TeX, LaTeX and Friends - 2013-09-20 (page 1 of 2)

12:01 AM

@HarishKumar oh yes of course, it was just being polite and warning me:-)

3:14 AM

@DavidCarlisle ok so it sounds like I should give using the enumitem package a try. In fact, that question seems to do most of what I want, except for the question lines. Is there a good place to go and start reading/learning about it?

David Carlisle

7:23 AM

@nebffa texdoc enumitem in texlive or the equivalent thing in miktex or texdoc.net/texmf-dist/doc/latex/enumitem/enumitem.pdf

PGFTricks

Just an advertisement:

latextypesetting.com/pricing

Nicola Talbot

7:44 AM

Anyone know what's happened to CTAN? It's been down since at least yesterday evening.

Joseph Wright

7:54 AM

@NicolaTalbot No idea

Nicola Talbot

@JosephWright At least the UK catalogue and the mirrors are still available.

Joseph Wright

@NicolaTalbot I've e-mailed Robin

Nicola Talbot

@JosephWright Good idea. Thanks.

egreg

8:55 AM

@HarishKumar Usually more than 5 hours. ;-)

David Carlisle

@HarishKumar what you don't realise is that @egreg can answer TeX questions while sleeping.

6

LaRiFaRi

Hi, a question about English: How do you literally read f(x)? In German we say "f von x". I hope you understand what I mean.

egreg

@LaRiFaRi "ef of ex"?

LaRiFaRi

is that the answer? In Germany we say "ef of ex" for "the function with the argument x"

Would you read: "f of x equals x squared" when you see "f(x) = x^2"?

David Carlisle

9:12 AM

@LaRiFaRi yes

LaRiFaRi

ok, thanks.

egreg

9:40 AM

@LaRiFaRi The notation has been introduced by Euler, but I don't know how he read it in Latin. But I guess it's the same in all languages; we say "effe di ics".

LaRiFaRi

10:25 AM

@egreg Ah, that's from Euler? Cool. Like that guy (fluid mechanics engineer...). Thanks for your info

egreg

10:38 AM

@LaRiFaRi Fluid mechanics engineer? That's quite reductive. ;-)

Paulo Cereda

Yay, I got me a copy of another jewel by Don and friends!

amazon.com/Concrete-Mathematics-Foundation-Computer-Science/dp/…

LaRiFaRi

@egreg sorry, my English is to bad to no the word reductive. But I hope you were talking about the fluid mechanics guru with name Euler...

to know

Paulo Cereda

Operation "Jake 100k" in progress. :)

Nicola Talbot

10:55 AM

Is @gonzalo around? Check this out:

amazon.com/Cuac-Devuelveme-Sombrero-Spanish-Edition/dp/…

egreg

@LaRiFaRi Reductive: tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form. Euler was one of the best mathematicians of all times. Surely the one with the largest scientific production in all fields of pure and applied mathematics.

Nicola Talbot

(They seem to have lost the inverted exclamation mark.)

Paulo Cereda

@NicolaTalbot Sweet! :)

Un patito con un sombrero... wow.

Nicola Talbot

@PauloCereda They haven't got the cover yet. Check out dickimaw-books.com/fiction/kids/duck-es

Paulo Cereda

@NicolaTalbot ooh! :)

And I'm in debt with the Portuguese version. /ducks

I'll try to work on it. :(

Nicola Talbot

10:58 AM

@PauloCereda Good things come to those who wait. :-)

Paulo Cereda

@NicolaTalbot :)

Suddenly, a Bon Jovi song came to my mind. Oh my. :P

Nicola Talbot

:-) We had to change the font as the inverted exclamation mark doesn't look good in arev.

Paulo Cereda

@NicolaTalbot Actually, I think we can make things rhyme in Portuguese!

Nicola Talbot

@PauloCereda Ooh! Yay! :-)

Paulo Cereda

@NicolaTalbot Of course, we would need some rewording. :) "Quá quá quá, traga meu chapéu para cá!"

Mario S. E.

11:01 AM

hi guys

Paulo Cereda

@MarioS.E. It's-a you, Mario! :)

Mario S. E.

just another day here in paradise Porto :) I'm melting!!

