TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Paulo Cereda

12:14 AM

What do you guys use as a GUI for git in Linux?

Johannes_B

12:57 AM

@PauloCereda Nothing ;-p

Paulo Cereda

@Johannes_B :)

yo'

6:20 AM

@PauloCereda xterm

:)

Venus

6:33 AM

Could someone here help me with this one:

3

Q: Aligning text in bullet style

I want to format my article like the picture below: Raw text: Before scientists can develop medicines or engineers can advance technology, they throw numbers onto whiteboards using concepts laid out by mathematicians sometimes centuries earlier. Generations of school children will disagre...

yo'

@Venus what version of what LaTeX distribution have you got?

Venus

@yo' Use TeXMaker 4.1.1 on Windows 7

yo'

@Venus TeXmaker is not the thing.

Venus

Hey @HarishKumar I got the problem with your code T_T

yo'

Could you please copy here the first let's say 20 lines of the .log file?

Venus

6:40 AM

@yo' I don't get it your question

yo'

@Venus the thing can be called for instance TeXlive 2012 or MikTeX 2.5

Joseph Wright

@Venus TeXmaker is just the editor you use

yo'

@JosephWright hi Joseph!

Joseph Wright

@yo' Hello

Venus

@yo' Where can I get this file? Sorry, I'm new in LaTeX

yo'

6:42 AM

@Venus you have a document, let's say myfile.tex, and when you create the PDF file myfile.pdf using LaTeX, a lot of more files are created; one of them is called myfile.log

Joseph Wright

@Venus When you run LaTeX, a .log file will be created in the same place as your .tex file

Venus

@yo' @JosephWright There are only these files: .synctex and .aux. Nothing's else

yo'

@Venus uh-oh, that's really strange. I suppose it's one of these "hide away everything useful" set-ups...

Sorry, I just wanted to verify what others suggest in the comments to the answer, that your LaTeX is old. But it seems that you can't tell us what version of LaTeX you use .... :-/

Venus

@yo' Can you give me a link to download a recent update of TeXMaker?

yo'

@Venus TeXMaker is not the thing, as we told you before. TeXMaker is just the place where you put your code, but the program is called differently, probably either TeXlive, MikTeX or MacTeX

Harish Kumar

7:10 AM

@Venus Please update your TeX distribution.

Venus

@HarishKumar How to do that?

Harish Kumar

@Venus: As @yo' already told you texmaker and tex distribution are different things. Texmaker is just an editor.

Venus

Can you guide me?

Harish Kumar

@Venus: tex.stackexchange.com/q/55437/11232

@Venus Those answers will guide you step by step.

Venus

Did you mean this one:

LOG FILE :
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (MiKTeX 2.8) (preloaded format=pdflatex 2015.7.28) 13 AUG 2015 15:15
entering extended mode
**Testing.tex
(G:\a\Testing.tex
LaTeX2e <2009/09/24>
Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, dumylang, nohyphenation, ge
rman, ngerman, german-x-2009-06-19, ngerman-x-2009-06-19, french, loaded.
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\base\article.cls"
Document Class: article 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class

yo'

7:23 AM

@Venus yep, this. It seems that your installation is quite new. But I see that enumitem.sty is quite outdated. Not being a MikTeX user myself, I can't help you in updating it.

Venus

@yo' OK, I'll update later when I'm at home

Torbjørn T.

@PauloCereda I have used SmartGit a bit, now either a terminal or Magit.

Harish Kumar

@Venus Your installation is very old.

@Venus: See this answer: tex.stackexchange.com/a/55473/11232 if you prefer a gui approach.

yo'

@HarishKumar ok, I probably can't read a log from MikTeX's pdftex, the format is new but everything else is old?

Harish Kumar

@Venus: or if you prefer command prompt, then this: tex.stackexchange.com/a/55857/11232

@yo' MikTeX 2.8 is very old. May be pdftex is not as you noted. This may be due to partial update.

yo'

7:34 AM

@HarishKumar ah ok, that's possible, thanks

Well, I take 4.5GB of my root drive each year, install a full vanilla TL and I'm happy :-)

Venus

@HarishKumar When I download the newest version, should I delete the older one?

Harish Kumar

8:12 AM

@Venus: Better to delete it if you are installing v2.9. On ther other hand you may simply update your packages (as explained in those answers) and continue with v2.8.

daleif

8:46 AM

Why is this illegal?

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{xkeyval}
\makeatletter
\define@boolkey{dlf}{test}[true]{
\csname ifKV@dlf@test\endcsname
\typeout{test}
\fi
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\end{document}

Too many }'s.
<argument> ...test\endcsname \typeout {test} \fi }

Stephan Lehmke

@daleif Quite probably \define@boolkey does some \if mangling inside, so your \fi gets in the way. Try \csname fi\endcsname.

egreg

@daleif If the \csname construction is not expanded because it appears in skipped conditional test or replacement text, the \fi will match the wrong conditional.

daleif

@StephanLehmke thanks, using \csname if... \endcsname ... \csname else\endcsname ... \csname fi\endcsname works.

daleif

9:14 AM

Hmm, not really, without the else it does work, but not with an else part. MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{xkeyval}
\def\test{TEST}
\makeatletter
\define@boolkey{dlf}{test}[true]{
\csname ifKV@dlf@test\endcsname
\def\test{test}
\csname else\endcsname
\def\test{TeSt}
\csname fi\endcsname
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

\setkeys{dlf}{test}

\test
\end{document}

yo'

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{xkeyval}
\def\test{TEST}
\makeatletter
\define@boolkey{dlf}{test}[true]{
\edef\test{\ifKV@dlf@test test\else TeSt\fi}
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

\setkeys{dlf}{test=false}

\test
\end{document}

egreg

@daleif The \else is not seen when \ifKV@dif@test is evaluated false

daleif

@yo' Then problem with that example is that they larger example needs to set on/off variables. So that exact construction does not really work.

yo'

9:31 AM

@daleif you can do this:

\edef\tempbool{\ifKV@dif@test \noexpand\@firstoftwo\else \noexpand\@secondoftwo\fi}\tempbool{TRUE STATEMENT}{FALSE STATEMENT}

daleif

@yo' there is no way of using \csname .... \endcsname? These are dynamically created, so the we need to evaluate \ifKV@dlf@#1

Johannes_B

@egreg That template haunts me.

yo'

@daleif maybe there is, I'm not sure really

daleif

@yo' In this case I don't think I really need to specify false to I can get by with the earlier construction. I'm doing a key-val interface for a form (LaTeX version of some Excel sheet, the bools are just X or no X marker. They are missing by default.

yo'

@daleif have you considered l3keys? Because l3bool has some neat interface that works pretty well :)

daleif

9:40 AM

@yo' not yet. I already had what I needed for this particular form. Just decided to make all fields insertable.

yo'

@daleif well, I see. It takes some courage and a good opportunity to switch to L3 :)

daleif

@yo' I know, but just browsing the L3 manual, one finds simple uses that makes life much easier. Then the more "strange" parts comes along later.

yo'

@daleif ah well, you cannot get around some issues (expandability, for instance), but I think you can get around a lot of issues with ~~polynomials~~ booleans

(sorry, writing about LaTeX why thinking about my thesis)

Johannes_B

10:07 AM

@JosephWright I want to flag my own comment: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/261187/…

Will Robertson

@daleif I think you need:

\newif\if@tmp
\define@boolkey{dlf}{test}[true]{%
  \expandafter\let
    \csname if@tmp\expandafter\endcsname
    \csname ifKV@dlf@test\endcsname
  \if@tmp
    \def\test{test}%
  \else
    \def\test{TeSt}%
  \fi
}

@PauloCereda Fairly seriously, command line use of git is very much improved with bash prompt extensions: git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-in-Other-Environments-Git-in-Bash

@PauloCereda But I do use a GUI (on my Mac) for most non-trivial things.

Paulo Cereda

10:43 AM

@yo' ooh :)

@TorbjørnT. Ah cool, thanks. :)

@WillRobertson Oh I use command line all the time, I was just wondering what we have GUI-wise. :)

@WillRobertson Me too, I have SourceTree for something more complex. :)

yo'

@PauloCereda :)

Paulo Cereda

Managed to update my Tab 2 10.1 to Lollipop 5.1.1! :)

Johannes_B

11:42 AM

@egreg Any thoughts on that? latex-community.org/forum/…

Paulo Cereda

12:04 PM

YES YES YES THE LAST VIDEO IS ONLINE!

@egreg yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Johannes_B

@JosephWright @ArthurReutenauer We talked about licences once -> lu.is/blog/2012/12/03/licensing-confusion-is-great-for-lawyers :-)

Paulo Cereda

ALL ZE VIDEOS ARE FINALLY ONLINE!

yo'

@PauloCereda cool!

Paulo Cereda

@yo' Well, they left @DavidCarlisle's epic talk out of the list. Because it was a secret talk only for experts. :)

yo'

@PauloCereda yeah, it took all the spare time and all the L3 team ...

Paulo Cereda

12:09 PM

@yo' :)

@egreg: "Of course there was a traitor in the chatroom..."

Jun 22 at 21:55, by David Carlisle

@PauloCereda never trust a duck to keep a secret

LOLOLOL

@egreg and @DavidCarlisle: I wub you guys so so much. <3

daleif

Where are the videos?

Paulo Cereda

@daleif The first starred link in the right bar. :)

@daleif <3

yo'

12:41 PM

is there any sans-serif font that accompanies Palatino well?

daleif

I've started to have a liking of lato, though haven't tested it with palatino.

yo'

12:58 PM

@daleif I'll try it, thanks

@daleif Doesn't fit quite well :-/

daleif

@yo' Yes, they are quite similar. Then you'll just have to plough through the Font Catalouge.

yo'

@daleif or wait for @egreg, he's got the eye for it :)

daleif

@yo' Someone should make a website where such comparisons would be easy to make, and let people vote. Then there might be some "guidelines" for users to use when deciding companions.

Johannes_B

@daleif Guidelines would be nice, but a voting system? uh-uhm

daleif

@Johannes_B It would just be similar to on here. Let's see how fast we can downvote times+cm

Johannes_B

1:12 PM

@daleif Selecting fonts needs a bit experience in the field and there cannot be a definite answer, taste is another topic. It's like parenting.SE, ridiculous (imho)

daleif

@Johannes_B Sure.

yo'

@Johannes_B I don't consider Parenting.SE to be so much ridiculous

Johannes_B

@yo' There is some interesting stuff there, but some stuff shouldn't get dealt with by strangers on a web-page. If 100 people give their like for beating childs, how is that handled?

yo'

@Johannes_B well, it should probably be closed as opinion-based. I agree that there's a lot of opinion-based stuff, and that a lot of what we think about parenting now will be deemed wrong in 30 years. But let's say that the existence of such a site helps to reduce extremal behaviour amongst parents.

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda No, of course not.

yo'

1:16 PM

@PauloCereda oh no! :-(

Paulo Cereda

@yo' Bad comment on my part, sorry. :(

@Johannes_B Sorry. :)

Done. :)

yo'

@PauloCereda it wasn't necessary, IMHO it was a good (well, sarcastically bad:D ) joke :D

Paulo Cereda

@yo' LOL

Johannes_B

@yo' Let's hope so. Maybe i have read a bit too many Facebook comments. If people treat would treat their children like they treat other humans, we will be extinct soon.

yo'

after all, we use to say to the children at the camp (sacrastically of course): ... and if you break your arm doing this, I'll first break your other one, and only after then I'll start to treat you :)

Johannes_B

1:19 PM

@yo' Really? wow :-D

gotta run now

yo'

@Johannes_B I tell you, being the "camp doctor" needs a good sense of sarcasm

But of course, we turn very serious once the situation gets even slightly serious.

I surely wasn't laughing at a boy with an axe through his sole

@Johannes_B ok see you later!

Paulo Cereda

2:08 PM

@SeanAllred: youtube.com/watch?v=09fv-G6hJfw

Gonzalo Medina

2:20 PM

Not so pretty, but a palindrome:

2

Aaron Hall

Great, my boss just walked in on me watching a dancing turtle.

Paulo Cereda

@AaronHall My pleasure. :)

Aaron Hall

2:38 PM

Yeah, I think I paused it and foregrounded another window in time. But geez.

Gonzalo Medina

@AaronHall Wouldn't your boss have enjoyed the adorable creature?

Aaron Hall

My guess is no.

Gonzalo Medina

@AaronHall I don't want to work with your boss.

egreg

@PauloCereda Sorry, no duck in my talk.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I was there, somehow. :)

(the traitor part)

egreg

2:46 PM

@PauloCereda :)

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I simply love the audience reaction when they see the commit message. :)

Sean Allred

3:07 PM

@PauloCereda Had a turtle once that did this :) it's the funniest thing in the world to watch -- I have no idea why they do it, but I guess it's pretty common :)

Paulo Cereda

@SeanAllred ooh

Sean Allred

3:32 PM

unixstickers.com/stickers/coding_stickers/…

$user image$

2

Paulo Cereda

3:45 PM

@SeanAllred ooh cool

> High quality, weather resistant and durable Latex Sticker to give your case the identity it deserves.

Don't know if it should be a pun or not. :)

Mind the ~~gap~~ case. :)

Sean Allred

3:57 PM

@PauloCereda Hehehehe :) I'm pretty sure it's boilerplate

yo'

@PauloCereda LOL

Joseph Wright

4:28 PM

river-valley.zeeba.tv/recollections-of-a-spurious-space-catcher

How has @egreg's keynote only got 10 views thus-far?

Paulo Cereda

4:40 PM

@JosephWright @David's conspiracy. :)

@JosephWright I wonder if you could spot the ~~looney~~ traitor. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda why????

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Because @egreg was very naughty. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda you're a bad influence, clearly.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Ducks are innocent creatures. :)

egreg

This is a palindrome

3

Paulo Cereda

4:52 PM

78

Q: Cunning (La)TeX tricks

Writing (La)TeX code sometimes requires a degree of guile. Here (in no particular order) are two of my favourite examples. Macros ending with spaces Pete asked how to see the implementation of \LaTeX, since \show\LaTeX results in \protect \LaTeX. Joseph Wright's suggestion made my day. (I shou...

tex-core latex-project

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda 3 min 22 : youtube.com/watch?v=xNkrHJYzV0o

Paulo Cereda

Why am I expecting some user named Baldrick to answer this question?

@JosephWright: ^^

@DavidCarlisle LOL

morbusg

6:36 PM

Hi

Paulo Cereda

@morbusg 'lo! :)

morbusg

I have a geometry question

How could I find out the coordinates of the corners of a pentagon and a hexagon, if I want them both to be the same height?

morbusg

6:56 PM

regular pentagon and hexagon, I should add

Johannes_B

@SeanAllred concerning \item[\tiny{$\blacksquare$}]: My first draft of the revision had a completely rewritten short documentation. But i have the feeling he doesn't go for it. But i hope stuff like that will be gone. and manually setting the headmarks.

Johannes_B

7:31 PM

@JosephWright As a team member, maybe you have some insight? latex-community.org/forum/…

egreg

@Johannes_B I think Frank should really change that licensing information.

Johannes_B

@egreg You have seen him about three weeks ago, you had the chance to tell him :-)

@egreg by the way, i have seen a discussion (in german) about licensing stuff in a github issue for a LaTeX template. Both sides with one completely different initial thinking about licenses, or more importantly, a missing license. Overall conclusion: There should be a short introduction in schools.

Johannes_B

8:00 PM

Is it just my imagination, or are the TUG talks on YT need more power than any other video?

yo'

@Johannes_B probably they're not as badly ~~mutilated~~ compressed

Johannes_B

@yo' I can't play it fully, and i can't here everything as the ventilator of the notebook are going crazy. sensor reports CPU temp of 56C.

yo'

@Johannes_B that's strange

barbara beeton

8:19 PM

@Johannes_B -- it occurred to me at the time, but i didn't pursue it ... many of the speakers chose not to use the microphone, so the sound pickup is less than optimal. i think at future meetings something needs to be said at the beginning that the mike is needed to ensure that the videos can be heard. (most speakers don't like to use the mike, and i can't really blame them. but sometimes it's an evil best lived with to get desirable results.)

Alan Munn

@Johannes_B Why either templates or classes like KOMA and memoir are required. tex.stackexchange.com/q/261291/2693 :)

Johannes_B

@barbarabeeton 98% percent of the sound are ok, i think. But when questions arise, a mike would be a good idea. From the look of the speakers, i can tell they are trying just as hard to understand a words as myself. :-)

yo'

@barbarabeeton it should be always possible to use the microphone, but not the powered speakers. Something I can even do in my home "studio".

Alan Munn

@yo' But that assumes the video camera is directly connected to the mic. (I wasn't there, so I don't know what the setup was like.)

yo'

@AlanMunn well, I was there, the setup was ... complicated. But I'm sure it would be possible to achieve this.

barbara beeton

8:26 PM

@yo' -- if what you're wearing has neither pockets nor a belt to hang the transmitter on, and you like to wander about while speaking, using a lavalier mike isn't all that convenient. (i'll mention the problem to kaveh. i'm sure he'll be happy to wield the presidential gavel to intimidate the reluctant.)

yo'

@barbarabeeton Well, I have, for instance, a high-end stereo pocket recorder, which can be placed on a tripod in the first row. This solution works (to some extent) even for musical performances.

Johannes_B

We have mics with a little cord that you can put around your neck. That sounds strange. Like a chain of pearls. Keeps your hands free.

Canageek

Hey

Question

yo'

@Johannes_B well, the problem is not the mic, the problem is the transmitter :-) If you check what @barbara was wearing, you'll see that there's not really many options where to place it ;-)

Canageek

My boss needs an editable version of my text file. Is there a way to tell LaTeX to print out a text document, rtf, word, anything like that?

I don't care about the formatting much, but macros need to expand

So \aucn\ needs to come out to dicyanoaurate

Is this possible?

Or should I write up a question?

yo'

8:29 PM

@Canageek there's latex2rtf or htlatex

Canageek

@yo' Do they work well?

yo'

@Canageek sometimes

David Carlisle

@Canageek latexml or tex4ht to make html probably best.

Canageek

@DavidCarlisle Are those in TeXLive?

yo'

(remark: htlatex = tex4ht, moreorless)

@Canageek should be

David Carlisle

8:31 PM

@Canageek tex4ht/htlatex is, latexml I think not, but it's free from NIST

Canageek

@DavidCarlisle Does it need anything to run?

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton ^^^ for the no pockets problem.

David Carlisle

@Canageek perl (and some combination of perl libraries)

Canageek

@DavidCarlisle I think that comes with TeXLive...

yo'

@AlanMunn my imagination went too deep into this.

David Carlisle

8:34 PM

@Canageek I don't seem to have it in cygwin texlive, although I have the sources checked out from somewhere

Paulo Cereda

@Canageek: Hi! How are you? How was your trip? :)

yo'

@Canageek I dunno, on windows maybe. On linux, you have to install perl the standard way

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton But slightly more seriously, we have used hats and little backpacks for wireless recording with preschoolers, so for an adult you could use one of those little belts that runners use to keep stuff in.

Canageek

@PauloCereda Really sweet. Two weeks by myself was a bit long though. Confrence was a bust, but Krakow was sweet. Prauge was OK.

yo'

Btw, I've got a message from Andrew Cashner 2 weeks ago, he's fine just really busy :-)

Paulo Cereda

8:36 PM

@Canageek Cool. :) Glad to have you back amongst us. :)

Canageek

@PauloCereda I'll be around more as well.

Paulo Cereda

Ze microphone! I blame ze microphone! :)

@Canageek <3

yo'

@AlanMunn or as I say, a distant stereo condenser would do :-)

Canageek

@PauloCereda My boss wants to spend more time getting this paper out the door, and I've got almost all the data

Alan Munn

@yo' But are you shooting video as well?

Canageek

8:38 PM

My boss is currently skyping us from a hotel washroom in Helsinki

yo'

how do you mean, "me"?

@Canageek oh Finland (think sauna)

Paulo Cereda

strapya-world.com/products/51969.html

@AlanMunn: ^^

Canageek

@yo' Possibly? It is the only place he can go to call us without waking his daughters and wife.

Alan Munn

@PauloCereda <3

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn <3

yo'

8:39 PM

@Canageek I tell you, you wouldn't use a computer in a sauna. It ddoes not sweet, and 100C is not nice for it :-)

Canageek

@yo' I think this is just the washroom next to the hotel room. >.>

yo'

@Canageek yeah, or the lounge, bar or whatever :-)

Canageek

@yo' No, actually the washroom.

Alan Munn

@yo' Was that directed to me? I thought you were talking about your having used a stereo recorder on a tripod. And I was asking were you also shooting video.

yo'

@AlanMunn no, I say that "one could do that". I wasn't doing that at the conference.

Alan Munn

8:42 PM

@yo' No, I know, but when you have used in the past a stereo recorder, you weren't shooting video as well, right?

yo'

@AlanMunn I was. You easily sync them later. Or you use a cable from a line-out from the recorder to line-in in the camcoder

Alan Munn

@yo' Ah, ok. So it is easy to sync them. I was just assuming that it's better to use the line in.

yo'

@AlanMunn it's easier to use the line-in of course, but usually a bit less quality :-)

Johannes_B