTeX{} for output (see \Qref[question]{vendors}{Q-commercial} for contact address). \item[\acro{OS/}2] Eddi4\TeX{} works under \acro{OS/}2; look also at \CTANref{epmtex} for a specific \acro{OS/}2 shell. \item[Macintosh] The commercial Textures provides an excellent integrated Macintosh environment with its own editor. More powerful still (as an editor) is the shareware \ProgName|Alpha| (\CTANref{alpha}) which is extensible enough to let you perform almost any \TeX{}-related job. It works well with Oz\TeX{}. \end{description} Atari, Amiga and \acro{N}e\acro{XT} users also have nice environments. \LaTeX{} users who like \ProgName|make| should try \CTANref{latexmk} There is another set of shell programs to help you manipulate \BibTeX{} databases. \Question[Q-commercial]{Commercial \TeX{} implementations} There are many commercial implementations of \TeX{}. The first appeared not long after \TeX{} itself appeared. Of the vendors, ArborText (formerly Textset) and Personal \TeX{} are those who have survived longest (since the mid or early 80s). What follows is probably an incomplete list. Naturally, no warranty or fitness for purpose is implied by the inclusion of any vendor in this list. The source of the information is given to provide some clues to its currency. In general, a commercial implementation will come `complete', that is, with suitable previewers and printer drivers. They normally also have extensive documentation (\emph{i.e}., not just the \TeX{}book!) and some sort of support service. In some cases this is a toll free number (probably applicable only within the \acro{USA} and or Canada), but others also have email, and normal telephone and fax support. \begin{description} \item[Unix; \TeX{}] Silicon Graphics Iris/Indigo, Solaris 2.1, \acro{IBM} RS/6000, \acro{DEC}/\acro{RISC}-Ultrix, HP 9000. ``Complete \TeX{} packages. Ready to use, fully documented and supported.'' \begin{quote} ArborText Inc\\ 1000 Victors Way\\ Suite 400\\ Ann Arbor \acro{MI} 48108\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 313-996-3566\\ Fax: (+1) 313-996-3573 \end{quote} Source: \TUGboat{} 15(1) (1994) \item[\acro{VAX}/\acro{VMS}; Convergent \TeX{}] Complete system for \acro{VAX}/\acro{VMS} machines (a version for Alphas is in preparation); includes \LaTeX{}, multinational typesetting support, \MF{} and Web. \begin{quote} Northlake Software, Inc.\\ 812 SW Washington, Ste 1100\\ Portland, \acro{OR} 97201\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 503-228-3383\\ Fax: (+1) 503-228-5662\\ Email: \Email|rau@nls.com| \end{quote} Source: Email from Pat Rau, November 1994 \item[\acro{PC}; True\TeX{}] Runs on Windows~3.1, Window~NT and Windows~95. \begin{quote} The Kinch Computer Co.\\ 6994 Pebble Beach Court\\ Lake Worth \acro{FL} 33467\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 561-966-8400 Fax: (+1) 561-966-0692 Email: \Email|kinch@holonet.net|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.emi.net/~kinch| \end{quote} Source: Email from Richard Kinch, December 1995 \item[\acro{PC}; \TeX{}] ``Bitmap free \TeX{} for Windows.'' \begin{quote} Y\&Y, Inc.\\ 45 Walden Street\\ Concord \acro{MA} 01742\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: 800-742-4059 (within the \acro{USA})\\ Tel: (+1) 508-371-3286\\ Fax: (+1) 508-371-2004\\ Email: \Email|sales-help@YandY.com| and \htmlignore \\ \hphantom{Email: }% \endhtmlignore \Email|tech-help@YandY.com|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.YandY.com/| \end{quote} Source: Y\&Y announcement, February 1995 \item[pc\TeX{}] Long-established: now has a Windows implementation. \begin{quote} Personal \TeX{} Inc\\ 12 Madrona Street\\ Mill Valley, \acro{CA} 94941\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: 800-808-7906 (within the \acro{USA})\\ Fax: (+1) 415-388-8865\\ Email: \Email|pti@crl.com|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.crl.com/~pti/| \end{quote} Source: \TUGboat{} 16(2) (1995) \item[\acro{PC}; V\TeX{}] Also ``Bitmap-free''. \begin{quote} MicroPress Inc\\ 68-30 Harrow Street\\ Forest Hills, \acro{NY} 11375\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 718-575-1816\\ Fax: (+1) 718-575-8038\\ Email: \Email|support@micropress-inc.com| Web: \URL|http://www.micropress-inc.com/| \end{quote} Source: MicroPress home page, April 1996 \item[\acro{PC}; micro\TeX{}] Micro\TeX{} and \TeX{}~tools. \begin{quote} Micro Programs, Inc.\\ 251 Jackson Ave.\\ Syosset, \acro{NY} 11791\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 516-921-1351\\ Email: \Email|sales@microprograms.com| \end{quote} Source: \acro{AMS} listing, November 1994 \item[\acro{PC}; Scientific Word] Scientific Word and Scientific Workplace offer a mechanism for near-\WYSIWYG{} input of \LaTeX{} documents; they ship with True\TeX{} from Kinch (see above). Queries within the \acro{UK} should be addressed to Scientific Word Ltd., others should be addressed directly to the publisher, \acro{TCI}. \begin{quote} Dr Christopher Mabb\\ Scientific Word Ltd.\\ 98 Pont Adam\\ Ruabon\\ Wrexham\\ Clwyd, \acro{LL}14 6\acro{EF}\\ \acro{UK}\\[0.25\baselineskip] Tel: 0345 660340 (within the \acro{UK}) \\ Tel: +44 1978 824684 \\ Fax: 01978 823066 (within the \acro{UK}) \\ Email: \Email|christopher@sciword.demon.co.uk| \end{quote} \begin{quote} \acro{TCI} Software Research Inc.\\ 1190 Foster Road\\ Las Cruces \acro{NM} 88001--3739\\ \acro{USA}\\[0.25\baselineskip] Tel: (+1) 505-522-4600\\ Fax: (+1) 505-522-0116\\ Email: \Email|info@tcisoft.com|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.tcisoft.com/tcisoft.html| \end{quote} Source: Mail from Christopher Mabb, November 1995 \item[Macintosh; Textures] ``A \TeX{} system `for the rest of us'\thinspace''; also gives away a \MF{} implementation and some font manipulation tools. \begin{quote} Blue Sky Research\\ 534 SW Third Avenue\\ Portland, \acro{OR} 97204\\ \acro{USA}\\[.25\baselineskip] Tel: 800-622-8398 (within the \acro{USA})\\ Tel: (+1) 503-222-9571\\ Fax: (+1) 503-222-1643\\ Email: \Email|sales@bluesky.com|\\ Web: \URL|http://www.bluesky.com/| \end{quote} Source: \TUGboat{} 15(1) (1994) \item[Amiga\TeX{}] A full implementation for the Commodore Amiga, including full, on-screen and printing support for all PostScript graphics and fonts, IFF raster graphics, automatic font generation, and all of the standard macros and utilities. \begin{quote} Radical Eye Software\\ \acro{PO} Box 2081\\ Stanford, \acro{CA} 94309\\ \acro{USA} \end{quote} Source: Mail from Tom Rokicki, November 1994 \end{description} \checked{mc}{1994/11/09}% \checked{RF}{1994/11/24}% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{\acro{DVI} Drivers and Previewers} \Question[Q-dvips]{\acro{DVI} to PostScript conversion programs} The best public domain \acro{DVI} to PostScript conversion program which runs under many operating systems is Tom Rokicki's \ProgName|dvips|. \ProgName|dvips| is written in C and ports easily to other operating systems; it is available as \CTANref{dvips} \acro{VMS} versions are available through the \acro{DECUS} library (see \Qref[question]{sources of software}{Q-archives}), and also from \acro{CTAN}: \CTANref{AXPVMSdvips} (for Alpha-based machines), \CTANref{VAXVMSdvips} (for \acro{VAX} machines); support files are available in \CTANref{VMSdvips-support}, and a set of fonts for use with \LaTeXe{} are available in \CTANref{VMSdvips-fonts} A precompiled version for \MSDOS{} is available from \CTANref{dvips-pc} Karl Berry's version of \ProgName|dvips| (called \ProgName|dvipsk|) has a configure script and path searching code similar to that in his other programs (\emph{e.g.}, \ProgName|web2c|); it is available from \CTANref{dvipsk} Another good portable program is \ProgName|dvitops| by James Clark, which is also written in C and will compile under Unix, \MSDOS{}, \acro{VMS}, and Primos; however, it does not support virtual fonts. It is available from \CTANref{dvitops} Macintosh users can use either the excellent drivers built into Oz\TeX{} or Textures, or a port of \ProgName|dvips| in the \acro{CM}ac\TeX{} package. \Question{\acro{DVI} drivers for \acro{HP} LaserJet} The em\TeX{} package (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{} systems}{TeX-systems}) contains a driver for the LaserJet, \ProgName|dvihplj|. Version 2.10 of the Beebe drivers supports the LaserJet. These drivers will compile under Unix, \acro{VMS}, and on the Atari ST and \acro{DEC}-20's, and are available from \CTANref{beebe} Karl Berry's \ProgName|dviljk|, which has the same path-searching code as his \ProgName|dvipsk| (see \Qref[question]{DVI to PostScript programs}{Q-dvips}), is available in \CTANref{dviljk} \Question{\acro{DVI} previewers} Em\TeX{} and g\TeX{} for the \acro{PC}, and Oz\TeX{} for the Macintosh, all come with previewers that can be used on those platforms. There is a good \acro{OS/}2 Presentation Manager previewer in em\TeX{}, and a public domain Windows previewer (\CTANref{dviwin}). Commercial \acro{PC} \TeX{} packages (see \Qref[question]{commercial vendors}{Q-commercial}) have good \MSDOS{} and Windows previewers. Previewers available for other operating systems include: \begin{proglist} \item[xdvi] The most widely used previewer for the X Window System (and hence almost any Unix or modern \acro{VMS} workstation); available in \CTANref{xdvi} Karl Berry's version of \ProgName|xdvi|, called \ProgName|xdvik|, has features analogous to his \ProgName|dvipsk| (see \Qref[question]{DVI to PostScript programs}{Q-dvips}); it is available in \CTANref{xdvik} \item[dvipage] For SunView on (old enough) Sun workstations. This was published in volume 15 of \Newsgroup|comp.sources.unix| and is archived in \CTANref{dvipage} \item[xtex] An older previewer for the X Window System; available in \CTANref{seetex} \item[dviapollo] For Apollo Domain workstations; available in \CTANref{dviapollo} \item[dvidis] For (old enough, \acro{VMS}) \acro{VAXstations} running VWS; available in \CTANref{dvidis} \item[dvitovdu] for Tektronix 4010-compatible and other terminals under Unix and \acro{VMS}; available as \CTANref{dvitovdu} \item[dvi2tty] A \acro{DVI} to \acro{ASCII} conversion program, for normal terminals; available as \CTANref{dvi2tty} \item[texsgi] For SGI under Irix; both a binary and source are available, but be sure to get the fonts as well. Available as \CTANref{texsgi} \end{proglist} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Support Packages for \TeX{}} \Question{Fig, a \TeX{}-friendly drawing package} \ProgName|(X)Fig| is a menu driven tool that allows you to draw objects on the screen of an \acro{X} workstation. \ProgName|transfig| is a set of tools which translate the code \ProgName|fig| produces to other graphics languages including PostScript and the \LaTeX{} picture environment. They are available in \CTANref{xfig} and \CTANref{transfig} \ProgName|Fig| is supported by Micah Beck (\Email|beck@cs.cornell.edu|) and \ProgName|transfig| is maintained by Brian Smith (\Email|bvsmith@lbl.gov|). Another tool for \ProgName|fig| conversion is \ProgName|fig2mf| which generates \MF{} code from \ProgName|fig| input. It is available in \CTANref{fig2mf} \Question{\TeX{}\acro{CAD}, a drawing package for \LaTeX{}} \TeX{}\acro{CAD} is a program for the \acro{PC} which enables the user to draw diagrams on screen using a mouse or arrow keys, with an on-screen menu of available picture-elements. Its output is code for the \LaTeX{} picture environment. Optionally, it can be set to include lines at all angles using the em\TeX{} driver-family \htmlignore |\special|s (\Qref{}{Q-specials}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\cs|special|s}{Q-specials}. \end{htmlversion} \TeX{}\acro{CAD} is part of the em\TeX{} distribution. A Linux port of the program, \CTANref{xtexcad}, is reported also to run on other Unix operating systems. \Question{Spelling checkers for work with \TeX{}} For Unix, \ProgName|ispell| is probably the program of choice. It is available in \CTANref{ispell}; beware of any version with a number |4.x| --- such versions represent a divergent version of the source which lacks many useful facilities of the |3.x| series. For \MSDOS{}, there are several programs. \ProgName|amspell| can be called from within an editor (available as \CTANref{amspell}). \ProgName|jspell| is an extended version of \ProgName|ispell| (available as \CTANref{jspell}). For the Macintosh, \ProgName|Excalibur| is the program of choice. It will run in native mode on both sorts of Macintosh, and is available as \CTANref{Excalibur-sea} (there are other dictionaries in the same directory). For \acro{VMS}, a spell checker can be found in \CTANref{vmspell} \Question[Q-vortex]{The \VorTeX{} package} \VorTeX{} (available in \CTANref{vortex}) is a package of programs written at the University of California at Berkeley, and was described by Michael A.~Harrison in ``\emph{News from the \VorTeX{} project}'' in \TUGboat{} 10(1), pp.~11--14, 1989. It includes several nice previewers and some \ProgName|emacs| modes for \TeX{} and \BibTeX{}. The \VorTeX{} distribution is not maintained, and now looks distinctly long in the tooth (it was never upgraded to \TeX{} version 3). \VorTeX{} needed a separate workstation to run \TeX{} in the background; modern \acro{PC}s for the home can provide more processor power (than was available to \VorTeX{}) in a single box. This fact has been recognised by Blue Sky Research in their `Lightning Textures' (which runs on a Macintosh in a somewhat similar way) and by TCI Software Research in `Scientific Word' \htmlignore (\Qref{}{Q-commercial}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} (see \Qref{commercial vendors}{Q-commercial}), \end{htmlversion} and is also the basis of many of the other environments mentioned in \Qref[question]{`editors and shells'}{Q-editors}. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Literate programming} \Question[Q-lit]{What is Literate Programming?} Literate programming is the combination of documentation and source together in a fashion suited for reading by human beings. In general, literate programs combine source and documentation in a single file. Literate programming tools then parse the file to produce either readable documentation or compilable source. The \acro{WEB} style of literate programming was created by D.~E.