TeX, LaTeX and Friends

4:41 AM

I remember that I can use \ifcat to check if something is a macro. Can somebody please remind me how to do that correctly?

David Carlisle

7:47 AM

@Diaa you discarded the baselineskip setting before you used it you need a blank line before the endgroup, also you should not have the final \\ but setting a paragraph of rules isn't the most natural thing, why not use picture mode or even tikz (since you are loading pgf anyway)

@HenriMenke well not if it's a macro but if it is a csname not \let to a character: \ifcat\relax\noexpand#1 as all csname tokens that are not implicit characters are equal to \if and \ifcat

Henri Menke

9:06 AM

@DavidCarlisle Thanks!

Ulrike Fischer

9:17 AM

@JosephWright I got a bit lost in the l3-branches. What happened with the l3text branch? Is now everything in text-purify?

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer I removed l3text, reworked a few ideas and put them into text-case + text-purify: at the moment, the pull request is only about the case-changing stuff

Ulrike Fischer

@JosephWright I don't think that I will have really the time to check the code this week, but I will build a branch current master + text-purify and use it.

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer Cool

@UlrikeFischer The case changing code is largely the same as l3text, which is pretty similar to the current release stuff, jsut with better naming, the ability to change just the first char, and the Greek stuff

Diaa

9:33 AM

Actually, I am printing a lot of rules over multiple pages as a space for answers. So, I am not sure if tikz will get the job done that easy way. For the additional \\ at the end of last foreach iteration, I think it can be fixed by \vspace{-\baselineskip} after the loop.

If you have an easier way to do so, I would be grateful to know it.

Thanks for pointing the missing blank line out for me.

yo'

@Diaa \gdef\zzz{\gdef\zzz{\\}} \for \x in {a,b,c}{\zzz \x}

(not tested, I'm typing from my phone)

(also be careful about thr macro name as \zzz has to be global to make this work)

David Carlisle

@Diaa better not to add it (or use \ instead of \\ in all cases (as it makes no difference here) or more efficiently use \par rather than \\ as that avoids setting all the rules in one long horizontal list first)

Paulo Cereda

quack

@yo' ooh zzz

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda Dinner

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

David Carlisle

9:40 AM

@PauloCereda standard naming convention

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle :)

Diaa

@yo' @yo' I am sorry but I don't get it why I need to define a global macro for printing multiple rules.

David Carlisle

@Diaa because you were using pgf's for loop which processes each item in a local group so if you want to set a flag after the first item so you only put \\ in front of items other than teh first then you need to escape that group. Other loop macros don't have that issue (or as I say you could avoid using \\ in this case)

yo'

@Diaa ask pgffor creators. The instances of the for cycle are grouped, so you cannot easily communicate between them locally.

David Carlisle

@Diaa backing up with a negative space at the end doesn't really work, it is hard to avoid edge effects if the last rule happens to fall at the end of the page you don't want a page break between the spurious line and the backspace

Diaa

9:50 AM

So, is this what you mean?

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{exam}
\usepackage{pgfplots,blindtext}
\begin{document}

\blindtext
\vspace{\baselineskip}

\begingroup

\setlength{\baselineskip}{1mm}
\foreach \i in {1,...,50} {\noindent\rule{\linewidth}{0.2pt}\par}

\endgroup

\vspace{\baselineskip}
\blindtext

\end{document}

David Carlisle

@Diaa something like that (1mm is very close lines though for answers??)

@Diaa you might want to add \setlength{\parskip}{0pt} inside your group as well, to stop it stretching if you have flushbottom

Diaa

10:06 AM

@DavidCarlisle It is a dummy number :)

David Carlisle

@Diaa bad choice though: if you'd made it much smaller you would have hit \lineskiplimit and the layout would have changed

Faheem Mitha

10:20 AM

I'm trying to have a template, which includes JPG files in a small LaTeX file using \includegraphics, with no other options.

However, the bottom of the JPEG file is getting lopped off.

Are there some approaches I can take to obtain best results for an arbitrary JPEG file?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha then you did something wrong or the size data in the jpeg file is wrong (not entirely uncommon)

Faheem Mitha

Perhaps some heuristics using measurements from the JPEG file?

@DavidCarlisle The file is very simple. Are you saying \includegraphics automatically uses information from the JPEG file?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha yes of course how else would it know how much space to take up on teh page.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Oh.

I don't think I did anything wrong. The LaTeX file is very simple.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha the details depend on which back end driver you are using, but if you can go \includegraphics{foo.jpg} it is reading the size data from the jpeg file

Faheem Mitha

10:24 AM

@DavidCarlisle Yes, that's all I did.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{grffile}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics{foo.jpg}
\end{document}

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha users always think that, so that isn't saying very much.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle :)

Ulrike Fischer

@FaheemMitha don't use the grffile package in a current latex, it is obsolete.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha don't use grffile (actually the current version of the package is literally empty so it is harmless)

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle so slow

Paulo Cereda

10:25 AM

Don't use the... oh

:D

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer but so much more informative

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer I read snow :)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha well naturally that will clip to the page size so if the jpg doesn't fit it will get clipped (and latex will warn you about over full boxes)

Faheem Mitha

@UlrikeFischer Oh. What should I use instead? If I don't use it, then files like foo.bar.jpg give me errors. Unknown suffix etc.

@DavidCarlisle Hmm. What are my options for automatic rescaling?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha not in a current latex release they wont

Faheem Mitha

10:27 AM

@DavidCarlisle It happened to me just today. With TeX Live 2019.

In fact, that's why I added the line. Then the error went away.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha [height=.8\textheight,width=\textwidth,keepaspectration]` and a \noindent before the `\includegraphics?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle keepaspectratio (typo)

:)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha then you are not up to date, teh texlive 2019 grffile is, in total:

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Oh. Would that generally fit, then? Oh, right - keep the aspect ratio. An important detail, that.

David Carlisle

\PackageInfo{grffile}{This package is an empty stub for compatibility}
\DeclareOption*{}
\ProcessOptions
\RequirePackage{graphicx}

@FaheemMitha so it will not change any aspect of file inclusion

Faheem Mitha

10:29 AM

@DavidCarlisle Ok, checking.

Ulrike Fischer

@FaheemMitha then your system is not current.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer so slow

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh more snow

@DavidCarlisle also, formatting

Faheem Mitha

@UlrikeFischer Yes, David just said that. Did it change during or after TeX Live 2019, then? So really recently?

I was about to upgrade to the December snapshot of the Debian packages. Is that current enough?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda which reminds me...

Счастливого Рождества

3

@FaheemMitha possibly, I have no idea when debian update.

Paulo Cereda

10:32 AM

@DavidCarlisle оох сеасон греетингс

Gotta love this transliteration thingy :)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle At any rate, was this a recent change?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle to be honest, I was expecting "dinner" or something along these lines. It was quite surprising. :)

Faheem Mitha

grffile is definitely not empty here. Actually, there are two grffile.stys here.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha relatively (2019-11-11) but before that grffile hadn't worked at all for about a year

@PauloCereda you mean you were not already celebrating Christmas?

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Hmm. Ok. I was planning to update anyway. I think I've already built the debs.

Paulo Cereda

10:34 AM

@DavidCarlisle OH TODAY IS CHRISTMAS TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha two?

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda Maybe it's dinner in Russian?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha No, see above.

Julian calendar.

Faheem Mitha

texlive-latex-recommended: /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/lwarp/lwarp-grffile.sty
texlive-latex-base: /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/oberdiek/grffile.sty

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle you sir are a true English treasure.

David Carlisle

10:36 AM

@FaheemMitha oh that's not two grffile.sty that's one grffile.sty and another file that has some shared letters in its name

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda Along with Stephen Fry and David Attenborough, you mean?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha No, David is way more than that. :)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Oh, pardon me. It looked sufficiently grffiley to me.

The version I have is:

%% Project: grffile
%% Version: 2017/06/30 v1.18

@PauloCereda Way more than what?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha Yes, more than what.

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda I cannot parse that. I am parseless.

