TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Paulo Cereda

12:02 AM

@AlanMunn I also starred that one. :)

pogo-otter

6:45 AM

@PauloCereda what's the thesis about?

yo'

8:47 AM

Hello, anybody can find the question about MikTeX claiming a package is not installed even when it is installed, please?

Paulo Cereda

9:45 AM

@pogo-otter That's a good question. :) It's about rewriting systems. :)

egreg

10:11 AM

@PauloCereda A system for rewriting theses?

Paulo Cereda

@egreg ooh that could be an application!

pogo-otter

11:53 AM

@PauloCereda It sounds indeed like there'd be not that many plots :D so what's plot #1 showing?

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter The progress of my thesis over time. It might be an exponential function. :)

pogo-otter

@PauloCereda considering what an extraodinarily rude question it is when people ask about the progress of one's PhD thesis i'd say that's quite an unusual thing to visualise.

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter There's a procrastination section in my plot. :)

It covers most of it. :)

pogo-otter

12:08 PM

@PauloCereda i hear you. I assembled... THE AVENGERS .. eh.. a lot of the text parts that i wrote over time and now I am seriously procrastinating because i can't decide on the structure. it's so stupid, i'm constantly amazed. (and thereby further procrastinate, yay.)

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter oooh

@pogo-otter: Martin wrote all of these packages while writing his thesis: ctan.org/author/scharrer

pogo-otter

@PauloCereda wow, how long did it take him to finish his thesis? (at least he's got cool stuff to show for)

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter Martin finished in record time, IIRC. He's German, so think of excelence. :)

pogo-otter

@PauloCereda that's what people always expect of germans folks, yet here i sit (but thanks for linking his site, found helpful stuff already)

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter Germans <3

pogo-otter

12:22 PM

@PauloCereda yeah. we got the best food. everything's better with butter, y'know ;)

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter I had German food on Tuesday while in São Paulo, but according to the blokes here the food is actually not German at all. :D

pogo-otter

@PauloCereda it never is, and it's one of the best reasons for travelling. :) - actually it's nice here atm, we got something like summer.

Aaron Hall

1:11 PM

Is there a way to import variables from another file?

I want to put my resume on github in a public repo, but I don't want my phone number and email on it.

(and some other things)

elp elp!

Torbjørn T.

@AaronHall Add e.g. \newcommand\myphonenumber{123456789} and \newcommand\myemail{\url{dude@place.org}} in something.tex, add \input{something} in the preamble of your cv, and use \myphonenumber.

Aaron Hall

that would seem to be able to work! Thanks!

:)

do you think that's all I need to know?

I'll try it and ask more questions if I run into problemos.

Aaron Hall

2:08 PM

@TorbjørnT. I did it on the train on the way to work, just as you suggested.

And it worked!

So now I can commit the resume and put it on github, and share it!

Although now it makes me a little worried that resumes nearly identical to mine are going to start floating around out there.

yo'

@TorbjørnT. ooooh clever :)

Aaron Hall

(I worry a little about the style though)

Paulo Cereda

5446, that's your number? :)

Aaron Hall

Maybe identity theft?

now I'm thinking about getting a private repo again...

Paulo Cereda

(no one gets my musical references /sob)

Aaron Hall

2:15 PM

1337 is my number.

I also answer to rockstar

yo'

@StefanKottwitz @PauloCereda @JosephWright Ad domain: seems I'll make it tomh at the european domain.

Joseph Wright

@yo' :-)

Paulo Cereda

@yo' oooh

Aaron Hall

I want to write an orgmode export for this resume thing, though.

yo'

@JosephWright now the hosting... :-)

Aaron Hall

2:20 PM

Why is it \documentclass[options]{style} instead of \documentclass{style[options]} - ? is that a Lamport thing or a Knuth thing?

Joseph Wright

@AaronHall LaTeX optional arguments are in square brackets

Aaron Hall

ok, fixed.

Joseph Wright

@AaronHall Mandatory arguments are in braces: that goes back to Knuth, the optional/mandatory business is from Lamport

yo'

@AaronHall Well, both. Knuth's thing is having mandatory arguments in {}. Lamport chose [] because it's the best available thing -- you don't want to confuse people with overloaing (). And having a parameter inside a parameter: sounds bad, looks weird :-)

Joseph Wright

@AaronHall LaTeX is pretty consistent with this (we are working to make it ever more so)

Aaron Hall

2:25 PM

Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star

Paulo Cereda

@AaronHall I thought it was about No Man's Sky. :)

Aaron Hall

& when we get there we find out we've already been there, but the radiation has died off to the point it's livable again.

