TeX, LaTeX and Friends

7:03 AM

@barbarabeeton Please see the following post on meta and post the required points as comment...

3

A: Which image to use in community promotions ads of other Stack Exchange websites for TeX.SX?

One of your users reached out to us over at GDSE in our chatroom. I have produced this for your community based on the graphics already used on your site. I can give about 5 minutes for revisions of text or slight placement issues. Leave comments below and I'll act on the most upvoted requests i...

egreg

8:47 AM

The “minor site updates” have arrived: the code displays are awful.

yo'

@egreg I'm not sure I see any change?

ah I see some changes. Why is the vote count grey and not black?

And now, we've lost our logo :( and some text is smaller, and paddings bigger, and it all looks awful.

Manuel

:( I liked the old colors in the code.

yo'

9:03 AM

Am I the only one who can't see the big "TeX" logo on the site and on meta?

Manuel

@yo' It works for me.

yo'

@Manuel ok, I'll see what happens. Have you tried Ctrl+F5?

Manuel

I'm in a Mac, I don't know what Ctrl+F5 is supposed to do :P

The colors are awful, at least to me. That brownish-orangish colors were realy nice. This blue colors hurt my eyes. It's not relaxing to read with those colors anymore.

yo'

@Manuel clean cache and refresh

Manuel

@yo' I'm not going to do that :P I don't have the fastest connection and I don't really want to be reloading the cache (at least on purpose).

By the way, now that you mention it. It's true, I also have problems!

In my case what I can't see are the avatars of users (e.g., nor egreg nor wipet). I only see a few avatars. But most of them just appear blank.

Now, right here in the chat, here's what I see.

Johannes_B

9:18 AM

@Dom I like it.

Paulo Cereda

10:32 AM

@yo' It's gone for me as well.

Enthusiastic Student

10:52 AM

@PauloCereda I think it is better to change the phrase to Q & A site for users of \TeX, \LaTeX and Friends. with \TeX and \LaTeX as they appear in the output of TeX documents. — Enthusiastic Student 1 min ago

Johannes_B

11:10 AM

in The Ink Spot, 2 mins ago, by Dom

@Johannes_B interesting, it's definitely possible to use it, but I think Duane Bibby still needs to be contacted for permission to use it without including “CTAN lion drawing by Duane Bibby”, I'm 99% sure they'd allow it, all you need to do is email them.

It is strange to have 3 (three) different places for one topic. Essentially, this is crossposting. And everybody trying to keep up with the discussion about a community ad logo should now know, why crossposting is discouraged.

Christian Hupfer

11:51 AM

New design? ;-)

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer the more things change, the more they stay the same. ;-)

Christian Hupfer

@PaulGessler: Like answering box questions with Plain TeX, for example? ;-)

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer I have also been known to use the picture environment from time to time.

Enthusiastic Student

Is it possible to import data from a CSV file by datatool package and then do calculations with spreadtab?

Johannes_B

@EnthusiasticStudent It might be possible, but .... LaTeX is for typesetting. You might have a better experience by using real tools for calculating stuff.

Christian Hupfer

12:00 PM

@PaulGessler: Most impressive ! (Deep breathing can be heard ;-)

Enthusiastic Student

@Johannes_B I am actually thinking about this question. I can not understand why he wants to do a simple calculation by means of tough codes in latex

2

Q: Plot data and the mean of each column

I have a data file which looks like this: 1 256 2 197 3 190 4 188 5 219 6 169 7 179 8 181 9 182 10 178 where the first column are timesteps and the second column contains the number of iterations an algorithm needed in the corresponding timestep. I plot this with the first ...

pgfplots

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer deep breathing? Is @Johannes_B about to indulge in some liver delicacy? :-p

Christian Hupfer

@PaulGessler: That causes deep vomitting, not breathing ;-) @Johannes_B :-P

Johannes_B

@ChristianHupfer @PaulGessler Do you see distorted questions (screenshot in the meta Q)?

Paul Gessler

@Johannes_B no, I wasn't able to reproduce that one.

But I did already find an issue of my own.

Christian Hupfer

12:05 PM

@PaulGessler: I meant this guy

Darth Vader

Darth Vader (born Anakin Skywalker) is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He appears in the original trilogy as a pivotal figure, as well as the prequel trilogy as a central figure. The character was created by George Lucas and has been portrayed by numerous actors. His appearances span all six Star Wars films, and he is an important character in the expanded universe of television series, video games, novels, literature and comic books. Originally a Jedi prophesied to bring balance to the Force, he falls to the dark side of the Force and serves the evil Galactic Empire at the right...

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer oh, my! I can't say I've ever tried liver. My father-in-law likes it though.

Johannes_B

The question hyperlink is 1px smaller. It used to be 18px and now it's 17px. We will up the size in the next production build. As far as the missing logo. It's possible it's an issue of the filter in the logo's SVG not rendering. We did testing, but not on a Linux machine. There's a fallback png, but apparently FF must be trying to load the SVG if it is not falling back. — Kurtis Beavers 1 hour ago

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer I meant @PaulMcCartney... ! Ah, yes, Lord Vader, using \bf, \it, and Plain TeX with reckless abandon.

3

Christian Hupfer

@PaulGessler: The evil is strong in you ;-)

Paul Gessler

@ChristianHupfer if you can't beat them, join them. :-)

Johannes_B

12:09 PM

@PaulGessler Wanna know something about tasty fried liver? -> github.com/johannesbottcher/bausteineBewerbung/blob/master/…

Christian Hupfer

0

Q: My PDF viewer does not support animations or actually my code is wrong?

I'm new in MikTex's animation world. I was trying to create a simple animation with this elementary code \documentclass{beamer} \usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{animate} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{MNNR} \begin{center} \animategraphics[autoplay,pal...

beamer pdf animations

Sound's like MikTeX being a TeX version of Disneyland ... animation world ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@Johannes_B Dagobert Duck!

Paul Gessler

@Johannes_B I don't know if I should dare click this link...

Christian Hupfer

@PaulGessler: Don't do that ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@PaulGessler Do it. :)

Johannes_B

12:12 PM

@PaulGessler I was thinking about CVs lately because a user promoted some sort of template with speghetti code (mjam, mjam) four different folders, two of them with the same content, but one as templates, others as examples and ... I was confused. So i started up my own sandbox.

Paul Gessler

ooooh! Since when does GitHub display PDFs in the UI? This must be new since the last time I tried! (Or some browser update made it possible.)

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda I would hire tfl :-)

Paulo Cereda

@PaulGessler It's a recent update. :)

@Johannes_B LOL

Paul Gessler

@Johannes_B yes, I'm looking at it. I need to do something similar with mine—now I have two versions, one short form resume for industry, and one longer traditional academic-type CV.

Johannes_B

@PaulGessler @PauloCereda i'd love to see the look of the HR-guy reading that. If somebody sent this in by mistake. Or on purpose having hidden a camera in the office before.

@PauloCereda Not only for the potato salad, also for the multitalent part of the CV.

I think i spent more time making up the fake stuff, than LaTeX coding.

Paulo Cereda

12:24 PM

@Johannes_B We all do research here, so fake stuff is always a thing. :P

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda :-)

Christian Hupfer

@PauloCereda: Research? Trial and error!!!!

egreg

The logo seems to have reappeared.

Paulo Cereda

@ChristianHupfer For large values of 2. :)

Christian Hupfer

I don't know the figure 2... I only know 8^{1/3} ;-)

@Johannes_B: I can see line breaks in the share close reopen (1) line

Paul Gessler

12:33 PM

@PauloCereda cool, I didn't know about this. It's nice, but of course @Johannes_B was naughty and checked in more than just his sources. :-)

Christian Hupfer

0

Q: My PDF viewer does not support animations or actually my code is wrong?

I'm new in MikTex's animation world. I was trying to create a simple animation with this elementary code \documentclass{beamer} \usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{animate} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{MNNR} \begin{center} \animategraphics[autoplay,pal...

beamer pdf animations

Johannes_B

@ChristianHupfer Can't see any there.

@PaulGessler I was a bit surprised, that tfl.org leads to a real site.

Paul Gessler

@PauloCereda die Deutscher-caveat-emptor: Dieser Code kommt ohne jede Gewährleistung, hauptsächlich da das nur ein kleiner Sandkasten ist. Wenn du das für deine Projekte benutzt und alles explodiert, du wurdest gewarnt.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Logos look different to me, are they?

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda Yes, the braces i think.

Paulo Cereda

12:44 PM

@PaulGessler Oh my, German overdose! :)

Paul Gessler

@PauloCereda German is so aggressive to my ears (but I like it!); favorite part here is Wenn alles explodiert, du wurdest gewarnt.

Johannes_B

@PaulGessler I don't know, the sound in my head while reading this gets angry. I wonder if it is the german that makes it sound like that, or if it is my writing.

