=====//===== \\ // ____ // \\ // |\ /| // // //====== \V/ ||\ //| \\ // // // \\ || \// | /\ \\ ===\ // //==== // \\ || | // \ \\ | // // // \\ || | //===\ \\___/ //======= // \ Volume 5 Number 2 A Mostly Unofficial Publication for Users of the TeX Typesetting System Contents Departments \footnote{}........................................................2 Letter to the Editor...............................................3 ToolBox............................................................4 Articles Accented Characters with DEC Character Set.........................5 \news{TeX Primer}..................................................6 TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 2 page 2 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | \footnote{Reader Support, Surprises} | |_____________________________________________________________________________| I must thank the readers for this issue! Indeed, article submissions were flowing with regularity (at least compared with previous issues)! Thanks to all of you for your help! My fellow TeXMaG'ers are in the process of dreaming up a revolutionary scheme for TeXMaG. From the beginning, there has been an ongoing debate as to whether TeXMaG should be in TeX or left as a text file. Many say they enjoy the online reading (and the paper costs money), while others would rather have it TeXed all nice and neat on their desks! Well we are commencing with a plan that should make both parties happy, namely, a macro which will interpret TeXMaG almost exactly as you see it each month, yet TeXable with the appropriate TEXMAG.TEX macro for even more aesthetically pleasing results!! Stay tuned for this next month... -neil TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 2 page 3 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Letter to the Editor | |_____________________________________________________________________________| We haven't had a cumulative index of TeXmag contents since V3N1. Couldn't this be made an annual event? Chris Thompson JANET: cet1@uk.ac.cam.phx Internet: cet1%phx.cam.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk [Hmmm...yes...I'd forgotten about that. Look for it soon, maybe as an issue all to itself. The filenaming scheme should be TEXMAG.VvNn for a normal issue and perhaps TEXMAG.VvIDX for an index of that volume. -ed] TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 2 page 4 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | The ToolBox | |_____________________________________________________________________________| by Raymond Chen I was challenged to write a macro which, given a number, produces the translation of the number into English, suitable for writing checks. For example, \inwords{163} dollars and \inwords{84} cents should print out the phrase you will see on a check from DEK if you find a bug in TeX. Of course, the underlying algorithm is closely tied to the English language. For most languages, the only necessary changes will be to the macros which print numbers less than 100. (And, of course, changing the words `thousand', `million' and `billion' as appropriate.) [I REALLY like this one! The only deficiency, as I see it, is if \inwords is used at the beginning of a sentence. Could we have a \capinwords to capitalize the first letter of the result? -ed.] % inwords.tex -- convert a number into words (in English) % % Usage: \inwords{...} % % where ... is the number to be converted. % % Example: % % The number \inwords{314159265} is very large. % % produces % % The number three hundred fourteen million one hundred fifty-nine % thousand two hundred sixty-five is very large. % % % Bugs: Some versions of TeX (produced by web2c) erroneously claim that % \count0=2 % \multiply\count0 by 1000000000 % generates an overflow error. It shouldn't; the result is still % within the range of a count variable. Hence, the \inwords % macro may generate overflow errors if you try to print out % numbers greater than or equal to 2 billion. % \catcode`\@=11 \def\undertwenty#1{\ifcase#1\or one\or two\or three\or four\or five\or six\or seven\or eight\or nine\or ten\or eleven\or twelve\or thirteen\or fourteen\or fifteen\or sixteen\or seventeen\or eighteen\or nineteen\fi} % The careful sidestepping involved in \count@=#1 \allocationnumber=\count@ % is to make sure the right thing happens, even if #1=\count@ or % #1=\allocationnumber. % % We use \allocationnumber as a scratch count variable. It and \count@ % are always used inside a group, so their original values will be % restored when the macros finish their job. \def\underhundred#1{\ifnum#1<20 \undertwenty{#1}\else {\count@#1\relax \allocationnumber\count@ \divide\count@ 10 \ifcase\count@ \or\or twenty\or thirty\or forty\or fifty\or sixty\or seventy\or eighty\or ninety\fi \multiply\count@ 10 \advance\allocationnumber by-\count@ \ifnum\allocationnumber>\z@ -\undertwenty\allocationnumber\fi }\fi} \def\numbersplit#1#2#3#4#5{% \ifnum#5<#1 #2{#5}\else {\count@#5\relax \allocationnumber\count@ \divide\count@ #1\relax #3\count@#4\multiply\count@ #1\relax \advance\allocationnumber-\count@ #2\allocationnumber }\fi} \def\underthousand{\numbersplit{100}\underhundred\undertwenty{ hundred }} \def\undermillion{\numbersplit\@m\underthousand\underthousand{ thousand }} \def\underbillion{\numbersplit{1000000}\undermillion\underthousand{ million }} \def\inwords{\numbersplit{1000000000}\underbillion\underthousand{ billion }} \catcode`\@=12 % End of inwords.tex TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 2 page 5 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Accented Character Support with TeX 3.0 | |_____________________________________________________________________________| by Andreu Pacheco Profitting from the new features of TeX 3.0, we describe here how to use machine-dependent character sets (DEC, IBM,...) in TeX or LaTeX documents. Donald Knuth originally designed TeX to use only 7-bit character text, which, among other things, prevents many non-english users from being able, while editing, to see the document in a more familiar way. There is not a standard 8-bit character set used in the computer industry yet, and documents using those characters are, in principle, difficult to interchange between different computers. TeX provides an alternative possibility by combining different characters, i.e. \'a, \"e, \~o, ... using only the standard ASCII set. This suffices, but documents with many accented characters are annoying to type and work with. A first solution is to write a simple program to convert accented characters to the appropriate equivalent in TeX (which can be useful if we want to send the document to some other computer system using e-mail), but now with TeX 3.0 we can write directly accented letters in our documents with no intermediate conversion. At our site we have defined the full DEC Multinational Character set in this way. We append to this note the TeX macro to support this character set, perhaps the 8-bit codes are lost, but it would be easy to rewrite them once in the local computer editor. This procedure could be applied to any other vendor's character set. [Editor's note: I have withheld the listing of the macro as I was afraid of what it might do over the networks to all the different sorts I'm sending this publication. Therefore, I would request that if you are interested in seeing this code (and I strongly recommend that those of you using DEC's Multinational Character set check into this) send inquries directly to the author at: Andreu Pacheco / User Support Computer Center Universitat Aut%noma de Barcelona 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) SPAIN CCAPP@EBCCUAB1 (EARN/Bitnet) CCAPP@CCUAB.UAB.ES (Internet style) thanks! -ed.] TeXMaG Volume 5 Number 2 page 6 _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | \news{Announcing: TeX Primer Available} | |_____________________________________________________________________________| by Joe St Sauver I have prepared a little introduction to using (plain) TeX and DVIPS that has been well received by our users here at the University of Oregon. It basically endeavors to provide a more approachable introduction to TeX than is available from some of the other more rigorous books (such as TeX for the Impatient and Knuth's own TeXbook)... While it is couched in the context of using TeX on the VAX under VMS, the majority of the document should still be of some value to beginning non-VMS users of TeX. You all are welcome to a copy of it, if you want one, at no charge. Feel free to modify it to suit your local circumstances and to reproduce it at will, just please don't sell it for profit. (I would also appreciate some acknowledgment of authorship in any verbatim or substantially derivative copies.) To help you decide whether or not you want to get a copy of it, the writeup's table of contents is reproduced below: PREFACE CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION What is TeX? Why Should I Bother to Learn to Use TeX? What Can I Expect of the Rest of This Write-Up? II. ENTERING TEXT (OTHER THAN TABLES AND EQUATIONS) IN TeX Text Which is Entered Normally in TeX Special Characters in TeX Structuring The Text You Enter; Making Paragraphs Comments Font Size Font Style Underlining Line Spacing (Double-Spacing, Skipping a Single Line, etc.) Block Quotations Centering Text (For Headings, etc.) Footnotes Headers and Page Numbers Page Size; Margins Leaving Space for Insertions; Forcing Page Breaks Ending Your TeX Document III. TYPESETTING TABULAR MATERIAL Using Tabs Typesetting Formal Ruled Tables Beginning to Decode the Table-Building Commands Table Template Table Headings Table Body IV. TYPESETTING EQUATIONS