TeX, LaTeX and Friends

4:56 AM

I have lots of «Calabi-Yau»s in a text I am writing and the kerning between the - and the Y is distracting me... (I'm using lmoderm) Shouldn't the Y be considerably closer to the -?

egreg

7:23 AM

@MarianoSuárez-Alvarez A bit, yes.

egreg

9:08 AM

@MarianoSuárez-Alvarez Make a feature request to the developers of Latin Modern

jonalv

I am confused. Does this question tex.stackexchange.com/questions/144757/… actually contain a question?

Joseph Wright

@jonalv I don't think so

@jonalv It's hardy news that LaTeX (or ConTeXt, ...) are more complex than plain

@jonalv What's funny is the time scale in the question: when Knuth wrote plain you were looking at minutes per page :-)

jonalv

I suppose :)

egreg

9:25 AM

@jonalv No, it doesn't. The statement that "automatic cross-references is not an achievement" is stunning.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg :)

jonalv

@egr

hm

@egreg indeed

\o/ I made it :)

uhm, another question. What is 3415 which is underneath my thumbnail?

Joseph Wright

@egreg Question has appeared as a comment: Why LaTeX works so slow? Are there ways to reduce the compilation time and throw out some excessive commands?

I love the idea that LaTeX is full of waste-of-time commands :-) Perhaps the questionner could drop NFSS!

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright Should we add a link to the Argument clinic in the question. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Good morning! How was the trip to the big city?

@jonalv Your total reputation across the SE network.

Paulo Cereda

9:31 AM

@egreg Good morning! :) The trip was quite good, although I faced some (expected) heavy traffic. :) And I missed you guys. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Why don't you chat during class?

jonalv

@egreg ah I see

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I wish I could! But the wi-fi signal in classes are far from usable. Ironically, the bad wi-fi signal comes from a lot of wi-fi boosters they put in classes. Every class has one, and they conflict with each other!

Paulo Cereda

9:45 AM

►

\usepackage{noink}

:)

Realz Slaw

10:07 AM

gaaaah

writelatex.com/502479dfsgrs

I am using \path[scope fading=<>], and it fades the part I want, but clips the rest of the scope :(

I guess I'll actually ask on tex.SE

Realz Slaw

10:29 AM

0

Q: Partial scope transparency in TikZ

When I try to use scope fading, in a scope, it seems to clip the rest of the scope that is not inside the fading rectangle. Interestingly, it seems to clip it at a random place. Some code and pictures: \tikzset{wline/.style={rounded corners,line width=1mm,color=blue!40!black}} %... later \beg...

there, I actually asked :D

Paulo Cereda

@egreg: ooh a Ferrari. :) I was expecting a cinquecento. :)

David Carlisle

11:31 AM

@JosephWright I blame it all on tikz

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle :-)

My guess is NFSS/OR are the two biggest hits

egreg

@PauloCereda Well, TeX is the Ferrari of typesetting systems.

8

Paulo Cereda

@egreg :)

David Carlisle

@egreg you mean it regularly gets beat by a drinks company?

Paulo Cereda

@egreg: and W is a farm wagon with big triangles as wheels. :)

@DavidCarlisle ooh it gives you wings too! :)

@DavidCarlisle: tell me you have Jaguar (the car) in your garage. :)

And of course, @JosephWright has a Bentley Continental GT. :)

egreg

11:43 AM

@DavidCarlisle :(

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I don't know why David is happy. Massa joined Williams, he's terrible. :)

@DavidCarlisle I wonder if I can somehow establish some crazy analogy of writing TeX while drunk. :)

Great, we were talking about cars, and all of a sudden, @MarcoDaniel appears. :) Talk about his BMW that doesn't go below 160kmph. :)

egreg

12:29 PM

@PauloCereda He can't read, because he's going too fast over the text.

Paulo Cereda

12:50 PM

@egreg Hey, he can't text while driving. :) Unless he has one of those self-driving cars. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Who says that? Remember that I answer questions in TeX.SX when I drive my bike. ;-)

hhh

How to get "Figure 1" with reference not just number?

\label{fig:hello} and then \ref{fig:hello} returns only the number of the figure without the name of Figure...

Marco Daniel

@PauloCereda Unfortunately my beloved car was stolen. But I am sure my next car will be a BMW, too ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@MarcoDaniel Oh no. :( Get a Mercedes-Benz too.

Marco Daniel

@PauloCereda At the moment I am using a slow VW

hhh

1:00 PM

Moved the q here.

Paulo Cereda

@MarcoDaniel Define slow, si vous plait. :)

Marco Daniel

@PauloCereda 140km/h - 180km/h ;-)

Alan Munn

@hhh There are lots of options. See:

58

Q: Cross-reference packages: which to use, which conflict?

Inspired by my earlier question Theorem packages: which to use, which conflict?, here is another similar question. There are many different packages for making cross references. Among them hyperref, cleveref, varioref, theoremref, nameref… The ntheorem package defines its own cross-referencing c...

packages cross-referencing incompatibility

Paulo Cereda

@MarcoDaniel LOL I was expecting that. I drive 100~110kmph. :)

Marco Daniel

@PauloCereda No -- I think this is too slow for some parts of our freeways (autobahn);-)

Paulo Cereda

1:03 PM

@Marco: @David also drives very fast, after all he has to cross the bridges in England. And according to reliable sources, they are all falling down!

@MarcoDaniel I can't wait to visit you and Patrick. :)

Marco Daniel

@PauloCereda I will always have a guestroom ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@MarcoDaniel If you get the BMW, I'll sleep in the car. :)

But first, I'll need to pick up @percusse with the BMW. :)

Donut E. Knot, sandwiched in your armpit

751 2 60 176

tikz-pgf pstricks graphics diagrams math-mode best-practices equations

I LOL'ed.

egreg

@PauloCereda 9997th name?

@egreg Yep. :)

@PauloCereda :-)

1:18 PM

2:01 PM

@PauloCereda Watermelon cube: news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1390000/images/…

@DonutE.Knot ooh!

@PauloCereda :-)

@egreg Oh good

2:24 PM

(\emph{values}) or \emph{(values)}? The second seems more correct to me.

egreg

@PauloCereda \emph{\textup(values\textup)}

Slanted parentheses are evil.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Thank you! What is \textup?

egreg

@PauloCereda The version with argument of \upshape

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Ah I see. Thank you. :)

It looks much better.

egreg

One should write \textup{(} to be conformant to the guidelines, but for upright parentheses I prefer it without braces.

Paulo Cereda

2:37 PM

@egreg :)

@egreg: when I arrived from São Paulo, a couple of friends asked me if I saw something different. When I said I didn't, they sent me this link: globotv.globo.com/rede-globo/bom-dia-sao-paulo/v/…

hhh

How can I do an intended example box like with a bit darker color to make it separate from definitions?

tex.stackexchange.com/questions/123338/… found this but wanting less expressive box

this is nicer, tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38354/…

egreg

3:06 PM

@PauloCereda Was the building occupied by students?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda no a VW (2 actually:-)

egreg

@PauloCereda But it happened well before you could arrive in town.

Paulo Cereda

3:38 PM

@egreg Yes, but the story was lasting at least 2 months. :)

@egreg Yep, and I was in the far other side of the campus. :)

@DavidCarlisle Porsche. :) You know it's from VW right? :)

Or 2 Jetta's. :)

Oh wait, 2 Lamborghini's!

Also from VW.

Or 2 Audi's.

Also from VW.

Or you could borrow @Joseph's Bentley Continental GT. Also from VW. :)

morbusg

4:37 PM

Have you guys seen these: youtube.com/watch?v=C3vILM2cNuo ? I thought they were rather interesting (Knuth's TeX mini-course from '81)

2

Interesting to see what had changed in, well, I guess Plain.

Joseph Wright

@morbusg Highlights?

morbusg

@Joseph: plenty, I should've taken down the times. But basically he goes through the basics in a very concise, to-the-point, easy-to-follow manner

egreg

@morbusg The technology is rather different. ;-)

morbusg

changes to the Plain I know, were for example: today's \ell was \scrl (or \lscr), and, if I understood correctly, \cases was \lpile (there was also \cpile and \rpile)

@egreg: I can only imagine :)

Paulo Cereda

@morbusg: you are my inspiration to learn plain TeX together with the new kids on the block. :)

aka L3. :)

morbusg

4:56 PM

@Paulo: Oooh, thank you :) I think it'd be neat to have a webapp-frontend for a Markdown-driven document-design thingy which would spew out just primitives

Oh, and "plain" was called "basic" !

morbusg

5:20 PM

@Paulo: a lot of the plain macros could be just not defined with xe-/luatex, though. In that regard, I kinda hoped that that question wasn't closed (or put on hold)

Paulo Cereda

@morbusg :)

David Carlisle

6:48 PM

I think it's because @PauloCereda votes without looking:-) — David Carlisle 25 secs ago

Paulo Cereda

7:22 PM

@DavidCarlisle <3

Upvoted! Now let's see what the question is all about...

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda :-)

Realz Slaw

save me!

3

Q: Partial scope transparency in TikZ

When I try to use scope fading, in a scope, it seems to clip the rest of the scope that is not inside the fading rectangle. Interestingly, it seems to clip it at a random place. Some code and pictures: \documentclass[tikz,margin=5em]{standalone} \usepackage{intcalc,calc} \usepackage{tikz} \usep...

tikz-pgf transparency scoping

Paulo Cereda

8:44 PM

Guys, say I have \def\foo{paulo}. Is there an easy way (possibly L3-y) to get the first letter, p?

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xparse}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\abbreviation}{ m } {
     \paulo_generate_abbreviation:n { #1 }
 }

\seq_new:N \l_paulo_abbrev_seq

\cs_new_protected:Npn \paulo_generate_abbreviation:n #1 {
  \seq_set_split:Nnn \l_paulo_abbrev_seq { ~ } { #1 }
  \seq_pop_left:NN \l_paulo_abbrev_seq \l_paulo_firstname
  \seq_pop_right:NN \l_paulo_abbrev_seq \l_paulo_lastname
  { \l_paulo_firstname } ~
  \seq_map_inline:Nn \l_paulo_abbrev_seq {
    \seq_set_split:Nnn \l_tmpa_seq { } { ##1 }

@egreg: how bad do you think this code is? :)

It's my humble attempt. :)

egreg

9:05 PM

@PauloCereda Look for \tl_item:nn

Paulo Cereda

@egreg It works! Thank you! :)

I'm getting there. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Here's my improved version

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xparse}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\abbreviation}{ m } {
     \paulo_generate_abbreviation:n { #1 }
 }

\seq_new:N \l_paulo_abbrev_seq
\tl_new:N \l_paulo_firstname_tl
\tl_new:N \l_paulo_lastname_tl

\cs_new_protected:Npn \paulo_generate_abbreviation:n #1
 {
  \seq_set_split:Nnn \l_paulo_abbrev_seq { ~ } { #1 }
  \int_compare:nTF { \seq_count:N \l_paulo_abbrev_seq <= 2 }
   {
    #1
   }
   {
    \seq_pop_left:NN \l_paulo_abbrev_seq \l_paulo_firstname_tl

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Wow, thank you! I see the optimizations. :) Sorry to bother you with my newbieness (is this a proper noun?). :)

egreg

9:35 PM

@PauloCereda Of course this wouldn't work with \abbreviation{Paulo Álvaro Cereda}

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Oh my! I thought it would.

Why does that happen?

egreg

@PauloCereda If you use pdflatex, Á is two bytes, but \tl_item:nn { ##1 } { 1 } only grabs one.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Ah.

egreg

@PauloCereda There's not much one can do about it, lest than using a one byte encoding.

Paulo Cereda

10:07 PM

@egreg What if I replace the accents in the words before applying the rule?

egreg

@PauloCereda \'A wouldn't work anyway, because of the same problem.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I meant, Álvaro by Alvaro.

egreg

@PauloCereda Oh, that would work, but it would be wrong. ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@egreg I think that's the way ABNT requires. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Oh, if it's ABNT …

Paulo Cereda

10:09 PM

@egreg Yep, the very same. :)

Paulo Cereda

10:27 PM

@egreg: is there any easy conversion or we should go case by case? :)

David Carlisle

10:45 PM

@PauloCereda if its pdftex and you grab the first byte then if the current encoding is utf8 and the character code is > 127 then you can grab the following byte repeatedly until you get a code <128 then re-constitute the utf8.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Ah I like the sound of this trickery. :) Actually, I don't believe a reconstitution is needed; if it's Á and if I can get A, I'm already happy. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda you won't get A you'll get a mess if you just take the first utf8 byte of the character,

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Oh my! You mean I get the byte codification? That's why I have to reconstitute?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda Or just demand the authors write in English without any of these annoying smudges over the letters

@PauloCereda yes

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle I wish. :) I have a crazy project of writing the definitive guide for theses and dissertations in LaTeX, complying with ABNT.

@AlanMunn:

►

:)

Alan Munn

11:03 PM

@PauloCereda Ha ha. I wonder how many takes that took to record.

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn LOL

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda I coded this up but would you believe it, it doesn't work!

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle /gasp how come?!

:)

David Carlisle

11:25 PM

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\def\abbreviation#1{\xabr. #1 \relax}

\def\xabr#1 #2{%
  \ifx\relax#2%
   \else
   \expandafter\xxabr\expandafter#2%
  \fi}

\def\xxabr#1{%
  \ifnum\expandafter`\string#1<128
  #1\expandafter\@firstoftwo
  \else
     \expandafter\@secondoftwo
 \fi
 \xabr{\xxxabr{#1}}}%

\def\xxxabr#1#2{%
  \ifnum\expandafter`\string#2<128
  #1\expandafter\@firstoftwo
  \else
     \expandafter\@secondoftwo
 \fi
 \xabr{\xxxabr{#1#2}}}%


\begin{document}

@PauloCereda apparently I don't always type what's in my head

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Wow! Thank you.

I have absolutely no idea of what your code does. :)

Fair enough, I have some suspicions. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda you only want to do that if \inputencodingname is utf8