Paul Gessler

@Johannes_B maybe a bit of both... I'm used to hearing my uncle speak German while jokingly reprimanding people. :-)

I just thought it was amusing while reading, that's all. My German is rusty.

Christian Hupfer

@PaulGessler: Real aggressive German: Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! … Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput! @PauloCereda ;-)

Johannes_B

@PaulGessler Mine as well, especially when drunk.

Paulo Cereda

12:48 PM

@PaulGessler A friend of mine once said to me: 1. say "nine" a lot of times in an angry voice. 2. Instant German. :)

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda Instant German -- Canned food that will never make it.

Paulo Cereda

@Johannes_B It needs more liver. :)

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda I need to try out Bibimbap one time.

Paul Gessler

@PauloCereda an anonymous ex-pat relative of mine used to get out of speeding tickets by pleading with the Polizei in an English accent, "Kein Deutsch! Kein Deutsch!" and waving his arms about.

Paulo Cereda

@Johannes_B :)

@PaulGessler oooh

Johannes_B

12:55 PM

@PaulGessler viralviralvideos.com/2012/05/19/…

egreg

@PauloCereda It looks thinner on Firefox. Probably the Retina display thing.

Johannes_B

1:28 PM

@ChristianHupfer Why didn't i know this one? It could be the hymn of our town.

♪ Diggy Diggy Hole

►

Manuel

1:51 PM

Probably non answerable question. Why did Knuth chose to write \lowercase (or \uppercase) non expandable?

I thought that the system was to change (in a certain way) the glyph slot “at the typesetting moment”. So it was “acceptable” that it wasn't expandable (it had nothing to do with characters but with “glyphs” in the font).

But since \lowercase{\csname RELAX}\endcsname does write \csname relax\endcsname… I can't understand why it's not expandable.

egreg

@Manuel He found that way for implementing them: the token list is passed to the internal processor (with all symbolic tokens considered as \relax), where the change to the letters is performed and the resulting token list is handed back to the macro processor.

@Manuel Making it expandable would expand the macros in the token list, which is generally not wanted.

Manuel

@egreg That might be what explains why it's not expandable. But I still can't see the full picture. Why not an expandable \lowercase that acts exactly like the non expandable? Why making it expandable would expand the macros?

egreg

@Manuel I don't follow you. What should \lowercase{\chapter{AAA}} do, in your opinion?

Manuel

\chapter{aaa}

@egreg Disclaimer, I'm probably wrong, and you probably know what you mean, but I can't see (still) the reason :)

egreg

@Manuel Well, how could expansion of \chapter be inhibited?

Manuel

2:02 PM

@egreg Well that's the thing. Why would you want to expand \chapter? The primitive should act just like the current \lowercase.

wget

Hi guys. Does anyone has ever experimented some missing space after a TeX-related logo has been instered inside a paragraph. The word following the logo seems to be glued directly to the logo.

egreg

@Manuel I'm not saying it is impossible; but it would be painfully slow: process each token, implicitly applying \noexpand to every symbolic token and converting character tokens, then restarting from the beginning.

Manuel

@wget \LaTeX{} like this?

egreg

@wget Well known non-problem: \TeX{} is a wonderful system

Paul Gessler

174

Q: Space after LaTeX commands

I have a definition \newcommand{\arnold}{Arnold Schwarzenegger} when I refer to it by \arnold is a it is rendered as Arnold Schwarzeneggeris a In order to have a space in front of "is" I would need to write \arnold\ is a Is there another and shorter way?

macros spacing xspace

wget

2:04 PM

@Manuel @egreg Got it. I forgot the curly brackets ;-) FIxed

Paul Gessler

@wget it's the age-old spaces after macro question. :-)

174

Q: Space after LaTeX commands

I have a definition \newcommand{\arnold}{Arnold Schwarzenegger} when I refer to it by \arnold is a it is rendered as Arnold Schwarzeneggeris a In order to have a space in front of "is" I would need to write \arnold\ is a Is there another and shorter way?

macros spacing xspace

Manuel

@egreg Okey. That migh be it. From my non knowing mind, I can't see what's the different from the current definition (in my mind, since it's a primitive, I imagine the expandability —in this case— like checking a box saying “Hey, I want this one expandable, please“).

egreg

@Manuel No, it doesn't work like this.

@Manuel The e-TeX \unexpanded works somewhat like I said, but it hasn't to restart from the beginning. This would violate how TeX works on token lists.

Paul Gessler

@wget sorry for all the pings, my internet connection is freaking out at the moment. :-)

wget

@PaulGessler I actually googled it before but didn't use the same word.
No problem for your connection ;-)

yo'

2:12 PM

Am I the only person who doesn't buy this "empty" web design?

daleif

@yo', empty? where?

yo'

@daleif well, you get little text with HUGE MARGINS. That's what I call "empty".

daleif

@yo' isn't it because it is more directed towards phones and tablets.

Manuel

@yo' Changes are not usually easy (we use to accommodate and then prefer not to change). And this change is not particularly awful (in my opinion). But there are things that were perfect before, and I don't understand why changing them.

daleif

@Manuel is it the design on this site we are discussing?

yo'

2:18 PM

@Manuel but it's FAKIN RIDICULUS to have 6 questions per page and a 💩 of whitespace

@daleif yes

daleif

@yo' what on earth are you looking at the site with? I seem to have the same number of questions per page as I usually have in desktop Firefox on Linux.

yo'

@daleif I certainly have less. And all the text is smaller.

daleif

@yo' which browser and OS?

and exactly which page?

yo'

@daleif tex.stackexchange.com on FF, Fedora

daleif

Of course this one is not fun

tex.stackexchange.com/questions?pagesize=2&sort=newest

note the 2 in the url.

@yo' how about your screen/window size?

yo'

2:23 PM

@daleif nothing changed from last time.

daleif

@yo' the design may have changed to react more against window size. I'm almost using full screen on a 24" monitor.

yo'

So first they increased the size of the top bar. Now they increase the spaces everywhere but in the one place where they molested it. Then introduced bright blue text in a warm esign. What's next? Pink design with yellow text?

@daleif I've got a standard notebook. I can't "zoom out" because the text is already too small, and in default zoom, I see 6 Qs per page.

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ducks.stackexchange.com

2

Hopefully. :)

daleif

@yo' how about providing a screen shot.

yo'

@daleif here you go. I can hardly read the tag names.

daleif

2:28 PM

@yo', erh you have lots more questions, scroll down.

@yo' I have no problem reading that.

Paulo Cereda

@yo' \usepackage[bikini]{beach}

daleif

Have you set a minimal font size in FF? Also I have no problem scaling the font using Ctrl++

wget

@PauloCereda Yep. This isn't the greatest theme to keep concentration; it instead gives you libidinous ideas ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@wget :)

Dom

2:44 PM

Hi everybody

hoping to get feedback now and finalise the ad because I won't have time later

anybody feel free to say yes we're happy or can you tweak that?

Paulo Cereda

@Dom Hello! Hold on, I might be able to help! Gimme 2 minutes. :)

Dom

@PauloCereda on I am holding :)

Paulo Cereda

@Dom Do you use Photoshop?

Dom

@PauloCereda That's what I chose for this because all assets are raster on the site atm

Do you want the file?

Paulo Cereda

@Dom No worries. :) Hold on.

@Dom: app.box.com/s/zse4mu9s812fnz2qkiy1rrkzpec6hvhi

I typeset this text with LaTeX, maybe you could import the resulting PDF, I suspect Photoshop will interpret it as some vector thingy.

Oh my, the text is red? Let me fix that.

I meant, the whole text. :)

Dom

2:58 PM

@PauloCereda Good idea, give me a few minutes, I don't think colour is a problem

Paulo Cereda

@Dom I can fix it too, let me redo it.

Dom

@PauloCereda okay, it works nicely anyway, waiting for updated one

Paulo Cereda

@Dom app.box.com/s/qdg976qn5leikss54rt58re7u7khf3yq

@Dom: not sure if it looks good, we are tweaking too much things on the TeX side. :P

Dom

Paulo Cereda

@Dom OH MY, I FORGOT ONE!

Dom

3:05 PM

@PauloCereda I'm not sure, I think it does look better

Paulo Cereda

I forgot ConTeXt!

Dom

:) waiting lol

Paulo Cereda

@Dom: I'm so so sorry, could you do another one? I will update it.

Dom

no worries it's longer waiting than actually placing and exporting

@PauloCereda you may want to quickly consider how it looks with 'site' after Q&A, I can't justify well with photoshop but maybe it looks good in Tex

Paulo Cereda

@Dom That's a good idea, but site will really mess with the adjustment. :)

Dom

3:10 PM

That's the issue I had with it when another user suggested on the post :)

Paulo Cereda

@Dom: app.box.com/s/9wvrvbusgfekisr9e913ja00ftd5gj6s

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends