TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Hey, look at this! It's no fake!

3

@HarishKumar Congratulations! The first Asian in the 100K club! And a well deserved prize!

9

@HarishKumar Even if you use Zapf Chancery in your avatar. ;-)

@egreg Thank you. Your support was always the strength and inspiration.

@HarishKumar Do you ever sleep?

@egreg hihi, That was some odd choice, but looks decorativs. :-)

@HarishKumar It should be 5:47 am where you live.

12:18 AM

@egreg Yes I do. I woke up just now. I sleep 5-6 hours a day. :-)

@HarishKumar A very happy wake up! I'm going to sleep. :)

@egreg Correct. Today I am late (it's Sunday. Otherwise, I will be up by 3.30AM sharp

@egreg Thank you for every thing. And have a good night. :-)

@egreg Certainly a happy wake up :-)

Christian Hupfer

4:19 AM

Good MAEN ;-)

Christian Hupfer

6:55 AM

Everyone is asleep... Sunday morning ;-)

Christian Hupfer

7:28 AM

Bye, till tonight

7:42 AM

@HarishKumar Congratulations. Thanks for your contribution ;-)

Q: Installation of Vollkorn font

@ChristianHupfer Nope, reading the unanswered list :-)

4

I'm trying to install Vollkorn font from .otf files on OSX with the help of autoinst. On a separate folder I run the command autoinst -target=~/Library/texmf/ Vollkorn-*.otf which should install the different versions of Vollkorn (http://vollkorn-typeface.com/). Without luck so far this ends wi...

Is this one on-topic?

Q: A flexible derivative macro with LaTeX3

@cis It would be better to translate the contents of the file to english and give some lines of context to explain your question.

@JosephWright Not sure. It is about the friends part. But converting an otf to tfm is a bit outdated.

@JosephWright Since inactive for months -> unclear

Upvoted but unclear

16

In an earlier post I asked a question about writing a flexible derivative macro, and someone suggested that a LaTeX3 version might be easier to understand, so I decided to try my hand at writing one. Unfortunately, I ran into some problems. First, I had trouble getting started with implementing t...

macros latex3

9:12 AM

@Johannes_B Quite clear, I'd just forgotten to post an answer. I've now done that :-)

@JosephWright +1 -> unanswered -1 ;-)

9:28 AM

@cfr Feel free to post an answer :-)

10:12 AM

Yay: free rep from old questions!

@egreg Any news on the expl3 book?

@JosephWright Not yet.

10:52 AM

@HarishKumar: Congrats, my dear friend! :)

11:32 AM

@PauloCereda Thank you very much. :)

@Johannes_B Thank you. :)

percusse

12:09 PM

@HarishKumar Haha, nice one. Ambrosia and nectar from now on on TeX-SX to you.

12:25 PM

@percusse Thanks. :-)

Q: Any LaTeX video tutorial recommendations for Mac users?

1

I dive into LaTex world for a time, although I try my best to read More Math Into LaTeX come along with TeXShop, there are still lots of gaps uncovered. I did search them on Lynda.com and I find nothing, so, any LaTeX video tutorial recommendations for Mac Users?

learning tutorials

An upvote to get off the unanswered list? (Answer is CW)

@egreg, @David One of you care to answer

1

Q: Using math mode in a label

How can one use something like $\mathbb{R}^k$ in a label? I.e. \label{three equivalent properties of $\mathbb{R}^k$}. Currently when I try this I get an error. Here's a MWE: \documentclass[a4 paper,11pt]{article} \usepackage{amsmath, amssymb, amsthm, parskip} \begin{document} \newtheorem{t...

cross-referencing amsthm

12:54 PM

Is there a way in Xe(La)TeX to check if a font exists and if it doesn't choose another one?

Background: I type most of my documents using Lucida Bright OT, but most people don't own a copy of them, so they could possibly fall back to TeX Gyre Pagella or similar.

@JosephWright Done

@egreg Tar

@JosephWright No rep, though. ;-)

Q: Why is compiling latex in OSX significantly slower than on linux, in a virtual machine, on the same computer?

Is this one 'too broad' or 'off topic' or ...? Can't see it's answerable

3

I have a computer with OSX Mavericks (10.9) running on it, as well as a debian wheezy VM on the same machine, assigned a conservative 2/8 of the cores, and 4Gb/16Gb ram. On the VM I have texlive-base and dependencies installed, plus maybe a couple non-dependencies which I cannot remember now, bu...

osx linux performance

Would have been NARQ historically

@HenriMenke At the end of section 7 of the manual (texdoc xetex) there's a hint:

\begingroup\makeatletter
\suppressfontnotfounderror=1
\font\x="ImpossibleFont" at 10pt
\ifx\x\nullfont
  \expandafter\@firstoftwo
\else
  \expandafter\@secondoftwo
\fi
{\endgroup\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Pagella}}
{\endgroup\setmainfont{ImpossibleFont}}

@JosephWright Too broad?

1:10 PM

@egreg Many thanks! I will port this to expl3 though.

@egreg My thinking, yes

@JosephWright Voted

1:25 PM

Today is Independence of Brazil! :)

@PauloCereda Happy Independence Day!

@PauloCereda Did you see the news about Harish?

@egreg Thanks! Yay! :)

@egreg I did! Yay! Another member of the egregious 100k club. :)

@PauloCereda And soon (barring downvotes and laziness) another member of the 200K club.

@egreg ooh! :) We need more longtable answers. :)

Advantage of going over the unanswered: lots of potential free rep

1:29 PM

@PauloCereda –388 ATM

@egreg ooh!

@PauloCereda Next candidate for 100K is Jabba the Hutt aka Mico.

@egreg Yay!

@PauloCereda After an Asian we need an Alien.

@egreg LOL

1:37 PM

@egreg Is there an easy way to find out if a control sequence, that I defined by , \cs_new:, is fully expandable or do I have to look up every single kernel macro in the manual and see if it has a star next to its name?

@HenriMenke Formally, you have to look, but you can take advantage of the usual TeX rule here

@HenriMenke Anything that performs an assignment or typesetting operation is not expandable

@HenriMenke Of you could just \show\foo, of course

@JosephWright Okay, thank you. Then my stuff needs to be protected.

@HenriMenke Font loading is an assignment, certainly

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\ExplSyntaxOn

\prg_set_conditional:Npnn \font_if_exist:n #1 { p , T , F , TF }
  {
    \font_suppress_not_found_error:
    \font_set:Nnn \font_impossible {"#1"} {10pt}
    \__fontspec_font_if_null:NTF \font_impossible {
      \prg_return_false:
    } {
      \prg_return_true:
    }
  }

\cs_new_protected:Npn \font_set_fallback:nn #1#2
  {
    \font_if_exist:nTF { #1 } { \setmainfont{#1} } { \setmainfont{#2} }
  }

\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
Test test test

Is there a way to abbreviate \__fontspec_font_if_null:NTF \font_impossible any further?

A: Achemso: optional note in first citation reference creates extra bibliography entry and odd numbering

@HenriMenke Please don't use \font_... in anything publicly released: the team have reserved this name for kernel use

If anyone has one spare vote to get something of the unanswered list:

0

The approach taken by the achemso class follows the approach taken by the ACS in publications. Page numbers are given in ACS publications as part of references section, as in all chemistry journals I know of. As such details are not moved from a \cite command to the references section, it's there...

(No gain for me: rep cap today)

1:47 PM

@JosephWright voted :)

@JosephWright You are lucky, I still have my votes. :)

@cgnieder Hey!

@PauloCereda :p

@HenriMenke the conditional itself should be protected IMHO: \prg_set_protected_conditional:Npnn

@PauloCereda how are you? :)

@cgnieder Fine, thanks. :) Drinking a lot of water so far. :) And you?

@cgnieder Nope. Predicate '\font_if_exist_p:n' must be expandable.

@PauloCereda enjoying a lazy sunday => also fine :)

@HenriMenke but it isn't: it does an assignment: \font_set:Nnn \font_impossible

1:51 PM

@cgnieder I just cited the error raised by the kernel.

@cgnieder I guess I have to remove p from the list { p , T , F , TF }.

@JosephWright Can I use the prefix \fontspec_ instead of \font_ or is it also reserved?

@HenriMenke error messages in general also are not expandable. I believe l3fp uses sort of expandable error messages (IIRC there's a question/answer by Bruno somewhere on the site...)

@cgnieder Removing p from the list allows the conditional to be protected.

> These functions create a family of protected conditionals [...]. The conditionals created are depended on the comma-separated list of conditions, which should be one or more of T, F and TF (not p).

:)

@cgnieder Sorry. You know, I'm not into expl3 for long.

@HenriMenke I only found out by accident myself due to weird error messages when I assumed an existing predicate of an unexpandable conditional... :)

it does make sense, though, when you think about it

2:03 PM

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\ExplSyntaxOn

\prg_set_protected_conditional:Npnn \font_if_exist:n #1 { T, F, TF }
  {
    \font_suppress_not_found_error:
    \font_set:Nnn \font_impossible { "#1" } { 10pt }
    \__fontspec_font_if_null:NTF \font_impossible
      { \prg_return_false: }
      { \prg_return_true:  }
  }

\cs_new_protected:Npn \font_set_fallback:Nnnnn #1#2#3#4#5
  {
    \font_if_exist:nTF { #3 } { #1[#2]{#3} } { #1[#4]{#5} }
  }

\NewDocumentCommand \setfallbackfont { O{} m O{} m }

Works great for me. Any further suggestions? (except changing the \font_ prefix)

2:17 PM

@HenriMenke \__fontspec_font_if_null:NTF is not supposed to be used, as it starts with __. A flaw in fontspec, I'd say: somebody might want to write an extension of fontspec and this should be available.

@HenriMenke You're also setting \suppressfontnotfounderror=1 without resetting it to the previous value.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\ExplSyntaxOn

% For compatibility
\prg_new_eq_conditional:NNn
  \fontspec_font_if_null:N
  \__fontspec_font_if_null:N
  { p, T, F, TF }

\prg_set_protected_conditional:Npnn \font_if_exist:n #1 { T, F, TF }
  {
    \group_begin:
    \font_suppress_not_found_error:
    \font_set:Nnn \font_impossible { "#1" } { 10pt }
    \fontspec_font_if_null:NTF \font_impossible
      { \group_end: \prg_return_false: }
      { \group_end: \prg_return_true:  }
  }

\cs_new_protected:Npn \font_set_fallback:nnnnn #1#2#3#4#5

@egreg Better?

@HenriMenke It should be better.

2:57 PM

I just noticed an interesting behavior I was not aware of, and I'd very much like your input on it. In the math environment, compare (x_1+x_2)^2 with \left(x_1+x_2\right)^2. Notice how the typesetting of the exponent changes. So my question to you is: What would be the appropriate way to typeset exponents---both in general and in this specific case?

@HarishKumar congratulations on joining the 100K club!

@eiterorm oh no, don't get @egreg started on \left \right...

@eiterorm Without \left and \right.

@egreg May I ask the reason why?

A: Is it ever bad to use \left and \right?

31

The automatic sized braces are not always the sizes you would choose manually, but that's a matter of personal taste (and the sizes chosen by the automatic algorithm can be adjusted with the \delimitershortfall and \delimiterfactor parameters). More immediate problems are that \left( ... \right)...

@DavidCarlisle And also the other answers. ;-)

3:05 PM

@DavidCarlisle Oh my...

@DavidCarlisle I believe I have been (ab)using the \left and \right delimiters overzealously.

@egreg yes I was looking for one of yours that I half remembered but didn't see it so found one of mine (which is probably better anyway:-) instead

@DavidCarlisle Did you point out that \left...\right makes a \mathinner atom? I'm not sure you did.

@egreg what is a mathinner atom?

Out with the dog: duration 2:46:26; distance: 14.37 km; speed: 5.18 km/h; highest speed: 8.46 km/h.

@DavidCarlisle After reading through that thread: should I always avoid using \left and \right when an exponent follows?

@DavidCarlisle And how do I know which size to choose manually?

3:12 PM

@Johannes_B do you have some smartphone app or another technical gimmick that tells you those values or were you bored and did the maths yourself?

@eiterorm trust your eyes :)

@cgnieder I was bored ;-)

@cgnieder No, i have a gps-watch to keep track :-p

@Johannes_B :) right answer :p

@cgnieder But I can't seem to trust them in this case, because I think the left/right delimiters generally look fine. Sometimes even better than the "correct" alternatives.

@cgnieder And pytrainer is making it nice for me, summing it all up. It even gets a map and puts the wlaked line on it.

@eiterorm correct is what looks right. But this depends on what you are (or were) used to see. Taking your example to me the first version looks right while in the second the exponent is too high.

@Johannes_B nice toy :)

3:20 PM

@cgnieder What about \left(x_1^2+x_2^2\right)^2? Should the exponents line up here, or should the outermost one increase in height?

@eiterorm personally I wouldn't use \left and \right there...

So in general I should avoid using them. Are there situations where they are preferred over the manual delimiters?

@eiterorm I rarely use them (but I don't really do a lot of math typesetting at all...)

@DavidCarlisle Do you know any similar threads to that one (other than the duplicate, obviously)? I have a lot of equations I might have typeset "wrong", and they include fractions, sums, exponents, brackets, functions, etc. galore.

@egreg Still a work in progress, this sort of thing

3:34 PM

@eiterorm Read The TeXbook chapters 16 to 19.

Speaking of which, I'm back on siunitx v3 work, where I plan to have a proper set of code-level interfaces

It's very nice having a test system I can just use (OK I did actually write much it but ....)

@HenriMenke Will do. Thanks.

Q: \citet and \citep in TeXstudio using natbib

3:54 PM

2

I am new with respect to using TeXstudio and I have just written my article in TeXstudio, but I cannot get the citations right(?) I use the natbib in \usepackage in the preamble, it is stated before \begin{document} and I have specified \bibliography {plain} in the end. I have made a separate da...

bibtex citing natbib

I've posted an answer, but I guess this must be a dupe: yes?

Q: Natbib In-Text Citation displays (author?)

4:05 PM

@JosephWright Yes

4

I have taken a look through many other questions on this subject but cannot seem to fix my issue. Essentially while references display correctly I cannot get the author citation to appear in my text despite running pdflatex followed by bibtex followed by two more runs of pdflatex. Any help would ...

citing natbib

@egreg Cool

@egreg Remove my answer?

@JosephWright Just close the question, if you need the rep

@egreg Already done

4:16 PM

@egreg Is there anything special to consider when adding a biblatex style (bbx and cbx)? Are there any differences in the tree of MacTeX-TeX Live and the usual TeX Live? Or to put it another way, will copying the files ~/texmf work?

@Johannes_B Found as standard: by convention, go in tex/latex/biblatex-<name>

@Johannes_B The vanilla TeX Live uses ~/texmf, MacTeX uses ~/Library/texmf

@Johannes_B mkdir -p $(kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME)/tex/latex/biblatex-mystyle will create the hierarchy, independently of the OS.

@Johannes_B Then you can use cp or mv with the same pattern.

4:36 PM

@egreg Thank you

Q: Plot with same font of journal

On topic?

2

I am preparing some graphics for a paper using GNUPLOT and LaTeX so at the end I have text, label and legend with the standard LaTeX font. Now I would like to change this font in order to uniform the text in the plot with the rest of the text in the final article. I tried using mathptmx but I am...

fonts graphics

@Johannes_B Yes, to approve my theory, guys and girls in the Anglo-Saxon speech area are lesser shortspoken :)

@JosephWright Yes.

@cis Did you get a response yet?

@cis And what do you mean by your last comment?

@JosephWright Duplicate -> tex.stackexchange.com/questions/45919/…

@Johannes_B: (A) Regrettably not. (B) I don't know - translate ("weniger kurz angebunden") :()

What is the correct way, to post URL-link here?

Will Hunting

4:45 PM

Hi @JosephWright how is progress on LaTeX 3? =)

Hi @PauloCereda too bad there was no Fedora release the last semiyear.

@cis Again i would suggest to add some explanatory comments. Above it read like, see the document. Better would have been something like

»In general, what are advantages and disadvantages of stuff like music/video files and Java/Flash content embedded within pdf files?«

@Johannes_B: Oh, a hard translation work.

@WillHunting Indeed. :(

5:03 PM

@Johannes_B The start-point was: I saw here many extraordinary, colorful, ... works. So we have to remind, those funky guys do not have the DIN-norm (DIN = Deutsche Industrie Norm = German industrial norm).

dropbox.com/s/khg2uoi96nl3asw/BeamerMedia9.pdf?dl=0

(5.3MB) - without translation

Ask if there are any language-problems

newbie

Hi, in my thesis I have a default style for bibliography (\bibliographystyle{plain}), I'd like to sort references by type in a specific order (e.g. article, inproceedings, misc and url), how can I do?

Q: Style question: Good spacing in (display-)math

@WillHunting Slower than I'd like

@WillHunting Then again, I have a day job

1

I was quite disappointed to find no recommendation on spacing in math-mode in the AMS guide, so I wanted to ask if there is some rule of thumb for spacing math like \[ x_n \to 0 \quad (n \to \infty) \qquad \Rightarrow \qquad f(x_n) \to 0 \quad (n \to \infty) \] Are \quad and \qquad really the ...

math-mode

@cis Please state your question in german, i am going to translate it. Right now, i have no smurfin' idea what the point is you want to make/see/ask.

Views of others?

@JosephWright OT or opinion based. close vote from my side (if i could cast close votes)

5:16 PM

@Johannes_B The questions in german: "Was hälst Du von Medieneinsatz in LaTeX-Dokumentn (Audio / Video / ...). Eine anthropologische Studie betreffs der Kernfrage, ob Schreiber im angelsächsischen Sprachraum weniger kurz angebunden sind" ---- also wenn Du das übersetzen kannst, bist Du gut :-)

@cis What do you mean by »ob Schreiber im angelsächsischen Sprachraum weniger kurz angebunden sind«

@Johannes_B weniger kurz angebunden = sich weniger an normative Einschränkungen gebunden fühlend

@cis normative Einschränkungen ?

@Johannes_B normative Einschränkungen = Regelmäßigkeiten bezuglich allgemeiner Kriterien, rührend von Festlegung, Brauchtum, Überlieferung

@cis asks: »What do you think of using media (audio/video) in pdf
files (generated by LaTeX). An anthropological study to clarify if
english-speaking people are more open to/against any limiting criteria. «

5:25 PM

@Johannes_B Well translated! :) My illustrative example was

dropbox.com/s/khg2uoi96nl3asw/BeamerMedia9.pdf?dl=0

(5.3MB)

40 mins ago, by Johannes_B

»In general, what are advantages and disadvantages of stuff like music/video files and Java/Flash content embedded within pdf files?«

@Johannes_B Also good. (Aber weniger dick aufgetragen)