~Knuth during the development of his \TeX{} typesetting software. Discussion of literate programming is conducted in the newsgroup \Newsgroup|comp.programming.literate|, which is gatewayed to the mailing list \Email|litprog@shsu.edu| (see \Qref[question]{subscribing to mailing lists}{Q-maillists} for details). The literate programming FAQ is stored as \CTANref{LitProg-FAQ} \Question{\acro{WEB} for C, FORTRAN, and other languages} \TeX{} is written in the programming language \acro{WEB}; \acro{WEB} is a tool to implement the concept of ``literate programming''. \ProgName|CWEB|, a \acro{WEB} for \acro{C} programs, written by Silvio Levy, is available as \CTANref{cweb} Spidery \acro{WEB} supports many languages including Ada, awk, and \acro{C}. It was written by Norman Ramsey and, while not in the public domain, is usable free. It is available in \CTANref{spiderweb} \ProgName|FWEB| is a version for Fortran, Ratfor, and \acro{C} written by John Krommes. % (\Email|krommes@lyman.pppl.gov|). It is available in \CTANref{fweb} \ProgName|SchemeWEB| is a Unix filter that translates Scheme\acro{WEB} into \LaTeX{} source or Scheme source. It was written by John Ramsdell and is available in \CTANref{schemeweb} \ProgName|APLWEB| is a version of \acro{WEB} for \acro{APL} and is available in \CTANref{aplweb} \ProgName|FunnelWeb| is a version of \acro{WEB} that is language independent. It is available in \CTANref{funnelweb} % It also appeared in \Newsgroup|comp.sources.unix| volume 26 issue % 121, posted 11 April 1993. Other language independent versions of \acro{WEB} are \ProgName|nuweb| (which is written in \acro{ANSI} \acro{C}), available in \CTANref{nuweb}, and \ProgName|noweb|, available in \CTANref{noweb} A \acro{WEB} for plain \TeX{} macro files, using \ProgName|noweb|, has recently been made available in \CTANref{tweb} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Format conversions} \Question{Conversion between \AllTeX{} and others} \begin{description} \item[troff] \ProgName|troff-to-latex| (available as \CTANref{troff-to-latex}), written by Kamal Al-Yahya at Stanford University (California, \acro{USA}), assists in the translation of a \ProgName|troff| document into \LaTeX{} format. It recognises most |-ms| and |-man| macros, plus most \ProgName|eqn| and some \ProgName|tbl| preprocessor commands. Anything fancier needs to be done by hand. Two style files are provided. There is also a man page (which converts very well to \LaTeX{}\dots{}). The program is copyrighted but free. An enhanced version of this program, \ProgName|tr2latex|, is available in \CTANref{tr2latex} The \acro{DECUS} \TeX{} distribution (see \Qref[question]{sources of software}{Q-archives}) also contains a program which converts \ProgName|troff| to \TeX{}. %\item[Scribe] Mark James (\Email|jamesm@dialogic.com|) has a copy of % \ProgName|scribe2latex| he has been unable to test but which he will % let anyone interested have. The program was written by Van Jacobson % of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.% % \checked{RF}{1994/11/18} \item[WordPerfect] \ProgName|wp2latex| (available as \CTANref{wp2latex}) is a \acro{PC} program written in Turbo Pascal by R.~C.~Houtepen at the Eindhoven University in the Netherlands. It converts \ProgName|WordPerfect| 5.0 documents to \LaTeX{}. Pascal source is included. Users find it ``helpful'' and ``decent'' in spite of some limitations. It gets high marks for handling font changes, but cannot make indices, tables of contents, margins or graphics, and can't handle features new in \ProgName|WordPerfect| version~5.1, in particular the equation formatter. The program is copyrighted but free. Glenn Geers of the University of Sydney, Australia (\Email|glenn@qed.physics.su.oz.au|) is translating \ProgName|wp2latex| into C and adding some \ProgName|WordPerfect| 5.1 features, in particular its equation handling. His work is in the \File|glenn| subdirectory of \CTANref{wp2latex} \item[\acro{PC}-Write] |pcwritex.arc|, from \CTANref{pcwritex}, is a print driver for \acro{PC}-Write that ``prints'' a \acro{PC}-Write V2.71 document to a \TeX{}-compatible disk file. It was written by Peter Flynn at University College, Cork, Republic of Ireland. \item[runoff] Peter Vanroose's (\Email|vanroose@esat.kuleuven.ac.be|) conversion program is written in \acro{VMS} Pascal. The sources and a \acro{VAX} executable are available from \CTANref{rnototex} \item[refer/tib] There are a few programs for converting bibliographic data between \BibTeX{} and \ProgName|refer|/\ProgName|tib| formats. They are in \CTANref{refer-tools} In spite of the directory name, it also contains a shell script to convert \BibTeX{} to \ProgName|refer| as well. The collection is not maintained. \item[\acro{RTF}] A program for converting Microsoft's Rich Text Format to \TeX{} is available in \CTANref{rtf2tex}, which was written and is maintained by Robert Lupton (\Email|rhl@astro.princeton.edu|). There is also a convertor to \LaTeX{} by Erwin Wechtl, in \CTANref{rtf2latex} Translation \emph{to} \acro{RTF} may be done (for a somewhat constrained set of \LaTeX{} documents) by \TeX{}2\acro{RTF}, which can produce ordinary \acro{RTF}, Windows Help \acro{RTF} (as well as \acro{HTML}, \Qref{conversion to HTML}{Q-LaTeX2HTML}). \TeX{}2\acro{RTF} is supported on various Unix platforms and under Windows~3.1; it is available from \CTANref{tex2rtf} \item[Microsoft Word] A rudimentary program for converting MS-Word to \LaTeX{} is wd2latex, for \MSDOS{} (\CTANref{wd2latex}); a better idea, however, is to convert the document to RTF format and use one of the RTF converters mentioned above. \end{description} An \acro{FAQ} that deals specifically with conversions between \TeX{}-based formats and word processor formats is regularly posted to \Newsgroup|comp.text.tex|, is available via \URL|http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.html| and is archived as \CTANref{texcnven} A group at Ohio State University (\acro{USA}) is working on a common document format based on \acro{SGML}, with the ambition that any format could be translated to or from this one. \ProgName|FrameMaker| provides ``import filters'' to aid translation from alien formats (presumably including \TeX{}) to \ProgName|Framemaker|'s own. \Question{Conversion from \AllTeX{} to plain \acro{ASCII}} The aim here is to emulate the Unix \ProgName|nroff|, which formats text as best it can for the screen, from the same input as the Unix typesetting program \ProgName|troff|. Ralph Droms (\Email|droms@bucknell.edu|) has a style file and a program that provide the \LaTeX{} equivalent of \ProgName|nroff|, though it doesn't do a good job with tables and mathematics. The software is available in \CTANref{txtdist}; the original \ProgName|dvi2tty| often does an acceptable job and is available in \CTANref{dvi2tty} Another possibility is to use \File|screen.sty| (available as \CTANref{screensty}). Use a \ProgName|dvi2tty| program of some kind; you might try \CTANref{crudetype} as well. Another possibility is to use the \LaTeX{}-to-\acro{ASCII} conversion program, \ProgName|l2a| (\CTANref{l2a}), although this is really more of a de-\TeX{}ing program. The canonical de-\TeX{}ing program is \ProgName|detex| (\CTANref{detex}), which removes all comments and control sequences from its input before writing it to its output. Its original purpose was to prepare input for a dumb spelling checker. \Question[Q-SGML2TeX]{Conversion from \acro{SGML} or \acro{HTML} to \protect\TeX{}} \acro{SGML} is a very important system for document storage and interchange, but it has no formatting features; its companion \acro{ISO} standard \acro{DSSSL} (\URL|http://www.jclark.com/dsssl/|) is designed for writing transformations and formatting, but this has not yet been widely implemented. Some \acro{SGML} authoring systems (e.g., SoftQuad \ProgName|Author/Editor|) have formatting abilities, and there are high-end specialist \acro{SGML} typesetting systems (e.g., Miles33's \ProgName|Genera|). However, the majority of \acro{SGML} users probably transform the source to an existing typesetting system when they want to print. \TeX{} is a good candidate for this. There are three approaches to writing a translator: \begin{enumerate} \item Write a free-standing translator in the traditional way, with tools like \ProgName|yacc| and \ProgName|lex|; this is hard, in practice, because of the complexity of \acro{SGML}. \item Use a specialist language designed for \acro{SGML} transformations; the best known are probably \ProgName|Omnimark| and \ProgName|Balise|. They are expensive, but powerful, incorporating \acro{SGML} query and transformation abilities as well as simple translation. \item Build a translator on top of an existing \acro{SGML} parser. By far the best-known (and free!) parser is James Clark's \ProgName|nsgmls|, and this produces a much simpler output format, called \acro{ESIS}, which can be parsed quite straightforwardly (one also has the benefit of an \acro{SGML} parse against the \acro{DTD}). Two good public domain packages use this method: \begin{itemize} \item David Megginson's \ProgName|sgmlspm|, written in Perl 5. Available from \URL|http://www.uottawa.ca/~dmeggins/SGMLSpm/sgmlspm.html| \item Joachim Schrod and Christine Detig's \ProgName|stil|, written in Common Lisp. Available from \URL|ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/text/sgml/stil| \end{itemize} Both of these allow the user to write `handlers' for every \acro{SGML} element, with plenty of access to attributes, entities, and information about the context within the document tree. If these packages don't meet your needs for an average \acro{SGML} typesetting job, you need the big commercial stuff. \end{enumerate} Since \acro{HTML} is simply an example of \acro{SGML}, we do not need a specific system for \acro{HTML}. However, Nathan Torkington (\Email|Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz|) developed \ProgName|html2latex| from the \acro{HTML} parser in \acro{NCSA}'s Xmosaic package. The program takes an \acro{HTML} file and generates a \LaTeX{} file from it. The conversion code is subject to \acro{NCSA} restrictions, but the whole source is available as \CTANref{html2latex} Jonathan Fine (\Email|J.Fine@pmms.cam.ac.uk|) hopes to release, during 1996, his macro package that directly interprets and typesets an \acro{SGML} source file. Michel Goossens and Janne Saarela published a very useful summary of \acro{SGML}, and of public domain tools for writing and manipulating it, in \TUGboat{} 16(2). \Question[Q-LaTeX2HTML]{\AllTeX{} conversion to \acro{HTML}} \TeX{} is a typesetting language, not a markup system. With properly-used \LaTeX{}, you may be luckier, but don't expect a free lunch. Remember that a) if you want a really good Web document, you had better redesign it from scratch, and b) \acro{HTML} (even \acro{HTML3}) has pretty poor `typesetting' facilities, and anything beyond the trivial will probably need to end up a graphic. \LaTeX{}2\acro{HTML} (\CTANref{latex2html}) is a package by Nikos Drakos (mostly of \ProgName|perl| scripts) that breaks up a \LaTeX{} document into one or more components, and links them together so that they can be read over the World-Wide Web as an hypertext document. It defines a mapping between \LaTeX{} intra-document references and hyperlinks, and extends the mechanisms to permit reference to other (possibly remote) documents and other Internet resources. It translates \LaTeX{} accented and other characters (as best it can) to things that World-Wide Web browsers can display, and translates mathematics (and other things that browsers can't deal with) to images that can be loaded in-line into the hypertext document. \LaTeX{}2\acro{HTML} needs \ProgName|Perl|, the \acro{PBM} utilities, \ProgName|dvips|, \ProgName|GhostScript|, and other sundries; it assumes it is running on a Unix system. Michel Goossens and Janne Saarela published a detailed discussion of \LaTeX{}2\acro{HTML}, and how to tailor it, in \TUGboat{} 16(2). There are two alternative strategies: \begin{enumerate} \item Free-standing \LaTeX{} to \acro{HTML} translations. Hard, but not impossible. Julian Smart's \ProgName|latex2rtf| (available from \CTANref{latex2rtf}) does a plausible job on a subset of \LaTeX{}; \item Writing an \acro{HTML}-output backend in \LaTeX{} itself. See Sebastian Rahtz' paper in \TUGboat{} 16(3) for a discussion of how to go about this for the general case of \acro{SGML}. \end{enumerate} \Question[Q-hyper]{Making hypertext documents from \TeX{}} If you want on-line hypertext with a \AllTeX{} source, probably on the World Wide Web, consider four technologies (which overlap): \begin{enumerate} \item Try direct \LaTeX{} conversion to \acro{HTML}; see \Qref[question]{\AllTeX{} conversion to \acro{HTML}}{Q-LaTeX2HTML}; \item Rewrite your document using Texinfo (see \Qref[question]{Texinfo macro package}{Q-texinfo}), and convert that to \acro{HTML}; \item Look at Adobe Acrobat, an electronic delivery system guaranteed to preserve your typesetting perfectly. See \Qref[question]{Making Acrobat documents from \LaTeX{}}{Q-acrobat}; \item Invest in the hyper\TeX{} conventions (standardised \cs|special| commands); there are supporting macro packages for plain \TeX{} and \LaTeX{}). \end{enumerate} The Hyper\TeX{} project aims to extend the functionality of all the \LaTeX{} cross-referencing commands (including the table of contents) to produce \cs|special| commands which are parsed by \acro{DVI} processors conforming to the Hyper\TeX{} guidelines; it provides general hypertext links, including those to external documents. The Hyper\TeX{} specification says that conformant viewers/translators must recognize the following set of \cs|special| commands: \begin{description} \item[href:] |html:| \item[name:] |html:| \item[end:] |html:| \item[image:] |html:| \item[base\_name:] |html:| \end{description} The \emph{href}, \emph{name} and \emph{end} commands are used to do the basic hypertext operations of establishing links between sections of documents. Further details are available on \URL|http://xxx.lanl.gov/hypertex/|; there are two commonly-used implementations of the specification, a modified \ProgName|xdvi| and a modified \ProgName|dvips|. Output from the latter may be used in a modified \ProgName|GhostScript| or Acrobat Distiller. \Question[Q-acrobat]{Making Acrobat documents from \LaTeX{}} In the simplest case, use your \acro{DVI} to PostScript driver, and run the result through Adobe's Acrobat \ProgName|Distiller|; even simpler, if you use a Mac or Windows \TeX{} system, is to install Acrobat Exchange, and use \acro{PDF}writer like a printer from your application. The latter is a dead end, though fine for simple documents, since you can't insert extra hyperlinks in the \acro{PDF} output. For that, you need the Distiller route, which supports a special PostScript operator called \texttt{pdfmark}, for passing through information to the \acro{PDF}. To translate all the \LaTeX{} cross-referencing into Acrobat links, you need a \LaTeX{} package to suitably redefine the internal commands. There are two of these for \LaTeXe{}, both based on the Hyper\TeX{} specification (see \Qref[question]{Making hypertext documents from \TeX{}}{Q-hyper}): Sebastian Rahtz's \Package|hyperref| (available from \CTANref{hyperref}), and Michael Mehlich's \Package|hyper| (available from \CTANref{hyper}). You use \ProgName|dvihps| (a modified \ProgName|dvips|) to translate the \acro{DVI} into PostScript acceptable to Distiller. Alternatively, if you know you only want Acrobat, \Package|hyperref| also has a `native \acro{PDF}' mode, which works with plain \ProgName|dvips| (or most other translators) and gives access to all the functionality of \texttt{pdfmark}. Sadly, there are no free implementations of Distiller, nor any signs of them. \ProgName|GhostScript| (versions 3.51 onwards) can display and print \acro{PDF} files, however, if you are on a platform with no Acrobat Reader. You may see a \acro{DVI} to \acro{PDF} translator soon, but do not hold your breath. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{\MF{}} \Question[Q-mf]{Getting \MF{} to do what you want} \MF{} allows you to create your own fonts, and most \TeX{} users will never need to use it. \MF{}, unlike \TeX{}, requires some customisation: each output device for which you will be generating fonts needs a mode associated with it. Modes are defined using the |mode_def| convention described on page~94 of \emph{The \MF{}book} (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}). You will need a file, which conventionally called \File|local.mf|, containing all the |mode_def|s you will be using. If \File|local.mf| doesn't already exist, Karl Berry's collection of modes, available as \CTANref{modes-file}, is a good starting point (it can be used as a `\File|local.mf|' without modification in a `big enough' implementation of \MF{}). Lists of settings for various output devices are also published periodically in \textsl{TUGboat} (see \Qref[question]{\acro{TUG}}{Q-TUG}). Now create a |plain| base file using \ProgName|inimf|, |plain.mf|, and |local.mf|: \begin{htmlversion} \begin{verbatim} % inimf This is METAFONT... **plain # you type plain (output) *input local # you type this (output) *dump # you type this Beginning to dump on file plain... (output) \end{verbatim} \end{htmlversion} \htmlignore \par\vspace{\topsep} %\begin{tabular}{@{}l@{}l@{}} %|% inimf|\\ %This is METAFONT\dots{}\\{} %**|plain|& you type `|plain|'\\{} %(output)\\{} %*|input local|& you type this\\{} %(output)\\{} %*|dump|& you type this\\{} %Beginning to dump on file plain\dots{}\\{} %(output)\\{} %\end{tabular}\par \begin{list}{}{}\item\relax |% inimf|\\ This is METAFONT\dots{}\\{} \fullline{**\texttt{plain}\hss you type `\texttt{plain}'} (\emph{output})\\{} \fullline{*\texttt{input local}\hss you type this} (\emph{output})\\{} \fullline{*\texttt{dump}\hss you type this} Beginning to dump on file plain\dots{}\\{} (\emph{output}) \end{list}\par \endhtmlignore This will create a base file named \File|plain.base| (or something similar; for example, it will be \htmlignore \acro{\File|PLAIN.BAS|} \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \File|PLAIN.BAS| \end{htmlversion} on \MSDOS{} systems) which should be moved to the directory containing the base files on your system (note that some systems have two or more such directories, one for each `size' of \MF{} used). Now you need to make sure \MF{} loads this new base when it starts up. If \MF{} loads the |plain| base by default on your system, then you're ready to go. Under Unix (using the default \ProgName|web2c| distribution\begin{footnoteenv} The \ProgName|command|\_\ProgName|name| is symbolically linked to \ProgName|virmf|, and \ProgName|virmf| loads \File|command_name.base| \end{footnoteenv}) this does indeed happen, but we could for instance define a command \ProgName|mf| which executes |virmf &plain| loading the |plain| base file. The usual way to create a font with |plain| \MF{} is to start it with the line \htmlignore \bgroup \par\vskip\topsep \hangindent3em\hangafter1\raggedright\parindent10pt\relax |\mode=;| |mag=;| |input |% \par\vskip\topsep \egroup \noindent in \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \begin{verbatim} \mode=; mag=; input \end{verbatim} in \end{htmlversion} response to the `**' prompt or on the \MF{} command line. (If || is unknown or omitted, the mode defaults to `proof' and \MF{} will produce an output file called \File|.2602gf|) The || is a floating point number or `magstep' (magsteps are defined in \emph{The \MF{}book} and \emph{The \TeX{}book}). If |mag=| is omitted, then the default is 1 (magstep 0). For example, to generate cmr10 at 12pt for an epson printer you would type \begin{verbatim} mf \mode=epson; mag=magstep 1; input cmr10 \end{verbatim} Note that under Unix the |\| and |;| characters must usually be quoted or escaped, so this would typically look something like \begin{verbatim} mf '\mode=epson; mag=magstep 1; input cmr10' \end{verbatim} If you don't have \ProgName|inimf| or need a special mode that isn't in the base, you can put its commands in a file (\emph{e.g.}, \File|ln03.mf|) and invoke it on the fly with the |\smode| command. For example, to create \File|cmr10.300gf| for an \acro{LN}03 printer, using the file \begin{verbatim} % This is ln03.mf as of 2/27/90 % mode_def courtesy of John Sauter proofing:=0; fontmaking:=1; tracingtitles:=0; pixels_per_inch:=300; blacker:=0.65; fillin:=-0.1; o_correction:=.5; \end{verbatim} (note the absence of the |mode_def| and |enddef| commands), you would type \begin{verbatim} mf \smode="ln03"; input cmr10 \end{verbatim} This technique isn't one you should regularly use, but it may prove useful if you acquire a new printer and want to experiment with parameters, or for some other reason are regularly editing the parameters you're using. Once you've settled on an appropriate set of parameters, you should use them to rebuild the base file that you use. A summary of the above written by Geoffrey Tobin, and tips about common pitfalls in using \MF{}, is available as \CTANref{mf-beginners} \Question{Which font files should be kept} \MF{} produces from its run three files, a metrics (\acro{TFM}) file, a generic font (\acro{GF}) file, and a log file; all of these files have the same base name as does the input (\emph{e.g.}, if the input file was \File|cmr10.mf|, the outputs will be \File|cmr10.tfm|, \File|cmr10.nnngf|\begin{footnoteenv} Note that the file name may be transmuted by such operating systems as \MSDOS{}, which don't permit long file names \end{footnoteenv} and \File|cmr10.log|). For \TeX{} to use the font, you need a \acro{TFM} file, so you need to keep that. However, you are likely to generate the same font at more than one magnification, and each time you do so you'll (incidentally) generate another \acro{TFM} file; these files are all the same, so you only need to keep one of them. To preview or to produce printed output, the \acro{DVI} processor will need a font raster file; this is what the \acro{GF} file provides. However, while there used (once upon a time) to be \acro{DVI} processors that could use \acro{GF} files, modern processors use packed raster (\acro{PK}) files. Therefore, you need to generate a \acro{PK} file from the \acro{GF} file; the program \ProgName|gftopk| does this for you, and once you've done that you may throw the \acro{GF} file away. The log file should never need to be used, unless there was some sort of problem in the \MF{} run, and need not be ordinarily kept. \Question{Getting bitmaps from the archives} Most people these days start using \TeX{} with a 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) laser printer, and Computer Modern bitmap fonts for this resolution are supplied with most \TeX{} packages. There are also two such sets available on \acro{CTAN}: \CTANref{pk300} (for write-black printer engines) and \CTANref{pk300w} (for write-white engines). However, some users want to send their work to high quality typesetting machines (typically with a resolution of 1270~dpi or greater); it is also becoming more common to use a 600~dpi laser printer. Why don't the archives or suppliers provide bitmap fonts at these sizes? There are two reasons: \begin{enumerate} \item When a bitmap font is created with \MF{}, it needs to know the characteristics of the device; who knows what 600 or 1270~dpi device you have? (Of course, this objection applies equally well to 300~dpi printers.) \item Bitmap fonts get \emph{big} at high resolutions. Who knows what fonts at what sizes you need? \end{enumerate} It would be possible to provide some set of 1270~dpi bitmap fonts in the archives, but it would take a lot of space, and might not be right for you. So what to do? You can build the fonts you need yourself with \MF{}: this isn't at all hard, and some drivers help you (\ProgName|dvips|, and the em\TeX{} drivers) construct the \MF{} commands. You might need to look at Karl Berry's collection of \MF{} modes (\CTANref{modes-file}). Alternatively, if it is a PostScript device you have, consider using the fonts in Type~1 font format. You can buy all the Computer Modern fonts in outline form from Blue Sky Research, Kinch or Y\&Y \htmlignore (\Qref{}{Q-commercial} for addresses), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} (\Qref{commercial vendors}{Q-commercial} for addresses), \end{htmlversion} or you can use Basil Malyshev's public domain versions in \CTANref{ps-type1} (the Paradissa collection is complete, but has largely been replaced by the better \begin{htmlversion} BaKoMa collection).% \end{htmlversion} \htmlignore \acro{B}a\acro{K}o\acro{M}a collection).% \endhtmlignore %\Q{Isn't it a bit over the top to refer to whole directory?} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{PostScript and \TeX{}} \Question[Q-usepsfont]{Using PostScript fonts with \protect\TeX{}} In order to use PostScript fonts, \TeX{} needs \emph{metric} (called \acro{TFM}) files. Several sets of metrics are available from the archives; for mechanisms for generating new ones, see \Qref[question]{metrics for PostScript fonts}{Q-metrics}. You also need the fonts themselves; PostScript printers come with a set of fonts built in, but to extend your repertoire you almost invariably need to buy from one of the many commercial font vendors (see, for example, \Qref[question]{choice of fonts}{Q-psfchoice}). If you use \LaTeXe{}, the best way to get PostScript fonts into your document is to use the \acro{PSNFSS} package maintained by Sebastian Rahtz and Alan Jeffrey (available in \CTANref{psnfss}); it's supported by the \LaTeX{}3 project team, so bug reports can and should be submitted. \acro{PSNFSS} gives you a set of packages for changing the default roman, sans-serif and typewriter fonts; \emph{e.g}., \File|times.sty| will set up Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier in place of Computer Modern, while \File|avant.sty| just changes the sans-serif family to AvantGarde. To go with these packages, you will need the font metric files (watch out for encoding problems! see \Qref[question]{metrics for PostScript fonts}{Q-metrics}) and font description (\texttt{.fd}) files for each font family you want to use. These can be obtained from \CTANref{psfonts}, arranged by vendor (\emph{e.g}., Adobe, Monotype, \emph{etc}.). For convenience, metrics for the common `35' PostScript fonts found in most printers are provided with \acro{PSNFSS}, packaged as \CTANref{lw35nfss-zip} For older versions of \LaTeX{} there are various schemes, of which the simplest to use is probably the \acro{PS}\LaTeX{} macros distributed with \ProgName|dvips|. For |plain| \TeX{}, you load whatever fonts you like; if the encoding of the fonts is not the same as Computer Modern it will be up to you to redefine various macros and accents, or you can use the font re-encoding mechanisms available in many drivers and in \ProgName|ps2pk| and \ProgName|afm2tfm|. Victor Eijkhout's sophisticated Lollipop package (\CTANref{lollipop}) supports declaration of font families and styles in a similar way to \LaTeX{}'s \acro{NFSS}, and so is easy to use with PostScript fonts. Some common problems encountered are discussed elsewhere (see \Qref[question]{problems with \acro{PS} fonts}{psfonts-problems}). \Question[ps-preview]{Previewing files using PostScript fonts} Most \TeX{} previewers only display bitmap \acro{PK} fonts. If you want to preview documents using PostScript fonts, you have three choices: \begin{enumerate} \item Convert the \acro{DVI} file to PostScript and use a PostScript previewer. Some modern Unix X implementations have this built in (as does \acro{N}e\acro{XT}-step); (X11) Unix, Windows, \acro{OS/}2, and \MSDOS{} users can use the free \ProgName|GhostScript| (\CTANref{ghostscript}), a complete level 2 implementation. \item Under Windows on a \acro{PC}, or on a Macintosh, let Adobe Type Manager display the fonts. Textures (Macintosh) works like this, and under Windows you can use Y\&Y's \ProgName|dviwindo| for bitmap-free previewing. \htmlignore (See \Qref[question]{}{Q-commercial} for details of these suppliers.) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} (See \Qref{commercial suppliers}{Q-commercial} for details.) \end{htmlversion} \item If you have the PostScript fonts in Type~1 format, use \ProgName|ps2pk| (\CTANref{ps2pk}) or \ProgName|gsftopk| (designed for use with the \ProgName|GhostScript| fonts; \CTANref{gsftopk}) to make \acro{PK} bitmap fonts which your previewer will understand. This can produce excellent results, also suitable for printing with non-PostScript devices. Check the legalities of this if you have purchased the fonts. The very commonest PostScript fonts such as Times and Courier come in Type~1 format on disk with Adobe Type Manager (often bundled with Windows, and part of \acro{OS/}2). \end{enumerate} \Question[Q-metrics]{\protect\TeX{} font metric files for PostScript fonts} Font vendors such as Adobe supply metric files for each font, in \acro{AFM} (Adobe Font Metric) form; these can be converted to \acro{TFM} (\TeX{} Font Metric) form. The \acro{CTAN} archives have prebuilt metrics which will be more than enough for many people (\CTANref{psfonts}; beware~--- this directory is at the root of a huge tree), but you may need to do the conversion yourself if you have special needs or acquire a new font. One important question is the \emph{encoding} of (Latin character) fonts; while we all more or less agree about the position of about 96 characters in fonts (the basic \acro{ASCII} set), the rest of the (typically) 256 vary. The most obvious problems are with floating accents and special characters such as the `pounds sterling' sign. There are three ways of dealing with this: either you change the \TeX{} macros which reference the characters (not much fun, and error-prone); or you change the encoding of the font (easier than you might think); or you use \htmlignore virtual fonts (\Qref{}{virtualfonts}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{virtual fonts}{virtualfonts} \end{htmlversion} to \emph{pretend} to \TeX{} that the encoding is the same as it is used to. If you use \LaTeXe{}, it allows for changing the encoding in \TeX{}; read the \emph{\LaTeX{} Companion} (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}) for more details. In practice, if you do much non-English (but Latin script) typesetting, you are strongly recommended to use the \texttt{fontenc} package with option `\texttt{T1}' to select \acro{T}1 \htmlignore (`Cork': \Qref{}{dc-fonts}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} (\Qref{`Cork'}{dc-fonts}) \end{htmlversion} encoding. Alan Jeffrey's \ProgName|fontinst| package (\CTANref{fontinst}) is an \acro{AFM} to \acro{TFM} converter written in \TeX{}; it is used to generate the files used by \LaTeXe{}'s \acro{PSNFSS} package to support use of PostScript fonts. It is a sophisticated package, not for the faint-hearted, but is powerful enough to cope with most needs. Much of its power relies on the use of \htmlignore virtual fonts (\Qref{virtual fonts}{virtualfonts}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{virtual fonts}{virtualfonts}. \end{htmlversion} For slightly simpler problems, Rokicki's \ProgName|afm2tfm|, distributed with \ProgName|dvips| (\CTANref{dvips}), is fast and efficient; note that the metrics and styles that come with \ProgName|dvips| are \emph{not} currently \LaTeXe{} compatible, but Karl Berry plans to distribute metrics directly compatible with \acro{PSNFSS} in his \ProgName|dvipsk| package. For the Macintosh, there is a program called \ProgName|EdMetrics| which does the job (and more). It comes with the Textures distribution, but is in fact free software, available as \CTANref{edmetrics} \MSDOS{} users can buy (see \Qref[question]{commercial implementations}{Q-commercial}) Y\&Y's Font Manipulation Tools package which includes a powerful \ProgName|afmtotfm| program among many other goodies. \Question[psfonts-problems]{Problems using PostScript fonts} For the typical \LaTeX{} user trying to use the \htmlignore \acro{PSNFSS} (\Qref{}{Q-usepsfont}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{PSNFSS}}{Q-usepsfont} \end{htmlversion} package, three questions often arise. First, you have to declare to the \acro{DVI} driver that you are using PostScript fonts; in the case of \ProgName|dvips|, this means adding lines to the |psfonts.map| file. Otherwise, \ProgName|dvips| will try to find \acro{PK} files. If the font isn't built into the printer, you have to acquire it (in many cases this means buying it from a commercial supplier!). You then have to instruct the driver to download it with each job (the mechanism depends on your driver). So it's no good just installing the \emph{metrics} for Optima and expecting it to work. You have to pay hard cash for the font itself, which will come (for Unix and \MSDOS{} users) in |pfb| (Printer Font Binary) form. Second, you cannot expect your previewer to suddenly start displaying PostScript fonts; most of them only know about \acro{PK} bitmap fonts such as Computer Modern. \ProgName|ps2pk| (\CTANref{ps2pk}) can create these from the |pfb| file you have bought; this would also let you use the fonts with non-PostScript device drivers such as the em\TeX{} ones. You are responsible for making sure you are not breaking the licence restrictions on font you bought. Third, the stretch and shrink between words is a function of the font metric; it is not specified in \acro{AFM} files, so different converters choose different values. The PostScript metrics that come with \acro{PSNFSS} used to produce quite tight setting, but they were revised in mid 1995 to produce a compromise between American and European practice. Really sophisticated users may not find even the new the values to their taste, and want to override them. Even the casual user may find more hyphenation or overfull boxes than \acro{CMR} produces; but \acro{CMR} is extremely generous. \Question[Q-psfchoice]{Choice of scalable outline fonts} If you are interested in text alone, you can use any of over 20,000 fonts(!) in Adobe Type~1 format (called `PostScript fonts' in the \TeX{} world and `\acro{ATM} fonts' in the DTP world), or any of several hundred fonts in TrueType format. That is, provided of course, that your previewer and printer driver support scalable outline fonts. \TeX{} itself \emph{only} cares about metrics, not the actual character programs. You just need to create a \TeX{} metric file \acro{TFM} using some tool such as \ProgName|afm2tfm|, \ProgName|afmtotfm| (from Y\&Y, see \Qref[question]{commercial implementations}{Q-commercial}) or \ProgName|fontinst|. For the previewer or printer driver you need the actual outline font files themselves (|pfa| for Display PostScript, |pfb| for \acro{ATM} on \acro{IBM} \acro{PC}, Mac outline font files on Macintosh). If you also need mathematics, then you are severely limited by the demands that \TeX{} makes of maths fonts (for details, see the paper by B.K.P. Horn in \TUGboat{} 14(3)). For maths, then, there are relatively few choices: \begin{booklist} \item[Computer Modern] (75 fonts --- optical scaling) Donald E. Knuth\\ Note that \acro{CM} \emph{is} available in scalable outline form. There are commercial as well as public domain versions, and there are both Adobe Type~1 and TrueType versions. Some of these are `commercial grade,' with full hand-tuned hinting, some render very poorly, while others are merely incompatible with Adobe Type Manager (\acro{ATM}). \item[Lucida Bright \emph{with} Lucida New Math] (25 fonts) Chuck Bigelow and Kris Holmes\\ Lucida is a family of related fonts including seriffed, sans serif, sans serif fixed width, calligraphic, blackletter, fax, Kris Holmes' connected handwriting font, \emph{etc}; they're not as `spindly' as Computer Modern, with a large x-height, and include a larger set of maths symbols, operators, relations and delimiters than \acro{CM} (over 800 instead of 384: among others, it also includes the \acro{AMS} |msam| and |msbm| symbol sets). The planned `Lucida Bright Expert' (14 fonts) adds seriffed fixed width, another handwriting font, smallcaps, bold maths, upright `maths italic', \emph{etc}., to the set The distribution includes support for use with |plain| \TeX{} and \LaTeXo{}. Support under \LaTeXe{} is provided in \htmlignore \acro{PSNFSS} (\Qref{}{Q-usepsfont}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{PSNFSS}}{Q-usepsfont} \end{htmlversion} thanks to Sebastian Rahtz. \item[MathTime 1.1] (3 fonts) \TeX{}plorators (Michael Spivak)\\ The set contains maths italic, symbol, and extension fonts, designed to work well with Times-Roman. These are typically used with Times, Helvetica and Courier (which are resident on many printers, and which are supplied with some \acro{PC} versions). In addition you may want to complement this basic set with Adobe's Times Smallcap, and perhaps the set of Adobe `Math Pi' fonts, which include blackboard bold, blackletter, and script faces. The distribution includes support for use with |plain| \TeX{} and \LaTeXo{} (including code to link in Adobe Math Pi~2 and Math Pi~6). Support under \LaTeXe{} is provided in \htmlignore \acro{PSNFSS} (\Qref{}{Q-usepsfont}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{PSNFSS}}{Q-usepsfont} \end{htmlversion} thanks to Sebastian Rahtz. \item[Adobe Lucida, LucidaSans \emph{and} LucidaMath] (12 fonts)\\ Lucida and LucidaMath are generally considered to be a bit heavy. The three maths fonts contain only the glyphs in the \acro{CM} maths italic, symbol, and extension fonts. Support for using LucidaMath with \TeX{} is not very good; you will need to do some work reencoding fonts \emph{etc}. (In some sense this set is the ancestor of the LucidaBright plus LucidaNewMath font set.) \item[Concrete, \emph{the} \acro{AMS} maths fonts \emph{etc}.]Donald E. Knuth and the \acro{AMS}.\\ These are sometimes mentioned as alternatives to \acro{CM}, but they are really adjuncts, in that you need to use at least the basic \acro{CM} maths fonts with them. \item[Proprietary fonts] Various sources.\\ Since having a high quality font set in scalable outline form that works with \TeX{} can give a publisher a real competitive advantage, there are some publishers that have paid (a lot) to have such font sets made for them. Unfortunately, these sets are not available on the open market, despite the likelihood that they're more complete than those that are. \item[Mathptm] (4 fonts) Alan Jeffrey.\\ This set contains maths italic, symbol, extension, and roman virtual fonts, built from Adobe Times, Symbol, Zapf Chancery, and the Computer Modern fonts. The Mathptm fonts are free, and the resulting PostScript files can be freely exchanged. Contains most of the \acro{CM} math symbols. Support under \LaTeXe{} in \htmlignore \acro{PSNFSS} (\Qref{}{Q-usepsfont}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{PSNFSS}}{Q-usepsfont} \end{htmlversion} thanks to Alan Jeffrey and Sebastian Rahtz. (A similar development by Thomas Esser, using the Adobe Palatino fonts, is available from \CTANref{mathppl}) \end{booklist} All of the first three font sets are available in formats suitable for \acro{IBM} \acro{PC}/Windows, Macintosh and Unix/\acro{N}e\acro{XT} from Y\&Y and from Blue Sky Research (see \Qref[question]{commercial suppliers}{Q-commercial} for details). The MathTime fonts are also available from: \begin{quote} \TeX{}plorators\\ 1572 West Gray \#377\\ Houston \acro{TX} 77019\\ \acro{USA} \end{quote} The very limited selection of maths font sets is a direct result of the fact that a maths font has to be explicitly designed for use with \TeX{} and as a result it is likely to lose some of its appeal in other markets. Furthermore, the \TeX{} market for commercial fonts is minute (in comparison, for example, to Microsoft TrueType font pack \#1, which sold something like 10 million copies in a few weeks after release of Windows 3.1!). Text fonts in Type~1 format are available from many vendors including Adobe, Monotype, Bitstream. Avoid cheap rip-offs: not only are you rewarding unethical behaviour, destroying the cottage industry of innovative type design, but you are \emph{also} very likely to get junk. The fonts may not render well (or at all under \acro{ATM}), may not have the `standard' complement of 228 glyphs, or may not include metric files (needed to make \acro{TFM} files). Also, avoid TrueType fonts from all but the major vendors. TrueType fonts are an order of magnitude harder to `hint' properly than Type~1 fonts and hence TrueType fonts from places other than Microsoft and Apple may be suspect. In any case you may find other problems with TrueType fonts such as service bureaux not accepting jobs calling for them. \begin{comment} Incidentally, some people have been disappointed in the quality of scalable fonts. Of course, quality is in the eye of the beholder and people disagree sometimes on what is `better' --- but in many cases there is no question! There are several factors that come into play. One is the quality of the font itself (you get what you pay for), and the other is the quality of the rasteriser. Rendering under \acro{ATM} of commercial grade fonts is outstanding. Rendering in Display PostScript is not quite as good (which may change if \acro{DPS} systems adopt the \acro{ATM} rasteriser). PostScript rasterisers in printers are not as good as \acro{ATM} either (except for a few printers that use the \acro{ATM} rasteriser)~--- but then at 300~dpi you are dealing with a much more forgiving environment than at 96~dpi (Windows) or 72~dpi (Mac). Clone \acro{PS} interpreters tend to not be as good as true Adobe \acro{RIP}s. In some cases the difference is not huge (\acro{HP}), in other cases it is (public domain). Utilities for converting from \acro{PS} to \acro{PK} format typically do not produce results comparable to \acro{ATM} (of course, at high enough resolution --- where grid-fitting is less important --- it hardly matters). \end{comment} \Question[postscript-pics]{Including a PostScript figure in \LaTeX{}} \htmlignore \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e} \end{htmlversion} has a standard package for graphics inclusion, rotation, colour, and other driver-related features. The package is documented in the second edition of the Lamport's \LaTeX{} book (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}), and is available in \CTANref{graphics} If you don't use \LaTeXe{}, perhaps the best method is to use the |psfig| macros written by Trevor Darrell, available in \CTANref{psfig} You will also need a \acro{DVI} to PostScript conversion program that supports the \cs|special|s. The drivers mentioned in \Qref[question]{DVI to PostScript programs}{Q-dvips} do, and come with a version of |psfig| ready to use with them. The |psfig| macros work best with Encapsulated PostScript Files (\acro{EPS}). In particular, |psfig| will need the file to have a BoundingBox (see Appendix H of the \emph{PostScript Language Reference Manual}). If you don't have an \acro{EPS} file, life can be difficult. One point to note about including PostScript figures is that they are not part of the \acro{DVI} file, but are only included when you use a \acro{DVI} to PostScript conversion program. As a result, most \acro{DVI} previewers will simply show the blank space \TeX{} has reserved for your figure, not the figure itself. There are two rather good documents on \acro{CTAN} addressing of figure production with rather different emphasis. Anil K. Goel's, \CTANref{figsinlatex} covers the different ways in which you might generate figures, and one the old (\LaTeXo{}) ways of including them into documents. Keith Reckdahl's, \CTANref{epslatex}, covers the standard \LaTeXe{} facilities, as well as some of the supporting packages, notably \Package|subfigure| (\CTANref{subfigure}) and \Package|psfrag| (\CTANref{psfrag}). %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Special sorts of typesetting} \Question{Drawing with \TeX{}} There are many packages to do pictures in \AllTeX{} itself (rather than importing graphics created externally), ranging from simple use of \LaTeX{} |picture| environment, through enhancements like \ProgName|epic|, to sophisticated (but slow) drawing with \PiCTeX{}. Depending on your type of drawing, and setup, four systems should be at the top of your list to look at: \begin{enumerate} \item \CTANref{pstricks}; this gives you access to all the power of PostScript from \TeX{} itself, by sophisticated use of \cs|special|s. You need a decent \acro{DVI} to PostScript driver (like \ProgName|dvips|), but the results are worth it. The well-documented package gives you not only low-level drawing commands (and full colour) like lines, circles, shapes at arbitrary coordinates, but also high-level macros for framing text, drawing trees and matrices, 3\acro{D} effects, and more. \item \MP{}; you liked \MF{}, but never got to grips with font files? \htmlignore Try \MP{} (\Qref{}{Q-MP})~--- \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} Try \Qref[]{\MP{}}{Q-MP}~--- \end{htmlversion} all the power of \MF{}, but it generates PostScript figures. Knuth uses it for all his work\dots{} \item \ProgName|Mfpic|; you liked \MF{}, but can't understand the language? The package (\CTANref{mfpic}) makes up \MF{} code for you within using familiar-looking \TeX{} macros. Not \emph{quite} the full power of \MF{}, but a friendlier interface. \item You liked \PiCTeX{} but don't have enough memory or time? Look at Eitan Gurari's \CTANref{dratex}, which is as powerful as most other \TeX{} drawing packages, but is an entirely new implementation, which is not as hard on memory, is much more readable (and is fully documented). \end{enumerate} \Question[Q-linespace]{Double-spaced documents in \LaTeX{}} Are you producing a thesis, and trying to obey regulations that were drafted in the typewriter era? Or are you producing copy for a journal that insists on double spacing for the submitted articles? \LaTeX{} is a typesetting system, so the appropriate design conventions are for ``real books''. If your requirement is from thesis regulations, find whoever is responsible for the regulations, and try to get the wording changed to cater for typeset theses (\emph{e.g.}, to say ``if using a typesetting system, aim to make your thesis look like a well-designed book''). (If your requirement is from a journal, you're probably even less likely to be able to get the rules changed, of course.) If you fail to convince your officials, or want some inter-line space for copy-editing: \begin{itemize} \item Try changing \cs|baselinestretch|: \htmlignore |\renewcommand|\linebreak[4]|{\baselinestretch}{1.2}| may be enough to give \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} |\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.2}| may be enough to give \end{htmlversion} officials the impression you've kept to their regulations. Don't try changing |\baselineskip|: its value is reset at any size-changing command. \item Alternatively, use a line-spacing package. Options available are: \begin{itemize} \item for simple double spacing, \CTANref{doublespace}, and \item for greater flexibility, \CTANref{setspace}, which has been upgraded for \LaTeXe{}. \end{itemize} \end{itemize} \Question{Formatting a thesis in \LaTeX{}} Thesis styles are usually very specific to your University, so it's usually not profitable to ask around for a package outside your own University. Since many Universities (in their eccentric way) still require double-spacing, you may care to refer to \htmlignore \Qref[question]{}{Q-linespace}. \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} the question on \Qref[question]{double-spacing}{Q-linespace}. \end{htmlversion} If you want to write your own, a good place to start is the University of California style (available as \CTANref{ucthesis}), but it's not worth going to a lot of trouble. (If officials won't allow standard typographic conventions, you won't be able to produce an \htmlignore \ae{}sthetically pleasing document anyway!) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} aesthetically pleasing document anyway!) \end{htmlversion} \Question[text-flow]{Flowing text around figures in \LaTeX{}} There are several \LaTeX{} packages that purport to do this, but they all have their limitations because the \TeX{} machine isn't really designed to solve this sort of problem. Piet van Oostrum has conducted a survey of the available packages; he recommends: \begin{description} \item[\texttt{picins}] \File|picins.sty| is part of a large package (\CTANref{picins}) that allows inclusion of pictures (e.g., with shadow boxes, various \MSDOS{} formats, etc.). The command is: \begin{htmlversion} |\parpic(width,height)(x-off,y-off)[Options][Position]{Picture}|\\ \end{htmlversion} \htmlignore \def\breakhere{\penalty0\hskip0pt\relax} |\parpic(|\emph{width}|,|\emph{height}|)(|\emph{x-off}|,|\emph{y-off}|)|% |[|\emph{Options}|][|\emph{Position}|]|\\ | {|\emph{Picture}|}|\\ \endhtmlignore \emph{Paragraph text} All parameters except the \emph{Picture} are optional. The picture can be positioned left or right, boxed with a rectangle, oval, shadowbox, dashed box, and a caption can be given which will be included in the list of figures. % This is the only package that I tried that correctly works inside an % enumerate/itemize item. It does not, however work with % enumerate/itemize besides the picture (i.e. started after the \parpic % command) but neither does any of the other packages as far as I could % discern. Unfortunately (for those of us whose understanding of German is not good), the documentation is in German. Piet van Oostrum has written an English summary \CTANref{picins-summary} \item[\texttt{floatflt}] \CTANref{floatflt} is an improved version (for \LaTeXe{}) of \File|floatfig.sty|, and its syntax is: \begin{htmlversion} \begin{verbatim} \begin{floatingfigure}[options]{width of figure} figure contents \end{floatingfigure} \end{verbatim} \end{htmlversion} \htmlignore |\begin{floatingfigure}[|\emph{options}|]{|\emph{width of figure}|}|\\ | |\emph{figure contents}\\ |\end{floatingfigure}| \endhtmlignore There is a (more or less similar) |floatingtable| environment. The tables or figures can be set left or right, or alternating on even/odd pages in a double-sided document. The package works with the |multicol| package, but doesn't work well in the neighbourhood of list environments (unless you change your \LaTeX{} document). \item[\texttt{wrapfig}] \CTANref{wrapfig} has syntax: \begin{htmlversion} \begin{verbatim} \begin{wrapfigure}[height of figure in lines]{l|r}[overhang]{width} figure, caption, etc. \end{wrapfigure} \end{verbatim} \end{htmlversion} \htmlignore |\begin{wrapfigure}[|\emph{height of figure in lines}|]|% |{l|,|r|,\emph{etc}|}|\\ | [|\emph{overhang}|]{|\emph{width}|}|\\ | |\emph{figure, caption, etc.}\\ |\end{wrapfigure}| \endhtmlignore The syntax of the |wraptable| environment is similar. Height can be omitted, in which case it will be calculated by the package; the package will use the greater of the specified and the actual width. The |{l|\emph{,}|r|\emph{,etc}.|}| parameter can also be specified as |i|\emph{(nside)} or |o|\emph{(utside)} for two-sided documents, and uppercase can be used to indicate that the picture should float. The overhang allows the figure to be moved into the margin. The figure or table will entered into the list of figures or tables if you use the |\caption| command. The environments do not work within list environments that end before the figure or table has finished, but can be used in a parbox or minipage, and in twocolumn format. \end{description} %\htmlignore %\subQ %\endhtmlignore \Question{Alternative head- and footlines in \LaTeX{}} The standard \LaTeX{} document classes define a small set of `page styles' which (in effect) specify head- and footlines for your document. The set defined is very restricted, but \LaTeX{} is capable of much more; people occasionally set about employing \LaTeX{} facilities to do the job, but that's quite unnecessary~--- Piet van Oostrum has already done the work. The package is found in directory \CTANref{fancyheadings} and provides simple mechanisms for defining pretty much every head- or footline variation you could want; the directory also contains some (rather good) documentation and one or two smaller packages. Fancyheadings also deals with the tedious behaviour of the standard styles with initial pages (\Qref{}{Q-ps@empty}), by enabling you to define different page styles for initial and for body pages. \Question{Including a file in verbatim in \LaTeX{}} A good way is to use Rainer Sch\"opf's \File|verbatim.sty|, which provides the command |\verbatiminput| that takes a file name as argument. This package is available as part of \CTANref{2etools} Another way is to use the |alltt| environment, which requires \File|alltt.sty| (which is now part of \LaTeX{}). The \File|moreverb| package (\CTANref{moreverb}) extends the facilities of \File|verbatim| package), providing a |listing| environment and a |\listinginput| command, which line-number the text of the file. \Question{Generating an index in \AllTeX{}} Making an index is not trivial; what to index, and how to index it, is difficult to decide, and uniform implementation is difficult to achieve. You will need to mark all items to be indexed in your text (typically with |\index| commands). It is not practical to sort a large index within \TeX{}, so a post-processing program is used to sort the output of one \TeX{} run, to be included into the document at the next run. The following programs are available: \begin{description} \item[makeindex] for \LaTeX{} under Unix (but runs under other \acro{OS}s without changes). Available in \CTANref{makeindex}; a version for the Macintosh is available as \CTANref{macmakeindex}, and ones for \MSDOS{} are part of the em\TeX{} and g\TeX{} distributions (the em\TeX{} version also runs under \acro{OS/}2). The Makeindex documentation is a good source of information on how to create your own index. Makeindex can be used with some \TeX{} macro packages other than \LaTeX{}, such as \Eplain{}. \item[idxtex] for \LaTeX{} under \acro{VMS}. Available (together with a glossary-maker called |glotex|) in \CTANref{glo+idxtex} %\item[texix] for \TeX{} on \acro{CMS} and Macintosh machines. \item[texindex] A witty little shell/\ProgName|sed|-script-based utility for \LaTeX{} under Unix. Available from \CTANref{texindex} There are other programs called \ProgName|texindex|, notably one that comes with the \htmlignore Texinfo distribution (\Qref{}{Q-texinfo}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{Texinfo}{Q-texinfo} distribution. \end{htmlversion} \end{description} \Question{Using \BibTeX{} with \texttt{plain} \TeX{}} The file \CTANref{btxmactex} contains macros and documentation for using \BibTeX{} with |plain| \TeX{}, either directly or with \htmlignore \Eplain{} (\Qref{}{Q-eplain}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\Eplain{}}{Q-eplain}. \end{htmlversion} See \Qref[question]{the use of \BibTeX{}}{BibTeXing} for more information about \BibTeX{} itself. \Question{Typesetting music in \TeX{}} A powerful package which allows the typesetting of polyphonic and other multiple-stave music is Music\TeX{}, written by Daniel Taupin (\Email|taupin@rsovax.lps.u-psud.fr|). It is available in \CTANref{musictex} In the recent past, Daniel (as well as with various other people, notably Ross Mitchell and Andreas Egler) have been working on a development of Music\TeX{}, known as MusiX\TeX{}. MusiX\TeX{} is a three-pass system (with a processor program that computes values for the element spacing in the music), and achieves finer control than is possible in the unmodified \TeX{}-based mechanism that Music\TeX{} uses. Daniel Taupin and Andreas Egler are pursuing distinct versions of MusiX\TeX{}; they are available, respectively, from \CTANref{musixtex-taupin} and \CTANref{musixtex-egler} Digital music fans can typeset notation for their efforts by using \ProgName|midi2tex|, which translates MIDI data files into Music\TeX{} source code. It is available from \CTANref{midi2tex} A rather simpler notation than Music\TeX{} is supported by \ProgName|abc2mtex|; this is a package designed to notate tunes stored in an \acro{ASCII} format (|abc| notation). It was designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western European origin (such as Irish, English and Scottish) which can be written on one stave in standard classical notation. However, it should be extendable to many other types of music. It is available from \CTANref{abc2mtex} There is a mailing list for discussion of typesetting music in \TeX{}. To subscribe, send mail to \Email|mutex-request@stolaf.edu| containing the word `|subscribe|' in the body. \Question{Drawing Feynman diagrams in \LaTeX{}} Michael Levine's macro package for drawing Feynman diagrams in \LaTeX{} is available in \CTANref{feynman} Another possibility is Thorsten Ohl's \CTANref{feynmf}, that works in combination with \MF{} (or \MP{}). The \ProgName|feynmf| or \ProgName|feynmp| package reads a description of the diagram written in \TeX{}, and writes out code. \MF{} (or \MP{}) can then produce a font (or PostScript file) for use in a subsequent \LaTeX{} run. For new users, who have access to \MP{}, the PostScript version is probably the better route, for document portability and other reasons. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{How do I do \textsl{X} in \TeX{} or \LaTeX{}} \Question{Proof environment} It is not possible to make a |proof| environment which automatically includes an `end-of-proof' symbol. Some proofs end in displayed maths; others do not. If the input file contains |...\] \end{proof}| then \LaTeX{} finishes off the displayed maths and gets ready for a new line before it reads any instructions connected with ending the proof. But traditionally the end-of-proof sign goes in the display, not on a new line. So you just have to put it in by hand in every proof. \Question{Symbols for the number sets} It is a good idea to have commands such as \cs|R| for the real numbers and other standard number sets. Traditionally these were typeset in bold. Because mathematicians usually do not have access to bold chalk, they invented the special symbols that are now often used for \cs|R|, \cs|C|, \emph{etc}. These symbols are known as ``blackboard bold''. Before insisting on using them, consider whether going back to the old system of ordinary bold might not be acceptable (it is certainly simpler). A set of blackboard bold capitals is available in the \acro{AMS} fonts ``msam'' (\emph{e.g.}, ``msam10'' for 10pt) and ``msbm''. The fonts have a large number of mathematical symbols to supplement the ones in the standard \TeX{} distribution. The fonts are available in \CTANref{amsfonts-symbols} Two files which load the fonts and define the symbols are provided, and both work with either \TeX{} or \LaTeX{}. Questions or suggestions regarding these fonts should be directed to \Email|tech-support@math.ams.org|. Another complete set of blackboard bold fonts, the bbold family, is available in \MF{} (in \CTANref{bbold}). This set has the interesting property of offering blackboard bold forms of lower-case letters, something rather rarely seen on actual blackboards. The ``lazy person's'' blackboard bold macros: \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\R}{{\sf R\hspace*{-0.9ex}% \rule{0.15ex}{1.5ex}\hspace*{0.9ex}}} \newcommand{\N}{{\sf N\hspace*{-1.0ex}% \rule{0.15ex}{1.3ex}\hspace*{1.0ex}}} \newcommand{\Q}{{\sf Q\hspace*{-1.1ex}% \rule{0.15ex}{1.5ex}\hspace*{1.1ex}}} \newcommand{\C}{{\sf C\hspace*{-0.9ex}% \rule{0.15ex}{1.3ex}\hspace*{0.9ex}}} \end{verbatim} work well at normal size if the surrounding text is |cmr10|. However, they are not part of a proper maths font, and so do not work in sub- and superscripts. Moreover, the size and position of the vertical bar is affected by the font of the surrounding text. \checked{RAB}{1994/11/12}% \Question{Roman theorems} If you want to take advantage of the powerful |\newtheorem| command without the constraint that the contents of the theorem is in a sloped font (for example, to use it to create remarks, examples, proofs, \dots{}) then you can use the style file \File|theorem.sty| (part of \CTANref{2etools}). Alternatively, the following sets up an environment |remark| whose content is in roman. \begin{verbatim} \newtheorem{preremark}{Remark} \newenvironment{remark}% {\begin{preremark}\rm}{\end{preremark}} \end{verbatim} This will not work if you are using \htmlignore \acro{NFSS} (\Qref{}{NFSS}) outside of \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{NFSS}}{NFSS} outside of \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e}, \end{htmlversion} because the command \cs|rm| behaves differently there. \Question{Labels on lists} If you want your top-level |enumerate|s to be labelled `I/', `II/', \dots{}, then give these commands: \begin{verbatim} \renewcommand{\theenumi}{\Roman{enumi}} \renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\theenumi/} \end{verbatim} The possible styles of numbering are given in Section~6.3 of Lamport's book (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}). If you are lazy and just change \cs|labelenumi| in one go then your cross-references will be wrong. For lower level |enumerate|s, replace |enumi| by |enumii|, |enumiii| or |enumiv|, according to the level. If your label is much larger than the default, you should also change \cs|leftmargini|, \cs|leftmarginii|, \emph{etc}. If you're running \LaTeXe{}, the package \File|enumerate.sty| (part of \CTANref{2etools}) offers similar facilities. With \File|enumerate.sty|, the example above would be achieved simply by starting the enumeration \cs|begin{enumerate}[I/]|. \Question[secnumdep]{Unnumbered sections in the Table of Contents} The easiest way to get headings of funny `sections' such as prefaces in the table of contents is to use the counter |secnumdepth| described in Appendix~C of the \LaTeX{} manual. For example: \begin{verbatim} \setcounter{secnumdepth}{-1} \chapter{Preface} \end{verbatim} Of course, you have to set |secnumdepth| back to its usual value (which is~2 in the standard styles) before you do any `section' which you want to be numbered. Similar settings are made automatically in the \LaTeX{} book class by the |\frontmatter| and |\backmatter| commands. %Robin, could omit the explanation, Ro This is why it works. \cs|chapter| without the star does \begin{enumerate} \item put something in the |.toc| file; \htmlignore \item if $\mbox{\texttt{secnumdepth}} \geq 0$, \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \item if the |secnumdepth| counter is greater than or equal to zero, \end{htmlversion} increase the counter for the chapter and write it out. \item write the chapter title. \end{enumerate} Other sectioning commands are similar, but with other values used in the test. \Question{Footnotes in tables} The standard \LaTeX{} \cs|footnote| command doesn't work in tables; the table traps the footnotes and they can't escape to the bottom of the page. If your table is floating, your best bet is (unfortunately) to put the table in a |minipage| environment and to put the notes underneath the table, or to use Donald Arseneau's package \CTANref{threeparttable} Otherwise, if your table is not floating (it's just a `|tabular|' in the middle of some text), there are several things you can do to fix the problem. \begin{enumerate} \item Use \cs|footnotemark| to position the little marker appropriately, and then put in \cs|footnotetext| commands to fill in the text once you've closed the tabular environment. This is described in Lamport's book, but it gets messy if there's more than one footnote. \item Stick the table in a |minipage| anyway. This provides all the ugliness of footnotes in a minipage with no extra effort. \item Use \CTANref{threeparttable} anyway; the package is intended for floating tables, and the result might look odd if the table is not floating, but it will be reasonable. \item Use \File|tabularx| or \File|longtable| from the \LaTeX{} tools distribution (\CTANref{2etools}); they're noticeably less efficient than the standard |tabular| environment, but they do allow footnotes. \item Grab hold of \File|footnote.sty| from \acro{CTAN}, lurking in \CTANref{mdwtools} Then put your tabular environment inside a |savenotes| environment. Alternatively, say \cs|makesavenoteenv{tabular}| in the preamble of your document, and tables will all handle footnotes correctly. \item Use \File|mdwtab.sty| from the same directory (\CTANref{mdwtools}). This will handle footnotes properly, and has other facilities to increase the beauty of your tables. It may also cause other table-related packages (not the standard `tools' ones, though) to become very unhappy and stop working. \end{enumerate} \Question{Style of section headings} Suppose that the editor of your favourite journal has specified that section headings must be centred, in small capitals, and subsection headings ragged right in italic, but that you don't want to get involved in the sort of programming described in \emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion} \htmlignore (\Qref{}{Q-books}; the programming itself is discussed in \Qref[question]{}{atsigns}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} (see \Qref{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}; the \Qref{programming}{atsigns} itself is discussed under `@'). \end{htmlversion} The following hack will probably satisfy your editor. Define yourself new commands \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\ssection}[1]{% \section[#1]{\centering\sc #1}} \newcommand{\ssubsection}[1]{% \subsection[#1]{\raggedright\it #1}} \end{verbatim} and then use |\ssection| and |\ssubsection| in place of |\section| and |\subsection|. This isn't perfect: section numbers remain in bold, and starred forms need a separate redefinition. Also, this will not work if you are using \htmlignore \acro{NFSS} (\Qref{}{NFSS}) outside of \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{NFSS}}{NFSS} outside of \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e}, \end{htmlversion} because the font-changing commands behave differently there. \Question{Indent after section headings} \LaTeX{} implements a style that doesn't indent the first paragraph after a section heading. There are coherent reasons for this, but not everyone likes it. The package \File|indentfirst.sty| (part of \CTANref{2etools}) suppresses the mechanism, so that the first paragraph is indented. \Question{Footnotes in \LaTeX{} section headings} The \cs|footnote| command is fragile, so that simply placing the command in \cs|section|'s arguments isn't satisfactory. Using \cs|protect|\cs|footnote| isn't a good idea either: the arguments of a section command are used in the table of contents and (more dangerously) potentially also in page headings. Unfortunately, there's no mechanism to suppress the footnote in the heading while allowing it in the table of contents, though having footnotes in the table of contents is probably unsatisfactory anyway. To suppress the footnote in headings and table of contents: \begin{itemize} \item Take advantage of the fact that the mandatory argument doesn't `move' if the optional argument is present: |\section[title]{title|\cs|footnote||{title footnote}}| \item Use the (small) package \CTANref{stblftnt}, which makes \cs|footnote| automagically disappear in a moving argument. \end{itemize} \Question[premargin]{Changing the margins in \LaTeX{}} Don't do it. Learn some \LaTeX{}, produce some documents, and then ask again. You can never change the \emph{margins} of a document by software, because they depend on the actual size of the paper. What you can change are the distances from the apparent top and left edges of the paper, and the width and height of the text. Changing the last two requires more skill than you might expect. The height should bear a certain relationship to \cs|baselineskip|. And the width should not be more than 75~characters. Lamport's warning in his section on `Customizing the Style' really must be taken seriously. One-inch margins on A4 paper are fine for 10- or 12-pitch typewriters, but not for 10pt type (or even 11pt or 12pt) because so many characters per line will irritate the reader. However\dots{} \checked{RAB}{1994/11/12}% % \Question{Insisting on changing the margins in \LaTeX{}} % % This answer first helps you change the margins throughout a % document, then tells you how to change the margins in a portion % of the document. Perhaps the easiest way to get more out of a page in \LaTeX{} is to get \CTANref{fullpage}, which sets the margins of the page identical to those of |plain| \TeX{}, \emph{i.e.}, 1-inch margins at all four sides of the paper. It also contains an adjustment for A4 paper. Somewhat more flexible is \CTANref{vmargin}, which has a canned set of paper sizes (a superset of that provided in \LaTeXe{}), provision for custom paper, margin adjustments and provision for two-sided printing. For details of \LaTeX{}'s page parameters, see section~C.5.3 of the \LaTeX{} manual (pp.~181--182). The origin in \acro{DVI} coordinates is one inch from the top of the paper and one inch from the left side; positive horizontal measurements extend right across the page, and positive vertical measurements extend down the page. Thus, for margins closer to the left and top edges of the page than 1 inch, the corresponding parameters, \emph{i.e}., \cs|evensidemargin|, \cs|oddsidemargin|, \cs|topmargin|, can be set to negative values. You cannot simply change the margins of part of a document within the document by modifying the parameters shown in Lamport's figure~C.3. They should only be changed in the preamble of the document, \emph{i.e}., before the \cs|begin{document}| statement. To adjust the margins within a document we define an environment: \begin{verbatim} \newenvironment{changemargin}[2]{% \begin{list}{}{% \setlength{\topsep}{0pt}% \setlength{\leftmargin}{#1}% \setlength{\rightmargin}{#2}% \setlength{\listparindent}{\parindent}% \setlength{\itemindent}{\parindent}% \setlength{\parsep}{\parskip}% }% \item[]}{\end{list}} \end{verbatim} This environment takes two arguments, and will indent the left and right margins by their values, respectively. Negative values will cause the margins to be narrowed, so |\begin{changemargin}{-1cm}{-1cm}| narrows the left and right margins by 1cm. % (Note that the value given for |\parsep| is the default for % \LaTeX{}; what should be there is ``the value in the surrounding % text''.) \Question{Finding the width of a letter, word, or phrase} Put the word in a box, and measure the width of the box. For example, \begin{verbatim} \newdimen\stringwidth \setbox0=\hbox{hi} \stringwidth=\wd0 \end{verbatim} Note that if the quantity in the \cs|hbox| is a phrase, the actual measurement only approximates the width that the phrase will occupy in running text, since the inter-word glue can be adjusted in paragraph mode. The same sort of thing is expressed in \LaTeX{} by: \begin{verbatim} \newlength{\gnat} \settowidth{\gnat}{\textbf{small}} \end{verbatim} This sets the value of the length command |\gnat| to the width of ``small'' in bold-face text. \Question[Q-comment]{Excluding blocks of text from the \acro{DVI} file} Rainer Sch\"opf's \File|verbatim.sty| provides a comment environment which excludes everything between |\begin{comment}| and |\end{comment}|. This package is available as part of \CTANref{2etools} A more general environment for doing the job is Victor Eijkhout's \File|comment.sty|, which lets you define environments for inclusion or exclusion in a document, thus offering a primitive configuration structure. It is available from the \acro{CTAN} sites in \CTANref{comment} %\htmlignore %% we don't use \Question here, since that has a different %% interpretation of the optional argument; AAAAUUUGGGGHHH %\subsection[Defining a new log-like function in \LaTeX{}]{Defining a new % log-like function in \LaTeX{}\footnotemark} %\footnotetext{It should be noted that ``log-like'' was reportedly a % \emph{joke} on Lamport's part; it is of course clear what was meant} %\endhtmlignore %\begin{htmlversion} \Question{Defining a new log-like function in \LaTeX{}} %\end{htmlversion} Use the \cs|mathop| command, as in: \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\diag}{\mathop{\rm diag}} \end{verbatim} Subscripts and superscripts on \cs|diag| will be placed exactly as they are on \cs|lim|. If you want your subscripts and superscripts always placed to the right, do: \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\diag}{\mathop{\rm diag}\nolimits} \end{verbatim} This works in \LaTeXo{} and in \LaTeXe{}, but not under \acro{NFSS} alone (see \Qref[question]{problems with \cs|rm|, etc.}{rmnonsense}). However, the canonical method for doing this in \LaTeXe{} is to use the the \cs|DeclareMathOperator| command of |amsopn.sty| (which is part of the \AMSLaTeX{} package: \CTANref{amslatex}). (It should be noted that ``log-like'' was reportedly a \emph{joke} on Lamport's part; it is of course clear what was meant.) \Question{Typesetting all those \TeX{}-related logos} Knuth was making a particular point about the capabilities of \TeX{} when he defined the logo. Unfortunately, many believe, he thereby opened floodgates to give the world logos such as \AMSTeX{}, \PiCTeX{}, \BibTeX{}, and so on. Lamport invented \LaTeX{}, and marketing input led to the current logo \LaTeXe{}. The common people don't have to follow this stuff wherever it goes, but, for those who insist, a large collection of logos is defined in \CTANref{texnames}; the \MF{} logo can be set in fonts that \LaTeXe{} knows about (so that it scales with the surrounding text) using the package \CTANref{mflogo} For those who don't wish to acquire the `proper' logos, the canonical thing to do is to say |AMS-\TeX{}| (\acro{AMS}-\TeX{}) for \AMSTeX{}, |Pic\TeX{}| (Pic\TeX{}) for \PiCTeX{}, |Bib\TeX{}| (Bib\TeX{}) for \BibTeX{}, and so on. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Things are Going Wrong\dots{}} \Question{Weird hyphenation of words} You may have a version mismatch problem. \TeX{}'s hyphenation system changed between version~2.9 and~3.0. If you are using (|plain|) \TeX{} version~3.0 or later, make sure your \File|plain.tex| file has a version number which is at least~3.0. If you are using \LaTeXo{} you should consider upgrading to \LaTeXe{}; if for some reason you can't, the last version of \LaTeXo{}, released on 25 March 1992, is available (for the time being at least) from \CTANref{latex209-base} and ought to solve this problem. If you're using \LaTeXe{}, the problem probably arises from your |hyphen.cfg| file, which has to be created if you're using a multi-lingual version. For the curious, here's what happened: before \TeX{} 3.0 the hyphenation algorithm would not break a word if the part before the break was not at least two characters long, and the part after the break at least three characters long. Starting with version 3.0 the parameters \cs|lefthyphenmin| and \cs|righthyphenmin| control the length of these fragments. These are set to 2 and 3, respectively, in the new |plain| and |lplain| formats. They can be set to any value, of course, but if \cs|lefthyphenmin|+\cs|righthyphenmin| is greater than 62, all hyphenation is suppressed. A further source of oddity can derive from the 1995 release of the \htmlignore \acro{DC} fonts (\Qref{}{dc-fonts}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{DC fonts}{dc-fonts}, \end{htmlversion} which introduced an alternative hyphen character. The \LaTeXe{} configuration files in the font release specified use of the alternative hyphen, and this could produce odd effects with words containing an explicit hyphen. The font configuration files in the December 1995 release of \LaTeXe{} do \emph{not} use the alternative hyphen character, thus removing this source of problems. \Question{(Merely) peculiar hyphenation} You may have found that \TeX{}'s famed automatic word-division does not produce the break-points recommended by your dictionary. This may be because \TeX{} is set up for American English, whose rules for word division (as specified, for example, in Webster's Dictionary) are completely different from the British ones (as specified, for example, in the Oxford Dictionaries). This problem is being addressed by the \acro{UK} \TeX{} User community (see \BV{}, issue~4.4) but an entirely satisfactory solution will take time. An interim hyphenation file is available in \CTANref{ukhyph} \Question[hyphenated-accents]{Accented words aren't hyphenated} \TeX{}'s algorithm for hyphenation gives up when it encounters an \cs|accent| command; there are good reasons for this, but it means that quality typesetting in non-English languages can be difficult. For \TeX{} itself, avoiding this effect means using Cork-encoded fonts (\Qref{the DC fonts}{dc-fonts}) which contain accented letters as single glyphs. In the future, perhaps, \htmlignore Omega (\Qref{}{Q-omega}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{Omega}{Q-omega} \end{htmlversion} will provide a rather different solution. \Question{Enlarging \TeX{}} People sometimes get messages saying `memory capacity exceeded'. Most of the time this error can be fixed \emph{without} enlarging \TeX{}. The most common causes are unmatched braces, extra-long lines, and poorly-written macros. Extra-long lines are often introduced when files are transferred incorrectly between operating systems, and line-endings are not preserved properly (the tell-tale sign of an extra-long line error is the complaint that the `|buf_size|' has overflowed). If you really need to extend your \TeX{}'s capacity, the proper method depends on your installation. In the purest form, you change the parameters in module 11 of the \acro{WEB} source. % (``The following parameters can be changed\dots{}''). In less pure forms, you might need to modify a change file, or perhaps change some environment variables; em\TeX{} allows you to adjust the memory allocation criteria on the command line. Consult the documentation that came with your implementation. \Question{Moving tables and figures in \LaTeX{}} Tables and figures have a tendency to surprise, by \emph{floating} away from where they were specified to appear. This is in fact perfectly ordinary document design; any professional typesetting package will float figures and tables to where they'll fit without violating the certain typographic rules. Even if you use the placement specifier~|h| for `here', the figure or table will not be printed `here' if doing so would break the rules; the rules themselves are pretty simple, and are given on page~198, section~C.9 of the \LaTeX{} manual. In the worst case, \LaTeX{}'s rules can cause the floating items to pile up to the extent that you get an error message saying ``Too many unprocessed floats''; this means that the limited set of registers in which \LaTeX{} stores floating items is full. What follows is a simple checklist of things to do to solve these problems (the checklist talks throughout about figures, but applies equally well to tables). \begin{itemize} \item Are the placement parameters on your figures right? The default (|tbp|) is reasonable; you should never simply say `|h|', for example, since that says ``if it can't go here, it can't go anywhere'', and as a result all subsequent floats pile up behind it. \item Can you perhaps prevent your figures from floating by adjusting \LaTeX{}'s placement parameters? Again, the defaults are reasonable, but can be overridden in case of problems. The parameters are described on pages~199--200, section~C.9 of the \LaTeX{} manual. \item Are there places in your document where you could `naturally' put a \cs|clearpage| command? If so, do: the backlog of floats is cleared after a \cs|clearpage|. (Note that the \cs|chapter| command implicitly executes \cs|clearpage|, so you can't float past the end of a chapter.) \item Have a look at the \LaTeXe{} |afterpage| package (part of \CTANref{2etools}). Its documentation gives as an example the idea of putting \cs|clearpage| \emph{after} the current page (where it will clear the backlog, but not cause an ugly gap in your text), but also admits that the package is somewhat fragile (though it's improving). \item As a last resort, try the package \CTANref{morefloats}; this `simply' increases the number of floating inserts that \LaTeX{} can handle at one time (from~18 to~36), but that may suit your needs. \item If you actually \emph{wanted} all your figures to float to the end (\emph{e.g}., for submitting a draft copy of a paper), don't rely on \LaTeX{}'s mechanism: get the package \CTANref{endfloat} to do the job for you. \end{itemize} %If you did not read the manual carefully, you may be surprised that %your figures and tables in a \LaTeX{} document do not come out where %you intended. As you will find in any professional-quality %typesetting package, figures and tables \emph{float} to a place where %there is room for them without violating certain typographic rules. %Even if you use the placement specifier~|h| for `here', the figure or %table will not be printed `here' if there is not room for it or if %printing it there would break the rules. %On the whole, the rules are pretty sensible. It is a fact of life that %putting each table or figure exactly `here' in the text is not %consistent with fixed pre-specified page-size. It's good to get in the %habit of writing `|...in Table~\ref{mytable}...|' rather than assuming %that your table will come exactly where you put it relative to your %words of wisdom. %The rules, and the parameters on which they depend, are described in %Section~C.9.1 of the \LaTeX{} manual\checked{RAB}{1994/10/22} %(see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}). Unless %you have a document with very small pages or an unusually high density %of floats, it is not worth fighting with the default parameter values. %\Question{Disappearing tables and figures} %If you have several tables one after the other (for example at the end %of a document, as many journal editors request) you may find that %\LaTeX{} runs out of memory without printing a single one of these %tables. The problem is that \LaTeX{} is saving up the tables in its %memory while it searches for some text to put on the page first. You %can cure this by making sure that every table has~`|p|' in its %placement specifier, and by issuing a \cs|clearpage| command every so %often, at a `natural break'. %If, on the other hand, you actually \emph{need} the figures and tables %all in one place at the end, the \File|endfloat| package %(\CTANref{endfloat}) offers useful facilities, including the means to %leave indications for the editor where the figure really \emph{ought} %to go. \Question[Q-ps@empty]{\cs|pagestyle{empty}| on first page in \LaTeX{}} If you use \cs|pagestyle{empty}|, but the first page is numbered anyway, you are probably using the \cs|maketitle| command too. This is not a bug but a feature! The standard \LaTeX{} styles are written so that initial pages (pages containing a \cs|maketitle|, \cs|part|, or \cs|chapter|) have a different page style from the rest of the document; Hence, the commands internally issue \cs|thispagestyle{plain}|. This is usually not acceptable behaviour if the surrounding page style is `empty'. Possible workarounds include: \begin{itemize} \item Put \cs|thispagestyle{empty}| immediately after the \cs|maketitle| command, with no blank line between them. \item Use \File|fancyheadings.sty|, which allows you to customise the style for initial pages independently of that for body pages. It is available in \CTANref{fancyheadings} \item Use \File|nopageno.sty|, which suppresses this behaviour. It is available in \CTANref{nopageno} \end{itemize} \Question[rmnonsense]{Odd behaviour of \cs|rm|, \cs|bf|, \emph{etc}.} If commands such as \cs|rm| and \cs|bf| have suddenly stopped working in \LaTeX{} in the way that you expect, it is likely that your system administrator has installed a version of \LaTeX{}~2.09 with \htmlignore \acro{NFSS} (\Qref{}{NFSS}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{NFSS}}{NFSS}. \end{htmlversion} Complain loudly; ask your system administrator to replace this version with \htmlignore \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e}, \end{htmlversion} in which commands such as \cs|rm| and \cs|bf| work just as before if you are using one of the standard classes---|article|, |report| and |book| (among others). In the meantime, use the option \File|oldlfont.sty|, which should have been installed at the same time as \acro{NFSS}. \Question{Old \LaTeX{} font references such as \cs|tenrm|} \LaTeX{}~2.09 defined a large set of commands for access to the fonts that it had built in to itself. For example, various flavours of |cmr| could be found as \cs|fivrm|, \cs|sixrm|, \cs|sevrm|, \cs|egtrm|, \cs|ninrm|, \cs|tenrm|, \cs|elvrm|, \cs|twlrm|, \cs|frtnrm|, \cs|svtnrm|, \cs|twtyrm| and \cs|twfvrm|. These commands were never documented, but certain packages nevertheless used them to achieve effects they needed. Since the commands weren't public, they weren't included in \LaTeXe{}; to use the unconverted \LaTeX{}~2.09 packages under \LaTeXe{}, you need also to include the package \File|rawfonts.sty| (which is part of the \LaTeXe{} distribution). \Question{Missing symbols} If some symbols, such as \cs|Box| and \cs|lhd|, no longer appear to exist, then your system administrator has probably upgraded your version of \LaTeX{} to either \htmlignore \acro{NFSS} (\Qref{on the scheme}{NFSS}) or \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{describing LaTeX2e}{latex2e}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\acro{NFSS}}{NFSS} or \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e}. \end{htmlversion} In the former case, use \htmlignore \File|oldlfont.sty|, \Qref[as in the question]{}{rmnonsense}. \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \File|oldlfont.sty| (see \Qref{problems with \cs|rm|, etc.}{rmnonsense}). \end{htmlversion} In the latter, use the package \File|latexsym|, which is part of the \LaTeXe{} distribution, or the package \File|amsfonts|, if it is available. \Question{\LaTeX{} gets cross-references wrong} Sometimes, however many times you run \LaTeX{}, the cross-references are just wrong. Remember that the |\label| command must come \emph{after} the |\caption| command, or be part of it. For example, \htmlignore \par\noindent \begin{tabular}{@{}lll} |\begin{figure}| & & |\begin{figure}|\\ |\caption{A Figure}| & or & |\caption{A Figure%| \\ |\label{fig}| & & | \label{fig}}| \\ |\end{figure}| & & |\end{figure}| \\ \end{tabular} \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \begin{verbatim} \begin{figure} \begin{figure} \caption{A Figure} or \caption{A Figure% \label{fig} \label{fig}} \end{figure} \end{figure} \end{verbatim} \end{htmlversion} \Question[atsigns]{\cs|@| and \texttt{@} in macro names} A common source of problems in a \LaTeX{} document is the diagnostic about the appearance of the command \cs|@|, or about other commands containing the character |@|. The most common complaint is ``You can't use `\cs|spacefactor|' in vertical mode'', but others occur. Such problems are usually caused by including a \LaTeXe{} class or package file into a \LaTeX{} document by some means other than \cs|documentclass| or \cs|usepackage|. \LaTeX{} defines internal commands whose names contain the character |@|; this enables it to avoid clashes between its internal names and names that we would normally use in our documents. In order that these commands may work at all, \cs|documentclass| and \cs|usepackage| play around with the meaning of |@|. Solve this problem by using the correct command to include the file. But, you will say, ``\emph{The \LaTeX{} Companion} tells me to use commands containing \texttt{@}!'' Indeed; for example, there's a lengthy section about \cs|@startsection| and how to use it to control the appearance of section titles. Page~15 of \emph{The Companion} explains this; and suggests that you make such changes in the document preamble, between \cs|makeatletter| and \cs|makeatother|. So the definition of \cs|subsection| on page~26 could be: \begin{verbatim} \makeatletter \renewcommand{\subsection}{\@startsection {subsection}% % name ... {\normalfont\normalsize\itshape}}% style \makeatother \end{verbatim} \Question{Where are the \texttt{msx} and \texttt{msy} fonts?} The |msx| and |msy| fonts were designed by the American Mathematical Society in the very early days of \TeX{}, for use in typesetting papers for mathematical journals. They were designed using the `old' \MF{}, which wasn't portable and is no longer available; for a long time they were only available in 300dpi versions which only imperfectly matched modern printers. The \acro{AMS} has now redesigned the fonts, using the current version of \MF{}, and the new versions are called the |msa| and |msb| families; they are available from \CTANref{amsfonts-symbols} Nevertheless, |msx| and |msy| continue to turn up to plague us. There are, of course, still sites that haven't got around to upgrading; but, even if everyone upgraded, there would still be the problem of old documents that specify them. If you have a |.tex| source that requests |msx| and |msy|, the best technique is to edit it so that it requests |msa| and |msb| (you only need to change the single letter in the font names). If you have a \acro{DVI} file that requests the fonts, there is a package of \htmlignore virtual fonts (\Qref{}{virtualfonts}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{virtual fonts}{virtualfonts} \end{htmlversion} to map the old to the new series; it's available in \CTANref{msx2msa} \Question[am-fonts]{Where are the \texttt{am} fonts?} One \emph{still} occasionally comes across a request for the |am| series of fonts. The initials stood for `Almost [Computer] Modern', and they were the predecessors of the Computer Modern fonts that we all know and love (or hate)\begin{footnoteenv} The fonts acquired their label `Almost' following the realisation that their first implementation in \MF{}79 still wasn't quite right; Knuth's original intention had been that they were the final answer \end{footnoteenv}. There's not a lot one can do with these fonts; they are (as their name implies) almost (but not quite) the same as the |cm| series; if you're faced with a document that requests them, all you can reasonably do is to edit the document. The appearance of \acro{DVI} files that request them is sufficiently rare that no-one has undertaken the mammoth task of creating a translation of them by means of virtual fonts; however, most drivers let you have a configuration file in which you can specify font substitutions. If you specify that every |am| font should be replaced by its corresponding |cm| font, the output should be almost correct. \Question{`String too long' in \BibTeX{}} The \BibTeX{} diagnostic ``Warning--you've exceeded 1000, the |global-string-size|, for entry |foo|'' is not one that you can hope to avoid by altering the \BibTeX{} style in a simple way~--- \BibTeX{} itself needs recompiling to increase its limit on string sizes (which is often not practical, and is never desirable). You must therefore address the problem by changing your bibliography database. The problem usually arises from a very large abstract or annotation included in the database. The only way forward is to take the entry out of the database, so that you don't encounter \BibTeX{}'s limit, but you may need to retain the entry because it will be included in the typeset document. In such cases, put the body of the entry in a separate file: \begin{verbatim} @article{long.boring, author = "Fred Verbose", ... abstract = "{\input{abstracts/long.tex}}" } \end{verbatim} In this way, you arrange that all \BibTeX{} has to deal with is the file name, though it will tell \TeX{} (when appropriate) to include all the long text. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Why does it \emph{do} that?} \Question{Why does it ignore paragraph parameters?} When \TeX{} is laying out text, it doesn't work from word to word, or from line to line; the smallest complete unit it formats is the paragraph. The paragraph is laid down in a buffer, as it appears, and isn't touched further until the end-paragraph marker is processed. It's at this point that the paragraph parameters have effect; and it's because of this sequence that one often makes mistakes that lead to the paragraph parameters not doing what one would have hoped (or expected). Consider the following sequence of \LaTeX{}: \begin{verbatim} {\raggedright % declaration for ragged text Here's text to be ranged left in our output, but it's the only such paragraph, so we now end the group.} Here's more that needn't be ragged... \end{verbatim} \TeX{} will open a group, and set the ragged-setting parameters within that group; it will then save a couple of sentences of text and close the group (thus restoring the previous value of the ragged-setting parameters). Then it encounters a blank line, which it knows to treat as a \cs|par| token, so it typesets the two sentences; but because the enclosing group has now been closed, the parameter settings have been lost, and the paragraph will be typeset normally. The solution is simple: close the paragraph inside the group, so that the setting parameters remain in place. An appropriate way of doing that is to replace the last three lines above with: \begin{verbatim} end the group.\par} Here's more that needn't be ragged... \end{verbatim} In this way, the paragraph is completed while the setting parameters are still in force within the enclosing group. Another alternative is to define an environment that does the appropriate job for you. For the above example, \LaTeX{} already defines an appropriate one: \begin{verbatim} \begin{flushleft} Here's text to be ranged left... \end{flushleft} \end{verbatim} \Question[Q-protect]{What's the reason for `protection'?} Sometimes \LaTeX{} saves data it will reread later. These data are often the argument of some command; they are the so-called moving arguments. (`Moving' because data are moved around.) Places to look for are all arguments that may go into table of contents, list of figures, \emph{etc}.; namely, data that are written to an auxiliary file and read in later. Other places are those data that might appear in head- or footlines. Section headers and figure captions are the most prominent examples; there's a complete list in Lamport's book (see \Qref[question]{\TeX{}-related books}{Q-books}). %You don't want to care about this stuff? Simply |\protect| all %\LaTeX{} commands within these moving arguments. What's going on really, behind the scenes? The commands in the moving arguments are already expanded to their internal structure during the process of saving. Sometimes this expansion results in invalid \TeX{} code when processed again. ``\cs|protect|\cs|cmd|'' tells \LaTeX{} to save \cs|cmd| as \cs|cmd|, without expansion. What is a `fragile command'? It's a command that expands into illegal \TeX{} code during the save process. What is a `robust command'? It's a command that expands into legal \TeX{} code during the save process. No-one (of course) likes this situation; the \LaTeX{}3 team have removed the need for protection of some things in the production of \LaTeXe{}, but the techniques available to them within current \LaTeX{} mean that this is an expensive exercise. It remains a long-term aim of the team to remove all need for these things. \Question{Why doesn't \cs|verb| work within\dots{}?