Nicola Talbot

@PauloCereda :-)

@MarioS.E. Hello!

Paulo Cereda

@MarioS.E. How hot is it? :)

Mario S. E.

@PauloCereda 25-30

@NicolaTalbot Hi Nicola, long time no see

LaRiFaRi

11:03 AM

@egreg OK, than we are talking about the same guy. Yes you are right. That was reductive. But in turbomachinery (like in many other topics), the name Euler is all around.

Mario S. E.

when is autumn coming? (Not suitable for British fellows :P )

Nicola Talbot

@MarioS.E. I had an urgent project that's kept me busy, but things are easing up a bit now.

Paulo Cereda

@MarioS.E. Cool! :) 25°C in here. :)

Mario S. E.

@NicolaTalbot I had one too: I got married!

Nicola Talbot

@MarioS.E. Wow! Congratulations! :-)

Paulo Cereda

11:04 AM

No wedding cake. :(

Nicola Talbot

@PauloCereda It's 15℃ here.

Mario S. E.

@PauloCereda Hey, did you checked the Google doodle the other day? They had a Foucault pendulum. I remember I once saw it in a "Discover Channel" type of program when I was a kid and I tried to replicate the experiment... Needless to say, back in Lima, Peru it doesn't work :( Did the same happeneed to you in Brazil?

@NicolaTalbot Thanks! It was a wonderful night. We had a lot of fun and my bride looked beautiful!

Jake

Uh oh, I think I'll get a "Serial upvoting reversed" soon: tex.stackexchange.com/users/2552/jake?tab=reputation

Paulo Cereda

@MarioS.E. I never tried, but some friends of mine had a bad time trying to reproduce the experiment. :)

Nicola Talbot

@Jake Arh! :-) Did you go have a honeymoon - go anywhere interesting?

Mario S. E.

11:07 AM

@PauloCereda Hahahaha, I know... I saw the doodle and I actually got mad hehehehehe

Paulo Cereda

@Jake Oh no! I've been spotted! Cheese it!

Mario S. E.

@NicolaTalbot We went to "San José de la Montaña", near the city. We were thinking about going to the beach, but we both hate it... so we decided to go somewhere cold :)

Jake

@PauloCereda Hehe!

Nicola Talbot

@MarioS.E. :-) We went somewhere cold for ours: the Scottish highlands in the depths of winter (Jan '97). ;-)

egreg

@MarioS.E. As late as possible! I want to go touring!

Mario S. E.

11:14 AM

@egreg touring with a bike? or touring like a tourist and a backpack?

egreg

@MarioS.E. A motorbike

Mario S. E.

@NicolaTalbot We loved Scotland! We only were in Edinburgh for a couple of nights, but it was soooooooooooo beautiful. I really really liked it, although it was impossible for me to understand what people were talking

@egreg Harley-Davidson fan?

egreg

@MarioS.E. UH! Honda. ;-)

This is the planned destination for tomorrow

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482. The town, nestled on a high sloping hillside, retains much of its picturesque medieval aspect, only slightly marred by the large car parks below the town. It hosts the University of Urbino, founded in 1506, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Urbino. Its best-known architectural piece is the Palazzo Ducale, rebuilt b...

Nicola Talbot

@MarioS.E. It's even more impossible in Glasgow ;-) But it is a beautiful country.

Paulo Cereda

GrowMyHair

117 5

o.O

Mario S. E.

11:18 AM

@egreg So, let's say I want a second honeymoon... but I want to go to Toscana. Where would you recommend to pass by?

@NicolaTalbot We had such big luck, the days where sunny and beautiful. Even the tour guide said: "(poiting to the blue sky)... This... this what you are seeing... this is a mistake... weather here is not like this, don't get the wrong impression"

Nicola Talbot

@MarioS.E. I'll have to see if I can find some photos.

Mario S. E.

11:39 AM

historical question: Why is it that Times New Roman are the "scientific" fonts?

David Carlisle

@MarioS.E. well versions of Times (with or without "New") are generally common anyway. Not ubiquitous on scientific publications though especially not those set in TeX where cm is probably still more common. The number of mathematical font sets available on pre-digital typesetting equipment was of course limited so there would not have been that many fonts to choose from anyway.

