From: owner-UKTeX@nottingham.ac.uk To: UKTeX Distribution: ; Subject: UKTeX Digest V94 #33 Reply-To: UKTeX@tex.ac.uk Errors-To: owner-UKTeX@nottingham.ac.uk Distribution: world MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <786.778524946.1@unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 02 Sep 1994 17:55:47 +0100 Message-ID: <787.778524947@unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> Sender: cczdao@unicorn.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk UKTeX Digest Friday, 2 Sep 1994 Volume 94 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: RE: psboxit macros Postscript macros Re: Postscript macros Re: Postscript macros Re: Postscript macros Re: Postscript macros temporary immortality offered Administrivia: Moderators: Peter Abbott (UK TeX Users Group) and David Osborne (University of Nottingham) Contributions: UKTeX@tex.ac.uk Subscription and unsubscription requests: UKTeX-request@tex.ac.uk (message body = "subscribe uktex" or "unsubscribe uktex", [no quotes]) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 12:47:15 -0500 From: "George D. Greenwade" Subject: RE: psboxit macros In UKTeX Digest V94 #32 (Fri, 26 Aug 1994 15:45:44 +0100), joop@entropic.demon.co.uk (Joop Jansen) asked: > I read in the LaTeX companion that there should exist a macro package > psboxit which allows you to print text on a grey background. I have not > been able to find it however. Could anyone tell where it is? The file I believe being referred to is in /tex-archive/macros/latex209/contrib/misc/psboxit.sty on the CTAN hosts (ftp.TeX.ac.uk, ftp.DANTE.de, ftp.SHSU.edu, and their mirrors). Definitely the same author and same filename identified in TLC. I'll admit that I haven't used this with 2e (yet), but it worked marvelously under 2.09. Also, unless there's something I've inadvertantly overlooked, the file doesn't appear to need any retrofitting to be compatible with 2e. For reference, you can always use the command quote site index psboxit in an interactive ftp session on the CTAN hosts to get a listing of where all files with the (case insensitive) string "psboxit" reside. This command will NOT work if you use a hyphen as the first character of your password -- messages from the ftp server must be left turned on. Also, some ftp clients may not require the "quote" part of the example above; your mileage may vary. Obviously, replace "psboxit" with whatever it is you are looking for. Finally, to get a listing of the mirrors of the CTAN (now at 20 full or partial mirrors in 11 countries on 4 continents -- sorry for the plug; you don't know how good that feels to those of us involved with this monster!) you can "finger" the address ctan_us@ftp.SHSU.edu and get a listing or you can retrieve the file tex-archive/CTAN.sites from one of the CTAN hosts. Regards, George George D. Greenwade, Ph.D. Internet: bed_gdg@SHSU.edu Department of Economics and Business Analysis THEnet: SHSU::BED_GDG College of Business Administration Voice: (409) 294-1266 Sam Houston State University FAX: (409) 294-3612 Huntsville, TX 77341-2118 USA ------------------------------ Date: 01 Sep 1994 14:34:59 +0000 From: kgb@mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (Karl Glazebrook) Subject: Postscript macros Hi, I was wondering if any reader of this group can recommend a powerful macro package for including postscript figures? I am aware there are sveral packages around and have played with a few in the past, none of them being particularly satisfactory. What I am really after is a package which can cope with all kinds of perverse postscript files, not just encapsulated well structured one. You see I use various software packages, with all kinds of postscript drivers to produce figures. So I want something robust enough to allow me to flexibly handle anything called "postscript" which is thrown at me. Ideally it would also allow me to scale and rotate figures easily. I use the dvips (5.518) that comes with TeX C version 3.141 though I would be prepared to switch. Karl, who is sick of scissors and sellotape. email: kgb@mail.ast.cam.ac.uk WWW: http://cast0.ast.cam.ac.uk/~kgb/ finger: kgb@jhereg.ast.cam.ac.uk body: Institute of Astronomy,Cambridge,UK "UNIX, it's not just for breakfast anymore." --- Jeff Weisberg ------------------------------ Date: 01 Sep 1994 16:27:06 +0000 From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) Subject: Re: Postscript macros In article <344oqj$ve@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Karl Glazebrook wrote: >I was wondering if any reader of this group can recommend >a powerful macro package for including postscript figures? > >I am aware there are sveral packages around and have played >with a few in the past, none of them being particularly >satisfactory. > >What I am really after is a package which can cope with >all kinds of perverse postscript files, not just encapsulated >well structured one. You see I use various software packages, with >all kinds of postscript drivers to produce figures. So >I want something robust enough to allow me to flexibly handle >anything called "postscript" which is thrown at me. > >Ideally it would also allow me to scale and rotate figures >easily. You don't say what macros you want it to work with: I know about plain TeX (though I hardly ever use it), LaTeX2.09 (which I've pretty much given up) and LaTeX2e. You're probably asking more than the world can supply (since I occasionally receive `PostScript' which no _printer_ here can deal with, expecting that of a macro package is probably rather much), but the LaTeX2e graphics package seems pretty robust as these things go, and it does what you want. Of course, if the input isn't encapsulated PostScript, you have to tell the macros vital things like the actual size of the picture. >I use the dvips (5.518) that comes with TeX C version 3.141 >though I would be prepared to switch. It's not the most up to date, but then your TeX isn't either. dvips is one of many that the graphics package supports, and it's the one with the fullest feature set. You'll probably not have to change. - -- Robin (Campaign for the Third Programme) Fairbairns rf@cl.cam.ac.uk U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QG, UK Private page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rf/robin.html ------------------------------ Date: 01 Sep 1994 16:37:33 +0000 From: maj@cl.cam.ac.uk (Martyn Johnson) Subject: Re: Postscript macros In article <344oqj$ve@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, kgb@mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (Karl Glazebr ook) writes: ... > I was wondering if any reader of this group can recommend > a powerful macro package for including postscript figures? ... > What I am really after is a package which can cope with > all kinds of perverse postscript files, not just encapsulated > well structured one. You see I use various software packages, with > all kinds of postscript drivers to produce figures. No powerful macro package can help you. At the end of the day all of them just emit a \special command which tells dvips to insert the PostScript file. The PostScript fundamentally has to be "clean" enough to run in the environment that the PostScript generated by dvips presents it with. I think your only hope is something that can take your PostScript and do a partial interpretation of it, and producing as output a "clean" PostScript program which generates the equivalent graphics primitives. I have a vague feeling that somebody once told me of such a beast, but I can't place the details at the moment. Can ghostscript be made to do anything of the sort, I wonder? - -- Martyn Johnson maj@cl.cam.ac.uk University of Cambridge Computer Lab Cambridge UK ------------------------------ Date: 02 Sep 1994 10:41:35 +0100 From: "M.P.Ward" Subject: Re: Postscript macros In article <34500d$4vp@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Martyn Johnson wrote: >gb@mail.ast.cam.ac.uk (Karl Glazebrook) writes: >... >> What I am really after is a package which can cope with >> all kinds of perverse postscript files, not just encapsulated >> well structured one. You see I use various software packages, with >> all kinds of postscript drivers to produce figures. > >I think your only hope is something that can take your PostScript >and do a partial interpretation of it, and producing as output >a "clean" PostScript program which generates the equivalent graphics >primitives. I have a vague feeling that somebody once told me of >such a beast, but I can't place the details at the moment. Can >ghostscript be made to do anything of the sort, I wonder? Yes, ghostscript can! I have used it to interpret "perverse postscript files" which were too perverse for my printer. I used Ghostscript to interpret the file and generate a 300dpi pbm file (portable bitmap). The pbmplus package includes a program which turns a pbm file back into postscript. Of course, it generates nice encapsulated postscript (but resolution dependent, and HUGE!). Here's a perl script I call pstops (convert PostScript to PostScript!) which uses gohstscript and pbmtops: Martin. JANET: Martin.Ward@uk.ac.durham Internet (eg US): Martin.Ward@durham.ac.uk or if that fails: Martin.Ward%uk.ac.durham@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk or even: Martin.Ward%DURHAM.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU BITNET: Martin.Ward%durham.ac.uk@UKACRL UUCP:...!uknet!durham!Martin.Ward #!/usr/local/bin/perl # pstops file # Use GhostScript to convert a ps file to one or more pbm files. # Then use pnmtops to convert the result(s) back to PostScript. # Why? Because some stupid printers may not be able to handle # the original PostScript, but may be able to handle a huge bitmap. # ($myname = $0) =~ s|(.*/)*||; # strip path component from name $Usage = "Usage: $myname input [output] \n"; # Check one or two arguments: die $Usage if (($#ARGV < 0) || ($#ARGV > 1)); $HOME = $ENV{'HOME'} || $ENV{'LOGDIR'} || (getpwuid($<))[7] || die "You're homeless!\n"; $USER = $ENV{'USER'} || getlogin || (getpwuid($<))[0] || die "You're nameless!\n"; $input = $ARGV[0]; $input =~ s/\.ps$//; if ($#ARGV == 1) { $output = $ARGV[1]; } else { $output .= "$input.psbit"; } die "File `$input.ps' not found!\n" unless (-f "$input.ps"); # Run ghostscript: open (GS, "|gs -dNODISPLAY"); print GS <; foreach $file (@files) { print "Processing $file...\n"; ($num = $file) =~ s/^$input\.(.*)ppm$/$1/; # add leading zeros to $num: $num = sprintf("%03d", $num); system "pnmtops -rle -scale .25 -width 9 -height 12 $file > $output$num"; unlink ($file); } # End of pstops ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Sep 1994 08:56:34 +0100 From: Malcolm Clark Subject: temporary immortality offered i received the following from leslie lamport regarding typos in the 2e of the latex manual: > Thanks for the typo report. Yours is the first. I've been informed > that A-W is producing a second printing. To get typos corrected, I > need to provide them with the corrected pages by early September. > > As an incentive, assuming A-W has no objections, I intend to add to > the preface an acknowledgement of everyone who reports previously > unreported typos. So, please tell your colleagues, friends, > relatives, pen pals, and creditors that this is their chance for > immortality (of fairly short duration). > > From lamport@src.dec.com Tue Aug 9 15:38:01 1994 malcolm clark ------------------------------ UK TeX Archive >>> tex.ac.uk <<< Part of the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) tex.ac.uk -- mail [user@tex.ac.uk] ftp.tex.ac.uk -- anonymous ftp [username: anonymous, password: ] gopher.tex.ac.uk -- Gopher access www.tex.ac.uk -- World-Wide Web access [URL http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive] nfs.tex.ac.uk -- NFS access [nfs.tex.ac.uk:/public/ctan/tex-archive] \section Files of Interest tex-archive/00Contents tex-archive/CTAN.sites tex-archive/FILES.bydate tex-archive/FILES.byname tex-archive/FILES.bysize tex-archive/MAP tex-archive/README.archive-features tex-archive/README.site-commands tex-archive/README.uploads \section Digests This year's UKTeX back issues are stored in the archive in directory tex-archive/digests/uktex/94 This year's TeXhax back issues are stored in the archive in directory tex-archive/digests/texhax/94 Latest TeXhax: V94 #07 \section Media Distributions Postal addresses are given below. \subsection Washington Unix TeX distribution tape Our latest copy of May/June 1991 contains: TeX 3.14, LaTeX 2.09, Metafont 2.7, plus many utilities suitable for Unix 4.2/4.3BSD & System V tar format, 1 file (36Mb) Send One Quarter-Inch Cartridge, QIC-120 or QIC-150 format (DC600A or DC6150) with envelope AND stamps for return postage to David Osborne (address below); regret that due to currency exchange difficulties, this service is offered only within the UK. \section TeX Implementations for Small Computers \subsection PC and Mac disks From January 1994 the UK TeX Users' Group is distributing an emTeX kit for PCs, and an OzTeX kit for Macintosh. The cost covers copying and postage costs, and the shareware fee for OzTeX. Each set costs \pounds30, and is available from Peter Abbott, 1 Eymore Close, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 4LB. Cheques must be payable to `UKTUG'. Please note that this service **is available to UKTUG members only.** Each set comes with an installation guide, and (at least) full TeX and Metafont, a previewer, a PostScript driver, and CM fonts. Two update disks a year will be sent out automatically, with the current version of LaTeXe, and other goodies. A subscription service will be available for subsequent years. In addition, subscribers can request up to 3 disks a year with any material from the CTAN archives, but this will be supplied `as is', without instructions. OzTeX and emTeX are also available on disk from TeX Users Group; mail TUG for details. \subsection TeX for the Atari ST Enquiries for TeX for the Atari ST etc. can be directed to: The Fast Club, 7 Musters Road, Nottingham NG2 7PP. Phone 0602 455250, fax 0602 455305. They also supply a variety of TeX-related software in Atari format. Enquiries for disks etc. can also be directed to: The South West Software Library, P.O. Box 562, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 2YD Internet: mdryden@cix.compulink.co.uk \section Postage Rates Quarter-inch cartridges: UK: GBP 1.00, Europe: GBP 2.00. \section Postal Addresses Please include SELF-ADDRESSED ADHESIVE LABELS for return postage. Peter Abbott 1 Eymore Close, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 4LB Internet: P.Abbott@aston.ac.uk David Osborne Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD (for Unix cartridges ONLY -- MUST include stamps for return postage) Internet: David.Osborne@nottingham.ac.uk TeX Users Group P.O. Box 869, Santa Barbara, CA 93102, USA. Internet: TUG@TUG.org \section UK TeX Users Group Details available from Jonathan Fine, 203 Coldhams Lane, Cambridge CB1 3HY, UK or from Internet: UKTuG-Enquiries@tex.ac.uk or from World-Wide Web server: http://www.tex.ac.uk/UKTUG/home.html \bye End of UKTeX Digest [Volume 94 Issue 33] ****************************************