TeX, LaTeX and Friends - 2012-04-11

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12:17 AM

@PauloCereda can anyone ask questions in the interviews?

@Ariel Sure! :)

12:48 AM

I have several columns with headers such as these: A Vs. B, C Vs. D etc. Is there some latex shorthand version of this that anyone is aware of? Writing the whole A Vs. B out takes up too much column width..

6 hours later…

6:35 AM

Joseph Wright has added an event to this room's schedule.

@StackExchange Due to Easter, 'Answer the Unaswered' is out by one week this month. We have a big list: please register and help out :-)

7:00 AM

4

Q: Lua techniques and libraries for LuaTeX

With LuaTeX, it is possible to use many libraries and functions that can simplify various aspects of Lua programming. As Lua as language is quite new for the majority of TeX users, I think it would be good if we could share experiences in searching for useful libraries and techniques, that appear...

luatex big-list

On-topic or off-topic? LuaTeX is on-topic, and so using Lua for typesetting is, but this question just looks like Lua 'in the void', which seems very borderline.

@JosephWright See chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4135008#4135008 and some of the following messages.

@NN Thanks. My worry there is that the OP is really talking about Lua programming in general, while TeX-sx is not really a programming site as a lot of the focus is on the 'user' end.

@JosephWright True, I thought the question would have a clearer focus on finding libraries that are useful for TeX applications.

Maybe it can be save by reinforcing its focus on typesetting which seems to be the OP's intention when looking at the transcript I linked?

@NN Maybe - I'll post a comment to that effect

7:44 AM

@JosephWright I'm a bit disappointed because there have been nil answers so far. In principle, the question should have potential. I for instance am planning to switch to LuaTeX soon but know nothing about Lua, so a list of libraries relevant to TeX would be helpful. But the lacking traffic seems to show there is either no interest or noone here knows enough about the subject.

@StephanLehmke I guess part of the problem is that TeX is not a programming system per se, and that still applies to LuaTeX in the sense that the primary aim is to produce typeset output. So a lot of the code that is needed has to be written by people themselves (for example the font loading code). The only library that comes up a lot is lpeg.

Also, TeX-sx is about TeX in general. Most TeX users are not TeX programmers, and so you are already looking at a small-ish subset of traffic on the site when you are talking about programming TeX in any way.

Still the question is quite new and luatex has 45 followers so there is still chance that some of the experts have not noticed the question yet.

user19161

8:06 AM

@Ariel Wait, is this about English or LaTeX? What has that got to do with LaTeX itself? Anyway you may want to change the headers to say A/B and C/D.

@JasperLoy I think that any typesetting technique as well as any technique in the English language will be an appropriate answer to that question.

@JasperLoy Nice blue box!

user19161

@NN I see, in the sense that he possibly wants the source code to be shorter as well.

user19161

@NN Nice profile descriptions on the various sites!

@JasperLoy or some way to typeset it such that it takes less column width.

@JasperLoy Thanks! I try to be consistent.

user19161

@NN Do you know you can use the right arrow to reply?

user19161

8:12 AM

I always mention this because many chat users don't know about its existence!

@JasperLoy I did not know this. Is that the right most icon as you mouse over a chat message? This message starts ":4187365" so I guess I use this feature now.

Is there a keyboard shortcut to it?

user19161

@NN Yes, it is the rightmost one. And the left arrow links to the message being replied to, so this helps us know who is replying to what.

user19161

I reserve using :XXXXX for replying to messages way back in the transcript, those which we cannot load in reasonable time.

@JasperLoy I have not noticed the left arrow before. I like subtle features! It should be documented though. I cannot find it in the faq.

9:09 AM

@StephanLehmke I have some libraries in mind, but creating examples of use is more difficult than I thought

also, don't know if I should post examples for shell scripting (whis would be useful for someone trying to make something like latexmk or biber in lua), or if I should focus more on typesetting problems

9:34 AM

@michalh21 My main issue is that nobody else seems interested/able to answer.

yeah, it seems so :(

@StephanLehmke The 5 upvotes, 0 downvotes and 2 favorite stars it has seems show that there is some interest.

@nn Yea I also upvoted because I'm interested to read any answers. But if none are forthcoming (and the subject is obviously not too difficult to answer per se) then this can be a sign the question is off topic.

Brent.Longborough

9:53 AM

@NN (Kindred spirit) Yes, I found that fairly quickly, though I'm using #+STARTUP: indent in the file, rather than a global setting (walk before running)

@NN Something that starts by mapping *-lines to the corresponding sectioning command (\chapter, \section, etc), together with an export function ( which I think already exists)

@BrentLongborough Does C-e d export with the wrong heading levels for you?

10:34 AM

@JosephWright I can think of a good answer (covering resources), but IMHO I won't be able to answer in the format we expect. I think the LuaTeX Reference covers the TeX part of Lua, while Programming in Lua covers the language itself. IMHO techniques are more related to what and how to do. For example, this answer of mine basically employed Lua constructs and a call to a specific LuaTeX print function. :)

2 hours later…

12:17 PM

Currently my favorite bash feature is Ctrl+R for reverse-i-search. I cannot believe I have used bash for some years without knowing about this feature. I only discovered it this year or so.

@JasperLoy A/B looked somewhat ugly. Since A and B are really more like XY-/XY+ So I went with \overbrace above XY+ and XY-. It made it look more compact.

@NN What is a reverse search? I don't know about it and I have been using bash for a year now.

@Ariel searching your command history. it's from the readline library which essentially gives you emacs style keybindings in a one-line window over your command history

Why not just: history | grep whatever

@Ariel It is a great feature for accessing commands you have executed earlier. You know that you can press uparrow to go through the history of commands starting by the earliest. You can also do history to list commands you have used. To search in the history you can do things like history | grep command. Ctrl+R is way to incrementally search that history and run the found command.

@Ariel (a) because that's not like emacs (so bad) and (b) grep woul djust give you the text whereas ^R gives you the command ready to edit/re-execute

12:24 PM

Ah! The more I hang our here, the more tricks I learn. :-)

@DavidCarlisle (a) is a nice knock-down argument.

@Ariel other emacs bindings work as well ctrl-p if you can't remember where the uparrow key is for exanple ctrl-a a ctrl -k ctrl -e are all useful as well

Everything deviating from the way of Emacs is intrinsically bad! ;)

@DavidCarlisle I will confess, I tried emacs when I first migrated full time to fedora but it was very frustrating till I read someone on the net saying it takes 10 years to be fully comfortable with it edward.oconnor.cx/2009/07/learn-emacs-in-ten-years . not being made of such stern material, I have given up for now. Maybe after I defend, I will give it another shot.

@Ariel I started to learn and use Emacs only eight or nine months ago and now I do most of my work in Emacs and think I am more productive than before.

12:33 PM

@Ariel I find using it every day for 25 years helps gain familiarity with it.

Though I failed the first time I tried to learn it.

@DavidCarlisle Are you yet familiar with the Emacs feature of editing files?

@NN No but I'm Brilliant at C-u 12 M-x hanoi

@DavidCarlisle OMG I understand why it has taken years to memorize such a long command.

@NN Oh wow - nice post! thanks. {definitely more encouraging than the other one I linked heh}

@DavidCarlisle Its a good thing our lifespans have been steadily improving.

@DavidCarlisle Copper deposits in Hanoi. {thinking mnemonics}

@Ariel I am trying to comment on the blog post you linked but I get unknown error.

12:47 PM

@NN That's odd.. its still open.

user19161

@Ariel Did you fold the paper yourself? Is it a flower?

@Ariel Tried to post a comment both in FF and Chromium

@JasperLoy It's an origami lily - one of my favourite models origami-instructions.com/origami-lily.html I didn't fold this particular one but yes, I do it fold quite a lot. :)

user19161

@Ariel Oh, I don't do origami but I used to fold hundreds of paper stars.

@JasperLoy this one: origami-instructions.com/origami-lucky-star.html I am just getting into wet folding {in many ways it is like emacs - tough to comprehend and learn but once you ""get it" the results are fantastic!}

user19161

12:53 PM

@Ariel Yes, I used to make them for my friends. :-)

@JasperLoy yes, there is something so unique awesome about origami. you almost always make it to be given away {so you can make more!} One of my somewhat morose club members used to liken it to an infectious disease/

Speaking of origami, have you seen this one: ted.com/talks/lang/en/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html

@TorbjørnT Robert Lang = God of awesome!!! I saw him last year at a demonstration!! :)

@TorbjørnT that's so interesting! haven't seen it before.

user19161

@TorbjørnT Amazing! I just saw the fish and turtle in there!

@NN I think you should email Edward Connor. That post is ALWAYS linked when talk about emacs being difficult comes up. Funny, I remember there being an extraordinary number of heated comments on that post - I wonder if it all got heavily moderated

1:02 PM

@JasperLoy Yeah, it's incredible what is possible. It's been a while since I saw it last, think I need a repeat.

@Ariel Yup, I sent him an email.

I STILL have so much trouble with going from crease patterns ==> design. You could say its easy to get lost in translation when the language is so terse and interpretable in so many ways, but sometimes you really want to get to a grasshopper and end up making an serpent.

heh - @DavidCarlisle could be an excellent origamist. {if there is such a word... Origamer?}

1:55 PM

It would be so useful to have a ruler display in the pdf reader - evince is the most frustrating reader there is. Even hyperlinks don't work on evince. And PDFXchange is for windows (even though I love it, I am not particularly happy installing wine on my system if I can help it. I am anti alcoholic that way) So the question which PDF viewer (for linux) has the capacity to display rulers on the margin - somewhat like word?

@Ariel Somewhat related question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29310/…

@Ariel Hyperlinks works in Evince for me

user19161

@Ariel How about Adobe Reader 9 for Linux? I am not sure about that though. I noticed you use Fedora. I think Foxit also has a Linux version.

@PauloCereda Your reputation is currently 5555. Stay put!

@NN Wow! I didn't notice it! YEAAAAH palindromes!!! :D

user19161

2:03 PM

@NN Should I use Emacs for LaTeX if I don't do other programming stuff at all?

user19161

@PauloCereda Not just palindrome, it is constant!

user19161

@NN There is a "previous view" button too called "back". At first I did not know about it.

@JasperLoy :)

@JasperLoy Yes, AUCTeX can be very helpful for writing LaTeX. See the section on workflow in tex.stackexchange.com/questions/50827/… . Another way to use LaTeX with Emacs is to use Org-mode which can export to LaTeX.

@JasperLoy Where is that button?

user19161

@NN You need to add it yourself under toolbar. :-)

2:09 PM

@JasperLoy I do not really do any programming with LaTeX. The commands for inserting environments, macros, citations and cross-references are very powerful.

user19161

@NN I like to do those manually. I am a "purist". :-)

@JasperLoy But you can configure it to insert them as you want. Just saves you time typing and helps you be consistent.

user19161

@NN Hmm I see your point.

Martin Scharrer

There seems to be no chat room for English.SE :-(

user19161

@MartinScharrer There is. It is my favourite! It is called Incomprehensible!

2:12 PM

@JasperLoy re: your about. Love the soundtrack to Prince of Egypt! :)

Martin Scharrer

@JasperLoy Where? There is no 'Chat' link on the homepage.

user19161

@MartinScharrer Go to room 95. This is room 41.

user19161

Alternative click on all rooms above right and navigate from there.

@JasperLoy e.g. C-c [ from RefTeX (which is included in AUCTeX) asks for what citation format I want to use, i.e. what citation macro, then it lets you search your bibliography for what entry to insert as the argument for the macro (you can also choose to have it prompt for optional arguments for the macro such as for page specification).

user19161

@Ariel Well, I knew that song not from the show but because I love Mariah Carey!

2:16 PM

@MartinScharrer I can see such a link:

user image

user19161

@NN Some links may not appear at some times for some people. SE is full of such mysteries.

Martin Scharrer

@NN I only have "blog meta about faq", funny.

@MartinScharrer Are you logged in to English.sx?

Martin Scharrer

You need 20rep to talk in the chat, but I have 101.

@NN Yep, but maybe I should relogin?

user19161

@NN It is easier to go to "all rooms" from here.

2:19 PM

@JasperLoy hah I found that soundtrack because I love (the older times) Whitney Houston. haha But then I heard all the songs and they just kind of grow on you. Esp "Deliver us" - the chorus is magnificent. I never saw the movie

@MartinScharrer I do not think it matters. On sites where I do not have much reputation I neither see the link. E.g. on unix.sx I have 117 reputation and there is no such link even if I am logged in.

user19161

@Ariel I love Whitney Houston too! I hope she is in a better place now... I like her "Greatest love of all" and "One moment in time".

@MartinScharrer Huh, now unix.sx has a chat link for me

@NN Everything is weird on Fedora. As soon as I am done submitting this phase of chapters to my committee, I am migrating to Ubuntu. I am so tired of "bleeding edge" errors and changes all the time.

user19161

@Ariel I find Ubuntu and Fedora equally stable. The former is slightly easier and more polished for the desktop user though. Currently I use Debian Stable.

Martin Scharrer

2:23 PM

@NN Funny, there IS a chat link on Meta.English.SE, instead of the blog link on the main page.

@JasperLoy ALL her older songs are unbelievable. I remember one particularly awful phase when all my lab experiments failed when I heard that song in your about box some million times. :)

user19161

@Ariel Good. I think I will leave that message there then to inspire myself and others!

@MartinScharrer Maybe the blog and chat links are replaced by each other given some condition

user19161

I have dealt with all sorts of problems logging in to chat, so I am the self-proclaimed chat expert!

@JasperLoy I tried Debian - but the R implementation on Debian (crunchbang/pure debian) has some strange bugs. It sorts "naturally". ie 120 is sorted before 23 etc. It was giving me really crazy results so I abandoned debian until they could find someway to correct that sorting order. There was really no simple way to switch the sorting behaviour. {and it was not for the want of trying to find this answer. I searched wide and low and tried everything} its a pity because I liked debian the best

user19161

2:33 PM

@Ariel Aww, well I hope Ubuntu does not inherit the same problem from Debian. Take note since Ubuntu is based on Debian!

@TorbjørnT Fantastic!!!! that solves my problem. Thanks for linking!

@Ariel No problem. Thanks for the answer on the TeXstudio preview question, it didn't occur to me to check the settings.

@TorbjørnT I didn't think of it either till today morning - I went to change the font size of the editor to make it bigger and found all these options there! It really is quite an amazing editor - with a little more transparency, its easily among the best. We probably need a community advert!

@Ariel Yeah, there are quite a few. I don't use TeXstudio normally, so I don't really know all that's there.

@JasperLoy Keeping my antennae crossed.

user19161

2:38 PM

@Ariel Eh you should keep your fingers crossed instead, unless you are an ant!

@JasperLoy I do find my links to the homo sapien group a bit doubtful these days. So I am not risking any human analogies (except liking Whitney Houston.. but maybe ants like her too.)

user19161

@Ariel Actually sometimes I think I am not human too! :-)

3:23 PM

@AndrewStacey Could I use it with any font?

1 hour later…

4:28 PM

@Cangeek So far as I'm aware, yes. I used fontforge to generate the SVGs and fontforge can read just about any font format.

yo 16161 ! I can go home now:-) enjoy the football...

5:16 PM

@DavidCarlisle Already over ;-)

5:48 PM

@DavidCarlisle Football? No cricket or rugby?

@DavidCarlisle Thirty minutes to start. :)

@PauloCereda your screen ruler answer is a lifesaver

user image

Seriously? TeXstudio wants me to answer this to get to the advanced options! One, two three, 1, 2, 3 none of it works. Even if I figure out the answer to the puzzle, what format does it expect the answer in?

6:03 PM

@Ariel "the third"

Okay the string for unlocking is "Three"

:)

@Ariel I'm glad the answer helped you. :)

@TorbjørnT hah texstudio apart, the third one is deaf and if he answers randomly, the statistician in me does not want to believe its the truth. ;-)

I should not have done that {activated advanced options in texstudio}. Now I am faced with a ZILLION choices. My head hurts

6:48 PM

vimeo.com/40169528

Now back to the game. :)

7:16 PM

@egreg: Goal!!! :)

Anyone know if there is a question here that discusses the various indexing packages? i have seen discussions in some questions but can't find a question that lists the various packages and their pros and cons

This seems to be the closest match I have come across: What are the latest/best practices for index generation?. Wondering if the "best-practices" tag is appropriate for this?

7:31 PM

@PeterGrill or big-list?

@PeterGrill such a question would be interesting

@NN I was afraid someone was going to suggest that! :-)

Brent.Longborough

@NN Oh my god. That's amazing (but I think it should be C-c C-e d, no?)

Now all I have to learn is how to tweak it

@BrentLongborough Indeed, it is cool.

2

Q: How can I make Org-mode export to LaTeX with a specific preamble?

When I do C-e l to export an Org file to LaTeX it produces a document with a particular preamble. Instead of this particular preamble I would like it to use a preamble of my choice. Say that I want it to use the following preamble: % Don't forget to qpdf --linearize the final copy \RequirePackag...

emacs latex org-mode

duh, got the key sequence wrong in that question too

@PauloCereda Wow! Quite nice...

But it was quite a moment for me when you wrote Goodbye world together with the music.

Combine it with cleaning memory, ah good times .....

Not to mention your Pulse DVD cover on the avatar. Perfect!

7:58 PM

@percusse Awww thanks. :)

Brent.Longborough

8:15 PM

@NN Yes, that made my head ache, but I can see more and more that emacs has a lot of goodies up its sleeve

8:56 PM

@egreg: great game!

@PauloCereda As usual, could have been better: great goalie for Lazio.

@egreg Indeed! :) And what a goal from Del Piero! I was expecting Pirlo for that foul. :)

@PauloCereda :)

@egreg After the goal, I was amused by the fans shouting "chi non salta rossonero è". :P

@NN Done: List of Indexing Packages - Pros and Cons

2 hours later…

11:18 PM

@egreg: You're quick out of the gate with the MWE request!

@Werner It's been some years since I haven't used Plain TeX seriously. And the OP is not who we know. :)

YuP. I'm almost waiting for the "What's an MWE?" response.

@Werner But I'll look at the question tomorrow. Good night.

@egreg 'til next time. Ciao.

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