Typesetting Equations is Different From Typesetting Text Embedded vs. Displayed Equations Numbering Equations Aligning and Numbering Multiple Equations Some Basic Information about Entering Equations Greek Letters Script Letters Common Mathematical Operators Symbols for Logic and the Algebra of Sets Subscripts, Superscripts, and Combinations Thereof Math Accents Roman Font Mathematical ``Words'' Limits Radicals: Square Roots, Cube Roots, etc. Making Large Fractions Making Large Grouping Operators Combination Notation Matrices Case Structure Summations Integrals Definitions V. TeX ON THE OREGON VAX 8800 The TeX Execution Cycle Building Your TeX Document Using An Editor Defining TeX Running TeX Decoding TeX Errors The Most Common TeX Errors Converting Your .DVI File Into PostScript DVIPS Features Printing PostScript Output on the VAX's Xerox 4045/160 VI. CONCLUSION Where From Here? What If I Get Stuck? INDEX APPENDICIES: A: Complete Sample Text-Oriented TeX Document B: Complete Sample Technical TeX Document C: Sample University of Oregon Thesis Pages from the ``Grey Book'' D: Some Sample Pages From a Survey Typeset in TeX E: Sample Resume Typeset in Plain TeX F: Sample TeX Landscape-Mode Overhead Made Using PostScript Fonts G: Demonstration of the Incorporation of PostScript Graphics Note that it doesn't cover previewing, use of LaTeX or any of the various third-party TeX packages; it is strictly plain vanilla TeX and DVIPS all the way. The source files for "Using TeX on the VAX to Typeset Documents: A Primer" live on DECOY.CC.UOREGON.EDU (128.223.32.19). Connect to it via FTP, login as username anonymous, with your e-mail address for the password. If you are going to build this primer on a VAX running VMS, just mget all the files, edit MAKE_PRIMER.COM as required to suit your local circumstances, and say @MAKE_PRIMER to generate a copy of it. If you are running TeX on a UNIX system, or on a PC or a Mac (or whatever), take a look at MAKE_PRIMER.COM to see the steps involved in making the document. There isn't anything happening that you couldn't do "the hard way," i.e., manually, if that's your only option. Note that you will need to have TeX and DVIPS to be able to produce a copy of my writeup. If you use some other DVI-to-whatever converter, some of the appendicies that exploit \specials unique to DVIPS probably won't work, but everything else should be okay. You'll need about 1800 VAX/VMS (512 byte) disk blocks for the raw files; if space is tight you can omit Appendix G and the accompanying PostScript files included as a demonstration of using \special's to include PostScript graphics files. (DISSPLA2.PS, for example, accounts for 637 blocks all by itself.) After processing, you'll probably find that you've used up about 5500 blocks. Anyhow, that's about it. If you enjoy my little primer and find it useful, let me know. If you catch any errors, please also let me know about that... Joe St Sauver Statistical Programmer and Consultant University of Oregon Computing Center joe@oregon.uoregon.edu or joe@oregon ______________________________________________________________________ TeXMaG is an electronic magazine available free of charge to all interested parties reachable by electronic mail. It is published monthly. Letters to the editor may be sent to NABTEXM@TAMVENUS (BITNet) or NABTEXM@VENUS.TAMU.EDU (Internet) and may be published in a future issue. Publisher: Academic Computing Services of Texas A&M University Managing Editor: Neil Burleson TeX Consultant: Robert Nilsson Copy Editor: Neil Burleson (this issue) Chief Consultant: John McClain, Ph.D SUBSCRIPTIONS: CDNnet: Send a note to asking to receive TeXMaG. JANET: Send a note to Peter Abbott, asking to receive TeXMaG. All others: Send the following command as an interactive message (Bitnet) or as a single-line mail message to LISTSERV@UICVM or LISTSERV@UICVM.UIC.EDU: SUBS TEXMAG-L Your_Full_Name. If you have difficulty doing this, send a note to Neil Burleson . SUBMISSIONS: Please send submissions to or ; they will automatically be forwarded to the editor. BACK ISSUES: Back issues may be FTP'd from YMIR.CLAREMONT.EDU from the directory [ANONYMOUS.TEX.PERIODICALS.TEXMAG] Back issues may also be FTP'd from SUN.SOE.CLARKSON.EDU from the directory pub/texmag. Users without FTP access may request back issues from the Clarkson repository by sending a mail message to with the form path A_MAIL_PATH_FROM_CLARKSON_TO_YOU get texmag texmag.V.NN where V is the volume number and NN is the issue number. Including a line "index texmag" in the message will return a list of back issues available. Janet users may obtain back issues from the Aston archive. Those who are on SPAN can get in touch with Max Calvani at 39003::CALVANI for infos about SPAN archive. \bye bye! % End of TeXMaG %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%