} The \LaTeX{} verbatim commands work by changing category codes. Knuth says of this sort of thing ``Some care is needed to get the timing right\dots{}'', since once the category code has been assigned to a character, it doesn't change. So \cs|verb| has to assume that it is getting the first look at its parameter text; if it isn't, \TeX{} has already assigned category codes so that \cs|verb| doesn't have a chance. For example: \begin{verbatim} \verb+\error+ \end{verbatim} will work (typesetting `\cs|error|'), but \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\unbrace}[1]{#1} \unbrace{\verb+\error+} \end{verbatim} will not (it will attempt to execute \cs|error|). This is why the \LaTeX{} book insists that verbatim commands must not appear in the argument of any other command; they aren't just fragile, they're quite unusable in any command parameter, regardless of \htmlignore \cs|protect|ion (\Qref{}{Q-protect}). \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\cs|protect|ion}{Q-protect}. \end{htmlversion} \Question{Case-changing oddities} \TeX{} provides two primitive commands \cs|uppercase| and \cs|lowercase| to change the case of text; they're not much used, but are capable creating confusion. The two commands do not expand the text that is their parameter~--- the result of \cs|uppercase{abc}| is `|ABC|', but |\uppercase{\abc}| is always `|\abc|', whatever the meaning of \cs|abc|. The commands are simply interpreting a table of equivalences between upper- and lowercase characters. They have (for example) no mathematical sense, and \begin{verbatim} \uppercase{About $y=f(x)$} \end{verbatim} will produce \begin{verbatim} ABOUT $Y=F(X)$ \end{verbatim} which is probably not what is wanted. In addition, \cs|uppercase| and \cs|lowercase| do not deal very well with non-American characters, for example |\uppercase{\ae}| is the same as \cs|ae|. \LaTeX{} provides commands \cs|MakeUppercase| and \cs|MakeLowercase| which fixes the latter problem. These commands are used in the standard classes to produce upper case running heads for chapters and sections. Unfortunately \cs|MakeUppercase| and \cs|MakeLowercase| do not solve the other problems with \cs|uppercase|, so for example a section title containing \cs|begin{tabular}| \dots{} \cs|end{tabular}| will produce a running head containing \cs|begin{TABULAR}|. The simplest solution to this problem is using a user-defined command, for example: \begin{verbatim} \newcommand{\mytable}{\begin{tabular}... \end{tabular}} \section{A section title \protect\mytable{} with a table} \end{verbatim} Note that \cs|mytable| has to be protected, otherwise it will be expanded and made upper case. \Question{Why are \texttt{\#} signs doubled in macros?} The way to think of this is that |##| gets replaced by |#| in just the same way that |#1| gets replaced by `whatever is the first argument'. So if you define a macro and use it as: \begin{verbatim} \def\a#1{...#1...#1...#1...} \a{b} \end{verbatim} the macro expansion produces `\dots{}b\dots{}b\dots{}b\dots{}', which people find normal. However, if we now fill in the `\dots{}': \begin{verbatim} \def\a#1{---#1---\def\x #1{xxx#1}} \end{verbatim} \cs|a{b}| will expand to `-{}-{}-b-{}-{}-|\def\x b{xxxb}|'. This defines \cs|x| to be a macro \emph{delimited} by |b|, and taking no arguments, which people may find strange, even though it is just a specialisation of the example above. If you want \cs|a| to define \cs|x| to be a macro with one argument, you need to write: \begin{verbatim} \def\a#1{---#1---\def\x ##1{xxx##1}} \end{verbatim} and \cs|a{b}| will expand to `-{}-{}-b-{}-{}-|\def\x #1{xxx#1}|', because |#1| gets replaced by `b' and |##| gets replaced by |#|. To nest a definition inside a definition inside a definition then you need |####1|, as at each stage |##| is replaced by |#|. At the next level you need 8~|#|s each time, and so on. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \section{Recent Developments} \Question[NFSS]{The New Font Selection Scheme (\acro{NFSS})} \acro{NFSS} was an extension to \LaTeX{} written by Frank Mittelbach and Rainer Sch\"opf. It is described in \TUGboat{} 10(2). In traditional typesetting, fonts are described by four parameters: the \emph{family} (\emph{e.g}., computer modern), the \emph{series} (\emph{i.e}., the weight and width of the font, such as light or bold), the \emph{shape} (\emph{e.g}., italic), and the \emph{size}. \acro{NFSS} is a mechanism allowing the user to change any of these independently. \acro{NFSS} makes it relatively easy to use nonstandard fonts such as the PostScript ones with \LaTeX{}, and easy to change maths fonts. It also allows dynamic loading of fonts at runtime (\emph{i.e}., not when the format file is created). %\acro{NFSS} is no longer supported for \LaTeX{} version 2.09, but is standard %with \LaTeXe{} (see question 41). % %There is one caveat that applies to \LaTeX{} documents written for %the OLD scheme: some of them use special styles for special fonts %which will not work under the \acro{NFSS}. With the demise of \LaTeX{}~2.09 as supported software, the label `\acro{NFSS}' has become somewhat misleading, as there's no `old' scheme with which to contrast it~--- \LaTeX{} has incorporated the \acro{NFSS}. \htmlignore \begingroup\boldmath \endhtmlignore \Question[latex2e]{\LaTeXe{} (the new standard \LaTeX{})} \htmlignore \endgroup\par \endhtmlignore \LaTeXe{} is a new version of the \LaTeX{} package, prepared and supported by the \LaTeX{}3 project team. It moved out of its test phase in June 1994, and is now the standard \LaTeX{}; \LaTeX{}~2.09 is no longer supported. New versions are released at (approximately) 6-monthly intervals; this does \emph{not} mean the functionality is unstable, merely that the implementation is steadily being refined. \LaTeXe{} is upwardly compatible with \LaTeX{}~2.09, but has new features. In the latest (December 1995) release, these include: \begin{itemize} \htmlignore \item \acro{NFSS} (\Qref{}{NFSS}) \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \item \Qref{\acro{NFSS}}{NFSS} \end{htmlversion} is part of the distribution. \item \SliTeX{} is now merely a different document class, so that there is no longer a need for a separate format. \item Better control of floating environments, such as figures. \item There is a documented interface for package and class writers (though not yet for designers). \item The box commands have been enhanced, with \emph{e.g.}, options to specify the height of a minipage. \item Several standard commands are no longer \htmlignore fragile (\Qref{}{Q-protect}); \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{fragile}{Q-protect} \end{htmlversion} they can therefore be included in the argument of commands such as \cs|caption| without being protected. \item |\newcommand| can define commands with one optional argument; such commands are automatically robust. \item There is now a standard package for colour and graphics inclusion. \end{itemize} % Since \LaTeXe{} is supported, you can report bugs or problems with it by % typing `|latex latexbug|' and sending the report thus generated to % \Email|latex-bugs@uni-mainz.de|. \Question[LaTeX3]{The \LaTeX{}3 project} The \LaTeX{}3 project team is a small group of volunteers whose aim is to produce a major new document processing system based on the principles pioneered by Leslie Lamport in the current \LaTeX{}. It will remain freely available and it will be fully documented at all levels. The \LaTeX{}3 team has already delivered its first product, \htmlignore \LaTeXe{} (\Qref{}{latex2e}), \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \Qref{\LaTeXe{}}{latex2e}, \end{htmlversion} a macro package based on Lamport's original code, but modified to be more readily supportable than was Lamport's. \Question[Q-omega]{The Omega project} Omega \htmlignore ($\Omega$) \endhtmlignore is a program built on top of \TeX{} which works internally with 16-bit characters (Unicode); this allows it to work with most scripts in the world without any complications of coding schemes. Omega also has a powerful concept of input and output filters to allow the user to work with existing transliteration schemes, \emph{etc}. Omega is an ongoing project by John Plaice (\Email|plaice@ift.ulaval.ca|) and Yannis Haralambous (\Emaildot|Yannis.Haralambous@univ-lille1.fr|). An email discussion list is available: subscribe by sending a message `|subscribe omega |' to \Email|listserv@ens.fr| \Question[Q-NTS]{The \NTS{} project} The \NTS{} project first saw the light of day at the Hamburg meeting of \acro{DANTE} during 1992, as a response to an aspiration to produce something even better than \TeX{}. The project is not simply enhancing \TeX{}, for two reasons: first, that \TeX{} itself has been frozen by Knuth (see \Qref[question]{the future of \TeX{}}{tex-future}), and second, even if they \emph{were} allowed to develop the program, some members of the \NTS{} team feel that \TeX{} in its present form is simply unsuited to further development. While all those involved in the project are involved with, and committed to, \TeX{}, they recognise that the end product may very well have little in common with \TeX{} other than its philosophy. % However, complete compatibility is a very important criterion in % the minds of the team, and any decision to violate this will only be % taken after very careful introspection and after open discussions % with existing \TeX{} users world-wide. % The project is proceeding in several phases. %The first is to re-write %\TeX{} in a language of the project's choice, and using more modern %programming techniques than were available to Knuth. Once this %version is complete (in the sense that it satisfies the stringent %requirements that people have of Knuth's implementation), it will be %made available to the world at large, and will become the basis of %experiments in the design of advanced typesetting facilities; this new %version will be known as \eTeX{}. Initially, and despite the reservations expressed at the inaugural meeting, the group is concentrating on extending \TeX{} \emph{per se}: members are implementing extensions and enhancements to \TeX{} through the standard medium of a change-file. These extensions and enhancements, together with \TeX{} proper, will form a system called \eTeX{}, which will be 100\% compatible with \TeX{}; furthermore, it will be possible during format creation to construct a format that \emph{is} \TeX{}: no extensions or enhancements will be present. % If, on the other hand, it is desired to % create an extended format, then all existing user documents will still % be processable using that format to produce a |dvi| file that is % \emph{identical} to the |dvi| file which would be produced by \TeX{}; only % if % a further decision is taken, to use \eTeX{} in \emph{enhanced} mode, % will the semantics of existing \TeX{} documents be compromised. Thus % at the user's discretion \eTeX{} can be used (a)~as pure \TeX{}, with no % differences whatsoever, or (b)~in extended mode, wherein exist new % features and new facilities but which will still process existing \TeX{} % documents in such a way as to produce results identical to \TeX{}, or (c)~in % enhanced mode, in which case some fundamental changes are made to the % semantics of existing \TeX{} documents such that complete compatibility % can no longer be assured (at the time of writing, only \TeXXeT{} requires % this enhanced-mode behaviour, but \MLTeX{}, which the group have been % given permission to incorporate, may also require such modified semantics). The final aim of the project will be to produce an entirely new typesetting system, building on the experience gained in the earlier phases. This system is intended to provide a stable basis for typesetting in the future, in the way that \TeX{} has since it was first offered to the world. %The second phase of the project will be to produce an entirely new %typesetting system, building on the experience gained in the first %phase. This system, to be known as \NTS{}, is to provide a stable basis %for typesetting in the future, in the way that \TeX{} has since it was %first offered to the world. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % % This is the last section, and is to remain the last section... \section{Perhaps There \emph{isn't} an Answer} % ... and it contains only one question: \htmlignore \par \endhtmlignore \Question{What to do if you find a bug} \htmlignore \par \endhtmlignore % % This here isn't a reference to a question... \label{lastquestion} For a start, make entirely sure you \emph{have} found a bug. Double-check with books about \TeX{}, \LaTeX{}, or whatever you're using; compare what you're seeing against the other answers above; ask every possible person you know who has any \TeX{}-related expertise. The reasons for all this caution are various. If you've found a bug in \TeX{} itself, you're a rare animal indeed. Don Knuth is so sure of the quality of his code that he offers real money prizes to finders of bugs; the cheques he writes are such rare items that they are seldom cashed. If \emph{you} think you have found a genuine fault in \TeX{} itself (or \MF{}, or the \acro{CM} fonts, or the \TeX{}book), don't immediately write to Knuth, however. He only looks at bugs once or twice a year, and even then only after they are agreed as bugs by a small vetting team. In the first instance, contact Barbara Beeton at the \acro{AMS} (\Email|bnb@math.ams.org|), or contact \acro{TUG}. If you've found a bug in \LaTeXe{}, look in the bugs database to see if it's already been reported. If not you should submit details of the bug to the \LaTeX{}3 team. To do this, you should process the file \File|latexbug.tex| with \LaTeX{} (the file is part of the \LaTeXe{} distribution. The process will give you instructions about what to do with your bug report (it can, for example, be sent to the team by email). Please be sparing of the team's time; they're doing work for the good of the whole \LaTeX{} community, and any time they spend tracking down non-bugs is time not available to write or debug new code. Details of the whole process, and an interface to the database, are available via \URL|http://www.tex.ac.uk/ctan/latex/bugs.html| If you've found a bug in \LaTeX{}2.09, or some other such unsupported software, there's not a lot you can do about it. You may find help or \emph{de facto} support on a newsgroup such as \Newsgroup|comp.tex.tex| or on a mailing list such as \Email|texhax@tex.ac.uk|, but posting non-bugs to any of these forums can lay you open to ridicule! Otherwise you need to go out and find yourself a willing \htmlignore \TeX{}-consultant\begin{footnoteenv} \acro{TUG} maintains a register of \TeX{} consultants; \acro{UK}~\acro{TUG} is developing one \end{footnoteenv}. \endhtmlignore \begin{htmlversion} \TeX{}-consultant. \end{htmlversion}