Mario S. E.

@DavidCarlisle So David, would you prefer for all scientific papers to be "standarized" on their fonts or would you prefer more "diversity"

David Carlisle

@MarioS.E. I don't really read that many scientific papers these days. I'd prefer they were published in HTML+MathML so the reader could choose the font:-)

Mario S. E.

@DavidCarlisle Makes a lot of sense... but brace yourself for lots of comic sans copies during lectures...

LaRiFaRi

12:03 PM

@DavidCarlisle Hi, one question. Are {}-brackets used for something in math-mode? E.g. if I type $f{x}$. Nothing happens. Is that functionality "free" for use of macros?

egreg

@LaRiFaRi They're used for denoting sets: $\{x\in N: ...\}$ , but you have to call them \{ and \}

@MarioS.E. Firenze, Siena (and all its surroundings) and Pisa. But also Arezzo and its large province. Next (not Tuscany, but nearby), Perugia. There are scores of small towns worthy a visit.

LaRiFaRi

@egreg yes, I know this use. But just the brackets seem to be ignored. I was wondering, if the pure use of {} could be recognised like a command.

egreg

@LaRiFaRi They still have the normal grouping and argument delimiter functions.

LaRiFaRi

@egreg But without some \macro in front of the brackets, you can't adress them, right?

egreg

@LaRiFaRi I don't get it.

LaRiFaRi

12:17 PM

@egreg E.g. I would like to say: If there is some use of {}, do something. (as it is not used for now)

@egreg If I type $f{x}$, the brackets get ignored. Could I somehow define a function to recognize the use of the brackets and to do something with the x?

egreg

@LaRiFaRi Not if they don't follow a macro name

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Just out of interest.

David Carlisle

@LaRiFaRi They don't do nothing, they make a mathord which affects spacing (but x is a mathord already compare x-y and x{-}y they also freeze spacing at its natural width and prevent line breaking (like \hbox

LaRiFaRi

OK, that's what I asked

@egreg Ah, interesting. I will try these. Never used these brackets before if not used with a macro or as \{ \}

Paulo Cereda

... science}~--~a...

egreg

12:20 PM

@LaRiFaRi $f(x)$ does use the right spacing and, IMO, is much clearer than $f\of x$ .

Paulo Cereda

Shouldn't this be an unbreakable space?

egreg

@PauloCereda Either thin spaces or ---

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Yes, but today I came up with this thought tex.stackexchange.com/questions/134246/…

egreg

@LaRiFaRi Sorry, but I can't understand why you'd want such things. The meaning of $f(a)$ is exactly what you mean by $f(x)|_{x=a}$ (which is nonsense, in my opinion).

LaRiFaRi

@egreg yes, this topic is not that important. But I want to achieve the spacing in front of functions and derivatives and increments

I don't like, that they are stuck together and I always use \,

egreg

12:41 PM

@LaRiFaRi Can you make an example?

Mario S. E.

@egreg, I became interested in the Tschichold's pamphlet you were talking about

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Yes, $x\mathup{d}x$ . I write $x\,\mathup{d}x$ then, cause I don't like the original spacing

egreg

@MarioS.E. It's included in this book

amazon.it/Form-Book-Essays-Morality-Design/dp/0881790346/…

@LaRiFaRi \newcommand{\diff}{\mathop{}\!\mathrm{d}} and then $x\diff x$

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Or $T\increment S$. I see the "increment S" as one variable, thats why I would like to separate it a bit

Mario S. E.

:11313901 I was trying to imitate his textblock with A4 paper, so I set my geometry package like this: RequirePackage[outer=46.666666mm,inner=23.333333mm,top=23.333333mm,bottom=46.666666mm,headheight=15pt]{geometry}

egreg

12:47 PM

@LaRiFaRi How do you define \increment?

David Carlisle

@LaRiFaRi note my answer on site and egreg's here come to variants of the same thing: don't define \of define \diff or \f or whatever in terms of \mathop

Mario S. E.

is \indent by default 1 em?

LaRiFaRi

@egreg as S_2 - S_1. Or what do you mean

David Carlisle

@MarioS.E. Not really, it is \parindent which is 0pt in a raw initex and set to whatever by the document class

egreg

@MarioS.E. Not in LaTeX's standard classes, where it's set to 15pt

@LaRiFaRi \increment is not a standard macro; what's its definition?

LaRiFaRi

12:49 PM

@DavidCarlisle I will try that \diff comment. Maybe \mathop does all what I what

Mario S. E.

@egreg, @DavidCarlisle shouldn't it be 1 em? (is this what this: 37signals.com/svn/posts/… means?)

LaRiFaRi

@egreg hehe, you showed me that in some question of mine... I meand the upright Delta

mean

egreg

@LaRiFaRi Really? ;-)

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Or I read it somewhere else. Think it was you, but maybe I am mistaken

egreg

@LaRiFaRi But I surely don't remember it. Can you show the definition?

David Carlisle

12:51 PM

@MarioS.E. Ironic that the setting of that text is centred and horrible:-) But anyway it's just J.T.'s advice he's not god there is no should in design.

LaRiFaRi

@egreg tex.stackexchange.com/a/76564

in your last comment

Mario S. E.

@DavidCarlisle Hahahaha, yes, I noticed the same: it is almost impossible to read... So... is parindent set by the class on what basis?

David Carlisle

@MarioS.E. Also 1em in what font? The document default font, the font in the paragraph about to be set or...

Mario S. E.

@DavidCarlisle That's why I was asking... I have no idea what are "the rules" for this

David Carlisle

@MarioS.E. Leslie Lamport's whim when setting something around 1982.

egreg

12:55 PM

@LaRiFaRi Ah, yes. The Laplace operator and the increment operator should be distinct objects (that's why physicists use nabla for the Laplace operator). If you want an \incr operator similar to \diff above, define \newcommand{\incr}{\mathop{}\!{\increment}}

Mario S. E.

So, in order to comply with what is said here: retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmony Should I set my geometry package to this: \RequirePackage[outer=46.666666mm,inner=23.333333mm,top=23.333333mm,bottom=46.66‌6666mm,headheight=15pt]{geometry}

David Carlisle

it is set in the latex format `\parindent=20pt \parskip=0pt plus 1pt` the for example size10.clo used by the standard classes does `\if@twocolumn
\setlength\parindent{1em}
\else
\setlength\parindent{15\p@}
\fi
`

@MarioS.E. You do know how big 0.000006mm is don't you:-)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle However, this will use the cmr10's em, which might be different from the document main font's em. \AtBeginDocument{\setlength{\parindent}{1em}} would be safer (after loading all font packages).

Mario S. E.

@DavidCarlisle Hahahaha, yes, I know... I just copy pasted from calculator

LaRiFaRi

@egreg Thanks for your time. I will play around with what you gave me so far.

@egreg Maybe I am fine with that.

David Carlisle

1:00 PM

@egreg yes, see question I asked above:-)

Nicola Talbot

The TeXbook says that \overwithdelims uses a bar whose thickness is the default for the current size, but I can find anywhere how to find the default size. Anyone know? For example:

\tracingall

$x \overwithdelims() y$

\bye

David Carlisle

@NicolaTalbot \fontdimen something (I have an answer listing them all somewhere:-)

@NicolaTalbot x8 I guess tex.stackexchange.com/questions/88991/…

egreg

@DavidCarlisle \fontdimen8\textfont2 (or \scriptfont2 or \scriptscriptfont2)

David Carlisle

@egreg as I said in my answer, luckily:-)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I guess the source was reliable.

Nicola Talbot

1:05 PM

@DavidCarlisle, @egreg Thanks :-)

David Carlisle

@egreg "fair use" not "plagiarism"

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Did I say something? I looked in the TeXbook!

David Carlisle

@egreg where else but I thought you referring to a similarity of the words there and in my answer:-)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle This reminds me what an examiner asked my brother (he was studying medicine, at the time): “How do you remember all the standard values when evaluating blood analyses reports?” The correct answer was ”Read them off the book”.

David Carlisle

:-)

Nicola Talbot

1:36 PM

@egreg It looks like it might be \textfont3 rather than \textfont2 (unless I'm doing something wrong!)

\newdimen\tmpdimen

$$
  {x \overwithdelims() y}
\tmpdimen=\fontdimen8\textfont2
\showthe\tmpdimen
  {x \abovewithdelims()\tmpdimen y}
\tmpdimen=\fontdimen8\textfont3
\showthe\tmpdimen
  {x \abovewithdelims()\tmpdimen y}
$$

\bye

egreg

@NicolaTalbot Yes, it's family 3 that has only 13 parameters.

I always confuse which is which.

Nicola Talbot

@egreg Appendix G is turning my brain to mush. Thanks for your help. :-)

egreg

@NicolaTalbot It has that effect, yes. ;-)

PGFTricks

2:17 PM

Should a zero-length line with an arrow head be regarded as a bug in PSTricks/TikZ?

\documentclass[tikz,border=0pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
    \tikzpicture
        \fill[yellow] (-1,-1) -- (-1,1) -- (1,1) -- (1,-1) -- cycle;
        \draw[->] (0,0)--(0,0);
    \endtikzpicture
\end{document}

egreg

@PGFTricks Why?

PGFTricks

@egreg Because it looks funny as follows.

@SamWhited Zero vector has unknown direction maybe :-)

@SamWhited I think it is a bug because the framework does not detect the length before attaching the arrow head. :-)

I will contact Till Tantau about this issue soon.

David Carlisle

@NicolaTalbot doing something wrong = following egreg's advice rather than my answer!

2

@PGFTricks I'd expect to get an arrow head, the specified length is the length of the line, then you put an arrow on it. What would you expect to get?

Nicola Talbot

2:33 PM

@DavidCarlisle A confused arrow that doesn't know where to point? (A zero length line has no gradient.)

David Carlisle

@NicolaTalbot It knows it points up, (you just don't know why it knows that:-)

Nicola Talbot

@DavidCarlisle It should produce an animation of a spinning arrow for an undefined gradient ;-)

David Carlisle

@NicolaTalbot animated images is @PGFTricks speciality

PGFTricks

@DavidCarlisle I want the path to be smarter, if its length=0 then the arrow head must be canceled even though we specify the arrow in, for example,\draw[->] (1,1) -- (1,1);.

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Did you see Ulrike's question?

David Carlisle

2:58 PM

@egreg yes \hsize in \vbox :-)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle But I learnt how to measure the width of the most recent tabular.

David Carlisle

@egreg oh I'll look, I only saw your initial comment

@egreg The real example is coloured tables and colortbl is already having to balance a rule to the right edge of the cell anyway so probably all need to do is patch in a tikzmark thing at the end of the the coloured rule, before it -ve spaces back for the main cell contents

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Add an answer

David Carlisle

@egreg matlab calls....

egreg

@DavidCarlisle And catch a couple of bugs in colortbl in the meantime.

David Carlisle

3:11 PM

\vspace in horizontal mode always good for a few points.

Alan Munn

3:44 PM

A ctanify question. If I ctanify a package, can the .tds.zip be unzipped automatically into the a user's local texmf? If not, is there a way I can do that?

David Carlisle

@egreg done

@egreg I tried but couldn't find any

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Upvoted. Look more closely.

Werner

@AlanMunn: I thought there might be more to the request and therefore only posted a comment...

...but I do think that answers the OP's question.

...wait, it may be that the OP is interested in regular booktabs-style horizontal rule, but with the added verticals that do not "break".

Hmmm, I think the OP may benefit from my comment as an answer, or at least with some struts in there to make it booktabs-like...

egreg

4:09 PM

@DavidCarlisle Heiko stole your comment on the booktabs question.

Werner

@egreg Well, he stole mine as well.

Hmmm...

egreg

@Werner He's a naughty boy!

Werner

@egreg Ha ha! Does he ever join in the chat room?

egreg

@Werner We saw him a couple of times.

David Carlisle

@egreg yes but I think comments are fair game, I could have posted an answer:-)

Werner

4:13 PM

@egreg Not frequently enough, otherwise we would have ganged up on him! Put him in his place...! Oh well, he has hyperref to deal with, which keeps him busy.

@DavidCarlisle You mean taking someone's comments and writing it up as an answer?

Yes, that's true, comments are comments, and many others' reasoning is all based on time-of-post and courtesy. But I agree... sometimes people post a comment mostly for the time-of-post stamp...

David Carlisle

@Werner well I wouldn't put it quite like that, it's not as if he needed our comments to know the facts in the answer

Werner

...and therefore claiming "an answer".

@DavidCarlisle You did notice that he changed his answer though...

...right?

David Carlisle

@Werner no, did he?

Werner

@DavidCarlisle From storing content in a box before loading booktabs to using "our comments".

David Carlisle

@Werner ah OK let's down vote him to -ve rep for the week

Werner

4:17 PM

See the revision history

@DavidCarlisle Hilarious! That's how you show a naughty boy.

I told him it's not necessary, but he couldn't type fast enough, so it's visible in the revision history:

@Werner: Yes, I have already noticed, but editing the answer takes time. — Heiko Oberdiek 8 mins ago

He he... :)

Oh well. Thanks for all your contributions to the TeX world, @HeikoOberdiek.

David Carlisle

@Werner Apart from anything else, the alternative outcome would probably have been that you answered and got the points which is bad for me as I'm trying to catch you up.

Werner

Just looking at the regular user's list sorted by reputation shows that you're well on your way to moving up the ranks.

...and it's graphs like these that verify that:

Those spikes do not bode well for my rank. :-|

You must be bribing people, somewhere, somehow.

Oh well. Thanks for all your contributions to the TeX World, @DavidCarlisle.

:D

I. Crack. Me. Up.

David Carlisle

@Werner you seem to be maintaining 8k ahead, but I suppose I'm creeping up slowly

Werner

@DavidCarlisle Yes, you're consistently getting ticks (the ones @egreg deems unnecessary to tackle over his tea breaks), all of which I'm missing out on...

@egreg might not be seeing straight anymore, so it's time to get ahead...

The font is BaskervilleMT, with a proprietary accompanying math font. Times is used, quite surprisingly, in math for the operator names (the log at the bottom of the first page). Also some MathTime fonts are used for some math symbols. The fake small caps are a punch in the eye. — egreg 21 mins ago

egreg

4:33 PM

@Werner What do you find strange? Oh, the punch on the eye? ;-)

@Werner Did you look at the linked paper?

Werner

@egreg Yes, the partial blindness...

@egreg No, I didn't.

@egreg But I did now, and I can't unsee that.

Heiko just got @egreg... well, couldn't have been gather in 20s, but still. ;)

Forkrul Assail

Some of my .stys went missing when I did an OS package update. tlmgr also disappeared form my path

runny install-tl gives me:

./install-tl: The TeX Live versions of the local installation
and the repository being accessed are not compatible:
local: 2012
repository: 2013

How can I force a reinstall/purge, to just get my docs compiling again?

thanks.

egreg

@SamWhited @ForkrulAssail There's no reason to remove the 2012 distribution, except lack of space. Just download the new installer and run it.

Forkrul Assail

It's still freaking out @SamWhited:

./install-tl: The TeX Live versions of the local installation
and the repository being accessed are not compatible:
local: 2012
repository: 2013
Perhaps you need to use a different CTAN mirror?

nuked the folder you suggested

egreg

@SamWhited I don't really know about Windoze, but on other systems I have, one can have as many distributions as wanted.

Forkrul Assail

4:44 PM

@egreg - maybe you have a suggestion for config file cleanup?

egreg

@ForkrulAssail Did you download the installer?

Forkrul Assail

ubuntu updates clearly don't like texlive

yes

and when I run it

I get that error

egreg

@ForkrulAssail Please, what's the answer to which tex?

Forkrul Assail

Downloaded 2013 -> mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz that latest?

looks like it's redownloading now - I'm not updating mint again until I get this document in. Thanks

I see, sorry @egreg, didn't realize you were suggesting the verb which

that gives me: /usr/bin/tex

egreg

@ForkrulAssail Which is wrong. But since you nuked the old distribution…

Forkrul Assail

4:49 PM

it's ok, have an hour to cook dinner :)

so which should tell me tex is in the folder I nuked, right?

egreg

@ForkrulAssail If you were using the 2012 TUG distribution, yes. What does "echo $PATH" say?

The command inside the quotes (without the quotes).

Forkrul Assail

hahaha, thanks for breaking it down @egreg (I'm undercaffeinated) - no paths pointing to any texlive locations.

back after update.

egreg

@ForkrulAssail Well, you probably have some Debian provided TeX Live; it doesn't matter, actually. Just download the new installer, launch installation and add the path to the binaries in your .profile.

Forkrul Assail

5:12 PM

thanks

egreg

@ForkrulAssail I usually suggest to create a symbolic link to the binaries:

sudo ln /usr/local/texlive/2013/bin/x86_64-linux /opt/texbin

Forkrul Assail

I'm just wondering what ubuntu update to break this.

isn't symbolic -s?

egreg

@ForkrulAssail And then write a file TeXLive.sh to be placed in /etc/paths.d/, with the contents suggested by Sam, but with /opt/texbin instead of the explicit path. So, when the new release comes along, all you need after installation is to change the symbolic link.

Forkrul Assail

rather odd to go to bed with a clean compile and then later have to struggle again with the env.

egreg

@ForkrulAssail Yes, I forgot to add it.

Forkrul Assail

5:17 PM

@egreg, thanks, I'll follow the suggestions

ah ok

@egreg - good suggestion, same workflow I use with webapp updates.

egreg

@ForkrulAssail MacTeX on Mac OS X does a similar trick, but has a way to "discover" TeX distributions. Then with a control panel one can change from one to the other.

Forkrul Assail

@egreg, ah, you see I'm a lowly academic at the edge of dark africa without funds for expensive toys ;)

Christian

5:44 PM

There isn't a way to kind of hide an element like an image here on the site so you need to actively expand it with a click on some button, is there?

The reason I'm asking is that I didn't expect this image to be so brutal to the eyes.

3

Q: Does combining microtype with ragged right make any sense?

My impression when using microtype in a document that used \RaggedRight (everything said is probably true for \raggedright as well but who cares really ...) always was that all lines just get stretched, often to the point where the whole text looked distorted and ugly. Never did I see the enhance...

horizontal-alignment typography microtype ragged2e

I won't include it here ;)

Forkrul Assail

Can't hide the eye cancer

Christian

@ForkrulAssail That's a pity.

I hope it won't deter anyone from answering or discussing the topic.

once there are enough answers, you can scroll the image away ;)

Forkrul Assail

Also, you post is making me give up for the day. Time for some brews!

Christian

@ForkrulAssail Damn, exactly what I was afraid of ...

Have fun, anyway :)

David Carlisle

@Christian You could edit the markup to make it a link instead of an inline image, the opposite of what we tell new users to do

Christian

5:52 PM

@DavidCarlisle Hehe :) Good idea, I'll make the link a preview image though I think.

should all look purple in a sufficiently low resolution

David Carlisle

@Christian never looked at the details of what microtype does but it's not surprising it stretches every line as a top level description of what is does is warp the character shapes to reduce white space stretching, and there almost all the white space stretch is at the right hand edge.

Christian

@DavidCarlisle Easy for you to say it's all the fault of microtype. For once a package you didn't write ;)

David Carlisle

@Christian but I'm not sure it's a fault so much as expected behaviour

Christian

@DavidCarlisle Well, it's not a typographically pleasing behaviour, whatever someone expected :)

at least that's my opinion

I always switch off microtype when I switch to \RaggedRight and switch it back on afterwards.

David Carlisle

@Christian don't load t then:-) it can't really do anything as there is no variability in inter-word space (which is what it's trying to avoid) so only thing it can do is try to reduce the amount of raggedness

Christian

6:01 PM

But then "typographically pleasing" means different things to different people.

Somebody designed the default settings of Komascript ...

@DavidCarlisle It's not so rare for me to combine ragged and justified text within the same document.

For example I gave up on justified references that use a lot of URLs.

David Carlisle

@Christian I've never used it at all:-) (Don't think it was really available by the time I stopped using latex, although I did try out some of Han The Thanh's initial hz experimens

@Christian sure agreed, just turn off microtype at same time

Christian

@DavidCarlisle You stopped using LaTeX? Some dedication to still be that active here then!

@DavidCarlisle Well yeah, I'd argue this should happen automatically though. Most people won't be aware of the strange behaviour microtype produces when combined with \RaggedRight and just leave it on unwittingly.

David Carlisle

@Christian Just for old time's sake (the questions never change really:-) apart from MWE here, the mathml spec (generated from XML) and the latex companion, I can't think of any latex documents I've written this century

Christian

@DavidCarlisle As I said, some dedication :)

I'm really happy you chose to stay around in any case :)

David Carlisle

@Christian well plan was to get me back into a tex frame of mind, in case I wanted to do some latex3 work, might still happen:-)

Christian

6:09 PM

@DavidCarlisle That would be great. A finished latex3 is really something that would make the world a better place :) .... even if it's only the typography/nerd world.

@percusse rofl to your comment :)

Actually, I first used blue and yellow. But you couldn't see the yellow at all, so I switched to red.

As I said, I didn't expect it to become this torturing when looked at for more than a few moments.

I really do have to try red-blue glasses though.

Closing the eyes alternatingly might even give you the same effect as watching the PDF in a viewer and flipping back and forth between the two pages.

percusse

@Christian I'm sure it would feel like the ancient times in 3D with latin text.

I'm colorblind I don't care actually. I see garbled text. Make it red/green and fun begins :)

Christian

@percusse It's pretty amazing actually. It looks as if the red and the blue lines of text diverge increasingly towards the end of the line.

along the z-axis of course

@percusse Are you red-green colorblind? Or completely?

percusse

@Christian They say it's red/green

Christian

Ok. Then the difference shouldn't actually be that great, should it? Probably more akin to the blue/yellow I initially tried.

The text is actually pretty garbled with normal color vision as well.

The only thing that you can see is which color wins out at the end of each line

Unless you use 3D glasses of course :D

My blue filter lets through both colors though. So it's probably not as impressive as it could be.

percusse

6:25 PM

Your 3D glasses should not work if you don't have a 3D screen because the polarization is same for both.

I think the LSD iis kicking in :P

2

Christian

@percusse Nah, those are anaglyph 3D glasses.

Anaglyph 3D

Anaglyph 3D is the name given to the stereoscopic 3D effect achieved by means of encoding each eye's image using filters of different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, typically red and cyan. Anaglyph 3D images contain two differently filtered colored images, one for each eye. When viewed through the "color-coded" "anaglyph glasses", each of the two images reaches one eye, revealing an integrated stereoscopic image. The visual cortex of the brain fuses this into perception of a three dimensional scene or composition. Anaglyph images have seen a recent resurgence due to the p...

I'm not sure if they would work for you though.

They do a crappy job for everybody.

But it's the only way you can watch 3D Youtube videos without expensive hardware.

Poor-man's 3D.

percusse

@Christian Sure but I doubt those tints you have in text are properly handled. (don't have glasses so just guessing)

Christian

@percusse They sure aren't but it's actually close enough.

I only have cheap paper glasses anyway and as I said, the blue doesn't filter enough.

But I'm pretty confident it's not the LSD.

Paulo Cereda

I left for a minute and people start to talk about Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. :)

See the UK factor? :) I mentioned a Beatles song and @JosephWright appeared. :)

Christian

6:42 PM

@PauloCereda ;)

Paulo Cereda

6:54 PM

3

Q: How to produce a list of prime numbers in LaTeX

I would like to write a LaTeX script that produces all the prime numbers between the numbers n and m, where n<m. How can I do this? I feel it shoud not be that hard, but I cannot seem to program it. Thank you in advance.

tables diagrams code

Andrea L.

7:44 PM

@PauloCereda Currently testing an algorithm that works well in plain TeX, but I have to admit it's way harder than I thought to condense math, algorithm and coding inside a *.tex file, whew!.

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