(I also have that suspicion about Venus, but to rehabitate it would require shielding it, at least partly, from the sun, for years).

the shielding would have to be so large that we'd need to put it on the Sun's side of the gravitational LaGrangian point because of the solar wind.

pogo-otter

@PauloCereda not good music to work by

Aaron Hall

that's the best theory I've got, anyways.

Paulo Cereda

@pogo-otter Nope. :)

@AaronHall I have a theory that all species, including dinosaurs, are still around, they are just hiding. :)

Ducks aren't bright animals, I am afraid. :)

Aaron Hall

2:36 PM

well there's giant crocs, snakes, and lizards and such, but I would think any species that we consider real dinosaurs would have been spotted by now. They're too big not to be.

yo'

@AaronHall Giant crocs?

Aaron Hall

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, we wouldn't consider those "real dinosaurs".

assets.amuniversal.com/f07436109e14012f2fe500163e41dd5b

dilbert.com/strip/1993-06-04

Paulo Cereda

@AaronHall That's where I got my theory from. :)

yo'

@AaronHall you can't do that, I'm supposed to be working, not reading Dilbert!!!

Aaron Hall

2:53 PM

sorry, I tried to one-box it, but Scott Adams apparently doesn't like the idea. You can tweet your displeasure at him, if you wish.

Paulo Cereda

Scott Adams has no strings on us. :)

pogo-otter

assets.amuniversal.com/91fe7a506cb801301d46001dd8b71c47

Aaron Hall

@PauloCereda you cheated.

Paulo Cereda

@AaronHall /sobs

yo'

@AaronHall he always does. Read his thesis to find out.

Paulo Cereda

3:05 PM

@yo' /sobs theoretically

yo'

@PauloCereda /hugs

Paulo Cereda

@yo' /hugs back

David Carlisle

4:10 PM

@AaronHall specifically \documentclass neither of those people:-)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle :-)

@DavidCarlisle I see you are about :-)

@DavidCarlisle I'll probably get back on the \begin[keys] thread this evening: I think I have something useful to say :-)

Torbjørn T.

@yo' Yes, I'm sure no one has ever thought of it before, so I'm guaranteed to a prize.

yo'

@barbarabeeton Please, have you looked into eqnalign?

@TorbjørnT. well, I've included "ini" files before, so.... :-)

David Carlisle

@JosephWright off and on

barbara beeton

@yo' -- not that i remember, although i'm sure that you've asked before. i have just opened that link, and find this comment "we do not advise to use it in anything that is to be submitted anywhere." to be "interesting". i shall look very soon.

yo'

4:18 PM

@barbarabeeton I mean it seriously; it's just a quick fix, after all :-)

yo'

4:35 PM

@barbarabeeton I'm asking because I'd like to push it to CTAN sooner or later.

phell

Hello (La)TeX lovers! :)

Joseph Wright

@phell Hello

phell

I think I finished my licentiate theses now. I am very grateful to everyone for their help. I never imagined LaTeX would be this much fun!

shares home bakes saffron buns with everyone

Johannes_B

@phell LaTeX can be fun. :-)

@phell Yay :-)

@phell Congratulations

phell

Thank you! I don't envy the ones using Word for their thesis. They look like they are about to cry in the end.

I even got my little sister to get interested in LaTeX. She also wants to become a PhD student.

Alan Munn

4:52 PM

@phell Yes, LaTeX: cry at the beginning. Word: cry at the end. :)

8

David Carlisle

@AlanMunn and ibm golfball?

phell

Hee hee hee! I did struggle in the beginning. But we had a course in academic writing in LaTeX and the teacher is awesome.

barbara beeton

@yo' -- okay, i've downloaded it (piece by piece), and will have at it. i didn't manage to succeed in downloading the .ins file -- firefox insists on downloading it as an .html file; yeccch! (i haven't learned how to "pull" from github, and today isn't the day to try to learn.)

phell

@barba

@barbarabeeton Sometimes you can hold shift when you save and it changes how it is saved, IIRC.

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- oh, it's [it was] even more fun with an ibm executive typewriter, and india ink for filling in things that can't be typed, like syntax trees.

David Carlisle

4:55 PM

@phell barbara hasn't got a shift key:-)

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle Or in the case of @egreg clay tablet and stylus?

egreg

@AlanMunn I preferred papyrus

barbara beeton

@phell -- good idea, but didn't work. still has all the html code. but for my immediate purposes, i don't really need that file. thanks for the suggestion though.

@phell -- where did you have this "course in academic writing in LaTeX"? (i'm collecting this information for tug -- the tex users group -- and where can i find out more about it?)

phell

@barbarabeeton I will find the link to the home page.

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- barbara does have a shift key, but its use is severely restricted. at least for another year or so.

phell

5:03 PM

@barbarabeeton http://www.mdh.se/forskning/forskarutbildning/kurser-forskarniva/hogskolegemensamma-forskarutbildningskurser/vetenskapligt-skrivande-med-latex-1.85732

The information is in Swedish but the course was held in English.

barbara beeton

@phell -- thanks much. and i admire your little sister's ambition. keep on encouraging her, but gently.

phell

@barbarabeeton I will be gentle. It was actually she who said she wanted to learn using LaTeX.

barbara beeton

@phell -- neat! (i can get my husband to help out if i have trouble reading it.)

@phell -- she sounds like an intelligent young lady.

phell

@barbarabeeton Oh, is he Scandinavian?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Cry all the way down. :)

phell

5:07 PM

@barbarabeeton Yes, she has always impressed me. I think she might be even smarter than our father.

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn in the multiverse theory, my thesis is already written. :)

barbara beeton

@phell -- no, but his grandmother, who lived with his parents, was swedish. and his academic concentration was ancient germanic languages.

Paulo Cereda

Oct 4 '11 at 21:13, by Paulo Cereda

So this friend of mine was in a TCS conference. He saw a girl approaching, came closer to her and said, "Do you like using LaTeX?". She punched him in the face, said "Idiot!" and walked away. He was like, "Oh boy, another MS Word user..."

@phell: ^^ true story. :)

phell

@barbarabeeton That sounds interesting. :)

@PauloCereda Hee hee hee. I think I will try that one someday.

My wife is calling for me. Talk to you later and take care! :)

Paulo Cereda

Dec 16 '13 at 20:28, by Paulo Cereda

So I was coding while waiting for my bus... a girl sat near me, looked at my screen and said, "ooh that's vim!"... needless to say, I was shocked... then she took a closer look and exclaimed, "that is LaTeX, isn't it? I oughtta learn it someday..." What are the odds?! I almost said, "Marry me. Now." :P

This one is also a jewel. :)

phell

5:12 PM

@PauloCereda I thought the punch line would be. "Heretic! I would never use vim, this is emacs."

Paulo Cereda

@phell We vim blokes are wacky. :)

Not as wacky as emacs people, like @DavidCarlisle. :)

Aug 8 '15 at 20:07, by Paulo Cereda

You: Hey, are you defined as a robust command?
Girl: What?!
You: Because my heart is fragile for you. <3
Girl: WHAT?!

Awww the memories. :)

barbara beeton

@phell -- yes, but he ended up in computer security; he and his thesis advisor didn't see eye to eye on the advisor's research specialty.

samcarter

@barbarabeeton Instead of downloading piecewise, there should be a button "clone or download" on the top right. This will open a dropdown where one can select "download zip"

barbara beeton

5:28 PM

@samcarter -- aha! that worked! thanks.

samcarter

@barbarabeeton You're welcome!

CarLaTeX

6:32 PM

@moewe I've edited my answer tex.stackexchange.com/a/326396/101651 according to your suggestions, please check if I've done well, thank you!

yo'

6:49 PM

@barbarabeeton github.com/tohecz/eqnalign/archive/master.zip is the ZIP

Gigili

7:18 PM

Hallo

I have a weird issue

LaTeX warning is something that does not exist in the whole document

[6]

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 432.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 432.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 432.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 432.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 436.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 436.

LaTeX Warning: Command \nobreakspace invalid in math mode on input line 436.

There you go

egreg

7:40 PM

@Gigili Apparently you have ~ in math mode

CarLaTeX

8:12 PM

@moewe Thank you for your editing! Ciao!

Diaa Abidou

8:28 PM

Hello,
My last question was solved by inserting this piece of code

\newbox{\tbox}
\def\instext#1{\global\setbox\tbox=\hbox{#1}\copy\tbox}
\def\inswidth{\hspace*{0.4\wd\tbox}}

can somebody explain to me what the role of 0.4 is?

I asked whom answered my question, but he seemed to be offline.

egreg

@DiaaAbidou Just what it's said in the answer: it inserts a space as wide as 40% of the width of the most recent instance of \instext

Diaa Abidou

@egreg I am sorry, but why other values than 0.4 deteriorate the centering of the multicolumn header? For example, I tried 0.8 and I get the following. I thought it is just a space that evenly engulfs the multicolumn header, which seems to not be true.

egreg

@DiaaAbidou Sorry, but it's not that easy to get

Diaa Abidou

@egreg I understand. Many thanks for consideration.

Ulrike Fischer

8:50 PM

:31839918

Alan Munn

11:20 PM

At the start of every semester I thank LaTeX and arara for helping to make two versions of a syllabus for the course I supervise in a single compilation.

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