David Carlisle

10:45 AM

@PauloCereda it helps to be fairly flexible in religious affiliation, to pick up holidays.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle that's naughty. :)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha no more than graphicx.sty and graphics.sty share the letters graph

@PauloCereda yes well as you are catholic and more or less every day is a saints day anyway, you wouldn't gain so much.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh that's true :)

@DavidCarlisle speaking of Englishmen, I have one or two books from GK Chesterton to read. :)

@DavidCarlisle My dad tells an anecdote of a very lazy man in the city who used to wake up every day and take a look at a calendar which had a saint dedicated to each and every day. He would consider even the most obscure reference as relevant enough to save the day. :)

Paulo Cereda

12:38 PM

ooh more stars (@HenriMenke)

Dr. Manuel Kuehner

3:04 PM

@DavidCarlisle Just a quick update on pgfplots. I contacted Christian: Maybe there is still hope, that he will work on pgfplots again :)

David Carlisle

@Dr.ManuelKuehner yes same as me and longtable, one update every 20 years gives people hope that updates are still on the way.....

Dr. Manuel Kuehner

@DavidCarlisle :)

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I really should make a pull request out of my bug report ...

Dr. Manuel Kuehner

@DavidCarlisle And you are reachable on this site for your fanbase, I mean userbase.

@DavidCarlisle Going offline again :). Bye.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer you have write access to latex2e/required/tools:-)

Joseph Wright

3:24 PM

@Dr.ManuelKuehner Yaya

Paulo Cereda

3:38 PM

@JosephWright ooh the French football player :)

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer I suspect this translates to: "how to I cope with Ulrike messing with the oberdiek bundle and moving packages around?"

0

Q: Install all missing packages under MiKTeX

When I install MiKTeX on a computer, I always choose the option of installing all packages. Of course, as time goes by, new packages appear on CTAN. Is there any way of telling MiKTeX to install all missing packages? It seems to be a logical request coming from someone who chose to install all pa...

daleif

@DavidCarlisle by switching to a fuill TeXLive installation?

David Carlisle

3:53 PM

@daleif must admit that's always been my approach

Paulo Cereda

4:47 PM

yo'

@PauloCereda haha, our river has three syllables, one of which does not contain a vowel :)

Paulo Cereda

@yo' oooooh

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda you'd be really stuck without vowels

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda h n

Paulo Cereda

5:02 PM

@DavidCarlisle ooh czech skills

David Carlisle

5:12 PM

@PauloCereda bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/51018573

yo'

@PauloCereda <3

Paulo Cereda

@yo' <3

@DavidCarlisle ooh cricket

yo'

@PauloCereda crckt

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh more czech skills

barbara beeton

5:40 PM

@yo' -- Add another "t", and that would trigger a song that was nearly an anthem of my teenage years. (It also, with new words, became the theme song of my college freshman dorm. This messing with vowels can have dangerous side effects.)

yo'

@barbarabeeton ndd t cn

Diaa

5:54 PM

Hello everyone,

For this document https://pastebin.com/uCyBir0i , how can I make the output vertically centered on the empty page?

I don't understand why it is shifted upwards?

egreg

@Diaa Why the \rotatebox?

Diaa

@egreg It was in the original answer from which I made this one.

egreg

@Diaa Here it is. Note the settings to geometry

%tex.stackexchange.com/a/356984/2288

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{siunitx}

\usepackage[
a4paper, margin = 0mm , includeheadfoot,
]{geometry}

% tex.stackexchange.com/a/15002/100384
\newcommand*{\getlength}[2]{%
   % Convert to `cm` and round to two fractional digits:
   \pgfmathsetmacro#1{round(0.0351459804*#2)}%
}

\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}

\centering

\vspace*{\fill}

    \begin{tikzpicture}
        % a factor for measures, since pfplots produces slightly bigger images than defined

Diaa

@egreg Many thanks

Paulo Cereda

7:44 PM

@DavidCarlisle ^^

hmmmmm

Henri Menke

9:15 PM

! LaTeX Error: File `ltxcmds.sty' not found.

@DavidCarlisle ^^^ travis-ci.com/hmenke/pgf/jobs/273262396#L616

Why is this happening? I installed ltxcmds in the setup script.

Joseph Wright

@HenriMenke tlmgr itself needs to be updated.

@HenriMenke You need to have the tlmgr update --self line in the script reasonably early

David Carlisle

10:02 PM

@HenriMenke as Joseph said...

@PauloCereda I'm not mean

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle <3

Ulrike Fischer

Dec 25 '19 at 13:28, by Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle You are not mean

I knew if would be handy ...

Henri Menke

@JosephWright @DavidCarlisle Cheers, mate!

David Carlisle

10:20 PM

@HenriMenke we got hit by that earlier in the latex travis setup:-)

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends