TeX, LaTeX and Friends

percusse

00:01

@PauloCereda If I can I would go down to WinEdt 3.1 but there is no BibLaTeX support and I am citing like crazy. I need something to keep track of my ref thingy. I really think that I have a problem with my LaTeX use since these options are missing from most of them. I'll figure something out anyway :)

Paulo Cereda

@percusse References can give us headaches. :( I'm reticent to move to biblatex, but I'll do it soon.

percusse

@PauloCereda Well since I am not an expert on any of them. Every morning, I hail to the newest king :)

Paulo Cereda

@percusse haha :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Hurrah!

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Wow. Don't tell me... it worked?! :D

egreg

00:14

@PauloCereda Yes!

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Yay! :)

Paulo Cereda

00:39

@egreg: ABNT strikes back:

0

Q: Why this bibtex entry give me a 'undefined control sequence'?

Having this bibtex entry in file.bib: @ARTICLE{Silva2007, author = {Newton José Rodrigues da Silva and Jean-Eudes Beuret and Olivier Mikolasek and Guy Fontenelle and Lionel Dabbadie and Maria Inez Espagnoli Geraldo Martins}, title = {Modelo Teórico de Análise de Políticas Públicas e Desenvol...

bibtex

Paulo Cereda

00:56

Oops, it's not ABNT's fault... this time. :P

Gonzalo Medina

01:11

@PauloCereda Where did you get abntcite.sty?

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina It's available as part of a bundle named abntex: abntex.codigolivre.org.br Beware: hic sunt dracones :)

I didn't even install in my local tree. :)

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda Is it some kind of standard for academic documents in Brazil?

Hmmm, now I see. It looks like the Brazilian equivalent of our ICONTEC norms.

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Sadly, yes. :) It has by far one of the worst layouts ever conceived by human kind. :(

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda You haven't seen ICONTEC norms ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Oh thanks, but I'll pass. :) If it's as good as ABNT, we are well served. :D

Gonzalo Medina

01:18

@PauloCereda I am positive that they are pretty much alike; ICONTEC is every typographer's nightmare!

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Why do they do that to us? :)

@GonzaloMedina: do you have a DjVu viewer? :)

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda Yes. Why?

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Hold on. :)

@Gonzalo: check email. :)

Gonzalo Medina

OK

Paulo Cereda

Sorry, I don't have any PDF version here. :(

Gonzalo Medina

01:26

@PauloCereda ¡Virgen santísima! I could swear those are exactly our ICONTEC norms!

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Oh my! Really?!

Bed time. :) see ya, friends! :)

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda Good night!

Joseph Wright

08:21

3

A: Serial upvoting reversed

The large value shown was incorrect because it's calculated based on rep-change totals on the deleted votes. This is key because until today, rep changes (both to voter and target) were not ever updated/fixed on deleted votes. With the latest revision of the rep code, we will update those del...

Roelof Spijker

08:54

Well, that seems to answer exactly none of the questions egreg asked.

Joseph Wright

09:48

@StefanKottwitz, @PauloCereda Is it okay to mention texdoc.net 'in public', perhaps on the community blog?

I might also add it to my LaTeX for Beginners notes

Paulo Cereda

10:03

@JosephWright I'm a humble code guy. :) But I don't see why not. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

10:18

@JosephWright Sure, it's a service for the public.

@JosephWright I consider a good use in automated document links such as on LaTeX-Community.org: [doc]packagename[/doc] or the button for this code links to texdoc.net/pkg/packagename

Andrew Stacey

10:35

@doncherry's just found an old answer of mine where I used the minimal class (I have no shame, it was: tex.stackexchange.com/a/12024/86). Of course, I now know that I shouldn't do that but that was before I was Enlightened. A quick grep shows that I may have done this about 45 times. Rather than edit all 45 in one go (something even lockstep might blanch at), I hereby declare:

"If anyone encounters an answer of mine where I use the minimal class for no reason, take pity on me and edit it to something more respectable. Just remember that we were all young once and did rash things that we'd rather now were quietly forgotten, so don't revel in my folly, but please be kind and discreetly (or discretely) clean up the mess that I left in the days before I knew better."

percusse

@StefanKottwitz @PauloCereda I don't know if the reason is that you are still populating the list but some of the links of packages in the graphics part lead to broken links. They are pstcirc,pstoptic,petrinets,wrapfig,pgf,xypic1,xypic2

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse I assume it's outdated information in the texdoctk database

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz I'd say the very same thing. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse As it's delivered with TeX Live still, I support it and I plan to make corrections and extend it if desired by the TeX Live team

@percusse For example, pstcirc is now known as pst-circ afaik

Andrew Stacey

@JosephWright Status !@#$)*@# not completed. Status perhaps "go away and stop bothering us about this" but "completed"? No.

percusse

10:45

@StefanKottwitz No problem, I think it's a fantastic piece of work. I just wanted to let you know.

Stefan Kottwitz

similarly, there's pst-optic. I'll copy your mentioned links, thanks! And I will check for possibly further dead links

Joseph Wright

@AndrewStacey If the devs change the status to completed, we're really not meant to alter it

percusse

I also use the shortcut for accessing the CTAN database tug.ctan.org/pkg/<pkgname>;

JLDiaz

Hello, I'm a newcomer. My reputation is only 1. Am I allowed to add a comment to a question?

Joseph Wright

@JLDiaz Don't think so: you need a bit more rep than that

Stefan Kottwitz

10:46

@percusse you could even omit the tug subdomain

Joseph Wright

@StefanKottwitz Better to do that, as it means you get the nearest mirror

percusse

@StefanKottwitz Oops, that's firefox contribution sorry :)

JLDiaz

But I think that what I have to say does not deserve an answer. And, am I allowed to post an answer? That would be odd (to be allowed to answer but not to comment)

Paulo Cereda

We could add a texdoc opensearch for Firefox. :)

Joseph Wright

@JLDiaz We (the mods) can convert an answer to a comment if needed

percusse

10:48

@PauloCereda Aha! That would be really neat...

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda great idea!

Paulo Cereda

We could create a new expression, "like a mod!" instead of "like a boss!". :)

Andrew Stacey

Anyone know if there are recommended Maths fonts to go with each of the TeX Gyre family?

Joseph Wright

11:07

New (short) blog post

Stack Exchange TeX Blog: TeX documentation online: texdoc.net

Joseph Wright on March 21, 2012

The TeX-sx chat system is a great place to get together for new ideas. A few days ago, regular contributors Stefan Kottwitz and Paulo Cereda decided to set up an online TeX documentation system. Within a few hours, texdoc.net was born! Using the new site, linking to documentation (from TeX Live) is easy http://texdoc.net/pkg/<package name> This will take you straight to the PDF for the package you want. Of course, you don’t have to know the name of the package you are interested in: the full power of texdoc and the category view from texdoctk is there behind the scenes. …

Andrew Stacey

texdoc NET or texdoc ORG? The post is .. confused .. on the matter.

Joseph Wright

@AndrewStacey Oops - my fault

Should now be fixed: it's .net

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz: I have a experimental code for OpenSearch. Wanna try it? :P

Paulo Cereda

11:30

I was afraid this day would come:

4

Q: 'Wordart' in (La)TeX

Would it be feasible to try to reproduce something like the image below in TeX? I just wanted to ask the advice of some experts before I invested too much time trying. I've already messed around with \raise and \lower, but I can't get the lines to overlap. For horizontally stretching the font I...

text-decorations text-manipulation

Andrew Stacey

@PauloCereda I'm trying very hard to resist temptation on this one.

Stefan Kottwitz

@JosephWright Very nice!

@PauloCereda How can I use it?

Paulo Cereda

@AndrewStacey Ah! :)

@StefanKottwitz We need to add a line in the main page of texdoc.net and upload a xml file. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda sounds easy (as long as the generation of the xml is easy ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz That's the best part: the xml file is static! :D

percusse

11:41

@PauloCereda How about adding it here when you are done?

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda let's do it

Paulo Cereda

My idea is to use Firefox/Chrome/IE search to map to textdoc.net/pkg/<searchterm>.

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda I was also afraid of wordart, very MS:)

Paulo Cereda

@percusse You mean the chat room? I will try to make one. :)

@YiannisLazarides Me too! Thankfully the OP chose a sober example. :)

@StefanKottwitz: sent. :)

Yiannis Lazarides

@all how to typeset a penthouse pet in five lines of LaTeX code tex.stackexchange.com/questions/47645/…)

percusse

11:47

@PauloCereda Pof, sorry I missed the link.... here it is addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search-tools

Paulo Cereda

@percusse Ah! :) It won't be necessary. When you go to texdoc.net (after Stefan updates it), you'll be able to click in the dropdown menu of Firefox search and automatically add the search. :)

percusse

@PauloCereda Sweet...

Stefan Kottwitz

12:18

@percusse Installed, and it works :-)

@PauloCereda great, very quick way to get the documentation

@PauloCereda no video for demonstration this time? ;-)

percusse

12:40

@StefanKottwitz Indeed such a nice end product!

I have tried a small script and before it crashed my whole system it gave me shapepar,vntex,binhex,fonstname,mfpic1,setspace,tabls,apacite,cite,easybib,chap‌terbib,overcite,drftcite as the names which end up with not found error link.

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse there are link checking tools which I can use too

percusse

@StefanKottwitz where is the danger in that now? :D

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse don't know

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Ah, you'd kill me if I give you another 20mb video. :P

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse now I have an idea

percusse

12:47

percusse ducks

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse texdoctk provides ambiguous file names, it starts at the doc sub path

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz: put those images inside the imgs dir. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse there are two doc sub folders, in texmf and in texmf-dist, with different content

only generic is in both

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz: sorry, they are there. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda yes they are

percusse

12:50

@StefanKottwitz So they might not get scanned correctly?

@PauloCereda By the way, I'm surprised that there is no cake in the favicon part. :)

Paulo Cereda

@percusse Oh! :P

@percusse: does the favicon work for you? It doesn't for me. :(

percusse

@PauloCereda No, doesn't work for me too.

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz: I've sent you a new image, could you replace the one in the imgs folder?

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda @PauloCereda I'll do in some minutes

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz <3

Stefan Kottwitz

13:19

@PauloCereda icon works!

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Yay!

@StefanKottwitz: It works in Chrome too!

Stefan Kottwitz

13:40

@PauloCereda And it speaks Portuguese :-) as I see in your screenshot

of course it does .. i just think of Uma não tão pequena introdução ao LaTeX2e

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Wow, very good! :)

Stefan Kottwitz

(actually this was the result with texdoc.net/pkg/portuguese)

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz: speaking of searches, this search only maps the /pkg/<packagename> format, so it does not "work" for actual texdoc queries like we do in the main page.

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda well it's a texdoc query for one package/alias and gives the best match

should we change it?

to give the whole list of possible matches?

would slow it down for people who know package names

but would be better for those who search without knowing

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Indeed. I think we could leave the Firefox search with the bang! function, like searching for siunitx it goes directly to the pdf and leave the main site for more advanced searches.

I'd go with a direct hit instead of getting a list.

But of course, you are the boss. :)

David Carlisle

13:47

@PauloCereda how do you upload images to chat?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Use the upload... button near the send one. :)

It will open another popup with the location of the image.

David Carlisle

bl@@###!never noticed that :-( I made the mistake of trying to read the help, which only describes adding links to existing things:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle The help is so confusing. :)

Anil

@DavidCarlisle, I would liek to ahve a clarification reg tex.stackexchange.com/q/48668/10008

David Carlisle

@Anil ?

Anil

14:01

I am using longtable package, so that i can span the table to multiple pages. But, when i compile this, it does not span. What may be the reason?

David Carlisle

You need to give me more of a clue to answer. perhaps ask a question on the main site with a working example

Anil

Done. But, before that, a small clarification. I am using lots of packages. Ordering those can create this problem.

percusse

@PauloCereda I am flat out stupid. You are calling the texdoc within my computer right? I thought this is the other way around calling from some online source . Some of the packages are not in MiKTeX, hence the missing links.

David Carlisle

@Anil You say "done" but I don't see a new question from you on the site? Also the question that you referenced originally was using tabular not longtable, so wouldn't break over the page?

Paulo Cereda

@percusse Oh no, we are calling texdoc on the server. :)

The texdoctk database is the one to blame for the missing links. :(

Anil

14:09

@DavidCarlisle I will post here the packages that i am using. Based on your suggestions, i will ask the question

percusse

@PauloCereda Then I am even more .... heheh, nevermind.

Paulo Cereda

@percusse :) I think the texdoctk database is not updated as it should.

Anil

14:22

this is my first file

and this is the last file

@DavidCarlisle, i have uploaded 2 files here only. Just suggest what i should do?

Stefan Kottwitz

@PauloCereda that's true! I fixed a generic inconsistency, but some texdoctk links are actually wrong now. I found several pointing to .sty files, where it's now replaced by a pdf file

For this, the texdoc link on the right next to a broken link is great for immediately checking the actual place via texdoc -l

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz What if we remove the texdoctk-based links and rely only in our call to the texdoc?

Or leave the thing as it is. :P

Stefan Kottwitz

I like to support also the original texdoctk and improve and possibly extend that, at this occasion

@PauloCereda originally, we had the texdoc call, you remember

David Carlisle

@Anil as I said you need to ask a question on the main site, As far as I can see looking at the images they define a lot of macros then d \end{document} so I have no idea how that makes any output at all.

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Ah yes.

Stefan Kottwitz

14:34

I replaced it by the file link in the database, because the texdoc link was misleading sometimes

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz I see.

Stefan Kottwitz

for example, texdoctk said amslatex and meant amsldoc, but texdoc returns another amslatex document

so we just fix texdoctk by the way as another nice result ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@StefanKottwitz Maybe we could reduce the texdoctk database update. The other links provided by the texdoc call will always work.

@StefanKottwitz Agreed. :)

Anil

@DavidCarlisle OK I have uploaded only the packages that i am using. Will the order of the packages makes any difference?

Paulo Cereda

It's easier for us to fix the texdoctk database than dismissing it.

In the sense of having a more correct database. :)

@StefanKottwitz: how's the access log? Too many hits for the hour? :)

Roelof Spijker

14:37

0

Q: Dashed draw with a node including a fraction

Is this intended behavior: \input tikz \tikz\draw[dashed] node {$3T\over4$}; \bye It renders as: !? The fraction line is dashed, too! Is this intentional? Is there something I can do to change that? I know I can separate the fraction into its own node, but other than that?

tikz-pgf plain-tex fractions

Weird stuff :/

David Carlisle

@Anil of course package loading order makes a difference, if one package says \def\z{A} and another says \def\z{B} then \z is defined to A or B depending on which order they are loaded. Unless you post a MWE with code (not images of code) in a question on the main site, that;s all anyone can say.

Anil

In another 5 mns, i will post the question.

Stefan Kottwitz

@percusse all mentioned links are fixed, thanks!

I'm checking with the w3 validator

Yiannis Lazarides

@Stephan @PauloCereda Great website guys. Did you use CodeIgniter?

Stefan Kottwitz

now the w3 gets a lot of TeX documentation ;-)

percusse

14:51

@StefanKottwitz My pleasure. Thanks to you and @PauloCereda for this gem.

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda Might be an idea to also do some aliases for example looking for the comprehensive LaTeX symbols list symbols-a4 is not very intuitive.

Stefan Kottwitz

@YiannisLazarides no (not yet?) Django as a framework (with Python), together with PHP just Joomla and Wordpress (and phpbb), planning to try Drupal

@YiannisLazarides symbols works

@YiannisLazarides as texdoc supports aliases

Paulo Cereda

@YiannisLazarides No, it's a humble raw script with an Ajax call. :) But maybe I'll try CodeIgniter for TeXdoc V2. :)

Stefan Kottwitz

@YiannisLazarides for example, a query for "article" returns a PDF with the documentation for LaTeX's standard classes

Paulo Cereda

@percusse Thanks. :) The merit is all Stefan's, as he had the original idea and how things should work. :)

Yiannis Lazarides

14:53

@StefanKottwitz Didn't check it but on my desktop always brings documentation for staves:).

Stefan Kottwitz

@YiannisLazarides try the online version ;-)

Yiannis Lazarides

@StefanKottwitz Drupal is greatif you want to build a bit of a community. CodeIgniter would have been very good for what you mad; was just curious. Great tool thanks.

@StefanKottwitz From now on I will:)

Paulo Cereda

I told you guys: Germans. <3

percusse

@StefanKottwitz Here are the remaining ones :) These are the last ones I promise... easyvector,easyeqn,easymat,easybmat,plain,remreset,comment,texnames,ppower4,lat‌ex3p . Also tensind,accents,othello points to tex files (I don't know if it is intentional.

Roelof Spijker

Not on IRC they aren't. They always seem to assume everybody on the internet speaks German.

Anil

15:01

@DavidCarlisle I have uploaded the question

David Carlisle

@Anil as I said in chat a while back, you need to use longtable not tabular to get page breaking

Anil

15:27

@DavidCarlisle I will check and get back to you

@DavidCarlisle Thank you i worked fine

Joseph Wright

15:43

So, we need a favicon for texdoc.net - should we have a competition?

I like the address, BTW, as it's very similar to my own texdev.net :-)

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright Good idea! :)

Stefan Kottwitz

15:56

@JosephWright and similar to texblog.net and to texample.net

Paulo Cereda

It could be a duck.

Stefan Kottwitz

@JosephWright btw. I miss my blog in your blogroll ;-)

Paulo Cereda

I have a palindromic access number: visited 367 days, 333 consecutive

egreg

@PauloCereda 364 days, 364 consecutive :) And battling windmills, it seems (see Meta).

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Yay! Soon the 75k barrier will be broken. :)

Hic sunt molendinum? :)

percusse

16:40

egreg

I downloaded the OpenType Lucida fonts!

Joseph Wright

@egreg Are they nice?

Paulo Cereda

@percusse Cool, I like it!

@egreg Cool fonts?

egreg

@PauloCereda I hope so! I've been using the Type1 version (a gift by Lance Carnes) and they're nice. I hope that the OT math fonts are even better. :)

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Yay! :)

@egreg: BTW I've sent you the "final" version of TeXPrinter. Could you tell me if it runs on Java 5? If so, I'll release it. :)

David Carlisle

17:28

@percusse I'm lost in that MWE, what did you actually change to make it work, apart from cleaning it up?

Paulo Cereda

@egreg: another rep cap? It's getting close. :)

75k is already in the horizon. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Well, tomorrow I've a full work day. :( So I might not be able to reach rep cap. :)

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Don't worry. :) There are some answers I still need to upvote. :P

egreg

@PauloCereda Be careful. :-P

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Leave that fraud algorithm to me. :)

David Carlisle

17:35

@PauloCereda upvoting doesn't help @egreg as bound to reach cap anyway, you need to ask questions and accept them (not a single accepted answer today, he's slipping:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Ah I need to think of more questions. :)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Why don't you ask a question? You still haven't. Oh, the same applies to me. :)

Paulo Cereda

"Why my document compiles only when the power cord is on?"

I have the following MWE:

<boring MWE follows>

If I compile it when my laptop is on batteries, the code fails. If I plug the power cord, the code compiles. Why?

@egreg: speaking of answers, I've been thinking of abntcite's behaviour in my answer here: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/48760/… Shouldn't the package/style have a bullet-proof code to avoid the need of hyperref for non-trivial URLs? I mean, I thought the package/style should handle the URL by its own, like other packages/styles do.

I found the need for hyperref totally by accident. I decided to take a look in the package manual and found it in an obscure part.

percusse

17:58

@DavidCarlisle To be honest, I have no idea. I just replaced the garbled text and reduced the number if itemize environments tucking them into a big one. But other than that I think it's a question of code cleaning rather than technicality

David Carlisle

@percusse Ok thanks. (Home time)

Joseph Wright

18:13

0

Q: Convert CMYK PDF file created with xcolor to RGB PNG file

I have a pdf generated with the xcolor package in cmyk mode. Now I'd like to convert it to a png file in rgb colorspace. I tried with imagemagick in several settings but did not succeed well. So my question is: How can this be done (using imagemagick)?

color conversion png

Off topic?

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright I'm afraid so. There's no TeX in the answer, as the OP is clearly stating that it should be through ImageMagick.

Martin Scharrer

18:28

@PauloCereda @PauloCereda: Well, the PDF was created by (La)TeX so there is some connection. However, I agree that it is rather off-topic. It's basically help with ImageMagick. It should rephrase it and post it to a image related site!?

Paulo Cereda

@MartinScharrer Ah yes. :) Maybe a rephrase would solve it. :)

Joseph Wright

18:53

@MartinScharrer SuperUser would be my choice, although I suspect the mods there might feel it's not good enough

Martin Scharrer

@JosephWright Yes, and yes.

Paulo Cereda

19:10

Do we have any of those "dumb" hats and a dark corner for me to sit there? I have lots of repositories and I usually avoid global settings. I committed the new TeXPrinter files but forgot to add my credentials, so a unknown commit was used. I totally forgot about some git commands, made a lot of commits, etc. What I just did now? I had to reset commits and fix. Phew.

Alan Munn

19:39

3

Q: Linux Biolinum O messes up moderncv Package

Take the template.tex example file from http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/moderncv/examples and add these two lines: \usepackage{fontspec} \setsansfont{Linux Biolinum O} Then run it with lualatex. Suddenly these thick bars get really slim. Why is that? Example: \document...

fonts luatex fontspec rules moderncv

A really weird problem. The question should be modifed to use my answer as its base. But still interesting.

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn Very interesting. :)

32 hits from our blog to texdoc.net :)

Joseph Wright

19:56

@PauloCereda Great

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda More coming tonight! tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29937/…

Paulo Cereda

@YiannisLazarides How nice!

Yiannis Lazarides

20:12

@AndrewStacey This answer belonged to you :) tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29937/…, will appreciate it if you have a good look at it and add/edit if necessary.

@PauloCereda It's so much easier texdoc\pkg\..... Hope you guys can sell the application to Google in two months for $1.3 billion:)

Alan Munn

@PauloCereda Now my answer is actually an answer.

Paulo Cereda

@YiannisLazarides Or Google could shut us down. :) Oh wait... oops.

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda Sure rather compete with Google than Microsoft:)

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn Ah nice investigation. :)

@YiannisLazarides Indeed! Uncle Bill is eviler. :P

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda evilest;)

Paulo Cereda

20:20

@YiannisLazarides Yes! But still better than the Twilight saga. :P

(Sorry I couldn't resist :P )

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda Sure and at least now Bill is working on his karma.

Paulo Cereda

@YiannisLazarides Yes. :)

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda I am really impressed as to how quickly the two of you worked this out.

egreg

@AlanMunn I too suspected a problem with the ex dimension

Alan Munn

@egreg What I don't understand is that the version in TeXLive is newer than the one I have on my system, and that seems to be the one with the problem. Ulrike commented that there was a version with incorrect metrics, but looking at both fonts in FontForge, I can't see any differences.

egreg

20:28

@AlanMunn The Linux Libertine distribution is quite confused. There are two versions around.

percusse

@YiannisLazarides Thanks for answering that long standing unanswered TikZ package question. :)

Gonzalo Medina

In the main site I see that some questions have a darker background. What does this mean?

Yiannis Lazarides

@percusse Thanks, this week I was not very busy and I answered the top five of the unanswered; the next two are my questions so it should not be too difficult to try and answer them next week.

Alan Munn

@GonzaloMedina That you have favourited their tags.

Paulo Cereda

@YiannisLazarides Thanks. I'd borrow egreg's phrase "been there, done that". :) Stefan mentioned the idea and I embraced it. Stefan has a very solid server infrastructure knowledge, so he deployed the code, mapped the directories and put the server online. :)

percusse

20:33

@GonzaloMedina Or the system assigns you some favorite tags if you didn't, based on your answering preference.

Alan Munn

@percusse Oh really? So it knows better than me what I'm interested in? Creepy.

2

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn I don't recall doing that... How do I know if I have ...Ah, nevermind, @percusse has answered this new question, Thank you, both.

@percusse Do you know if I can cancell this automatic "favoritization"?

percusse

@AlanMunn You are just flesh and bones for the system. You can't outwit it. The matrix has you. Provided that you have \usetikzlibrary{matrix} in your preamble.

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn I hate this kind of options. If will have favorite tags when I decide to do so.

percusse

@GonzaloMedina Honestly, no. But pick something that you like such that at least it shows something that might be interesting.

Alan Munn

20:36

@GonzaloMedina Yes, favourite at least one tag of your own, and the implicit tags should disappear according to this: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/88345/170190

@percusse I am not a matrix of nodes I am a free man.

percusse

@AlanMunn Clever defense. I tip my hat to you ...

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn ha! Now I have to deactivate things that I never wanted to be activated in the first place. I demand respect for my right to have absolutely no tags as favorite ;-)

Alan Munn

@GonzaloMedina Yet you use google...

percusse

@GonzaloMedina Just pick the least asked tag and you will minimize the nuisance such as octave,` commercial-use` and led-editor

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn I think I'd rather not know how many things have been decided for me over the internet...

@percusse yes, I'll do something like that.

percusse

20:43

Wow I wonder what flowfram is, these tags are crazy in last pages :D

Alan Munn

@percusse flowfram is a really cool package if you think you should do posters with LaTeX. (I don't, but some do.)

@GonzaloMedina Picture is for you. :)

Joseph Wright

@AlanMunn I do my posters in LaTeX, but I've got to say I don't see flowfram helping (although it is very cool). Of course, if I had the money for a Illustrator license I might try that.

percusse

@AlanMunn Luckily I got away with beamerposter and never posters again, ever!

Alan Munn

@JosephWright Not Illustrator, but InDesign. (Apparently Scribus is an acceptable open source alternative.) I would have thought flowfram would be ideal for that. But I'm not a big fan of using LaTeX for posters anyway, so what do I know.

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn I must be "espeso" today (sorry, I don't know the idiom in English), but I don't get it.

Let me think about it...

Joseph Wright

20:49

@AlanMunn The design professionals I knew in the past recommended Illustrator, but that was a while ago. They were of course coming at this from a single page graphics point of view. I've always suspected I don't really understand academic posters properly anyway, so I'm not the best person to ask :-)

For me, flowfram encourages too many words

Alan Munn

@JosephWright For an academic poster you need sectioning and styles and auto numbering etc., which Illustrator can't do, and InDesign is designed for. It's effectively page layout whereas Illustrator is for drawing.

Joseph Wright

@AlanMunn Ah, that's my point about text. If you need section numbers, I'd say you have too much text. Like I say, I suspect I don't 'get' academic posters.

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn I think I get it now. By the way, what's the idiom for "estar espeso" (meaning "to be dumb", "not to think clearly")?

Alan Munn

@GonzaloMedina In English there's an expression "to stick your head in the sand" which comes from purported ostrich fear behaviour, It seems like a stupid thing to do, since sticking your head in the sand doesn't really hide you.

@GonzaloMedina We can marginally use "thick" in the same context, but there isn't a real idiom for than in English that I can think of.

Gonzalo Medina

@AlanMunn then yes, I indeed got it.

Paulo Cereda

20:56

@JosephWright If you can choose between Illustrator and InDesign, please please please go with InDesign. :)

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda I doubt I'll ever have the money (or certainly the excuse to spend that amount of money on some software I'll use say once a year)

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright Oh. :)

Ostrich? Mandatory link:

►

The ostrich goes at 1:20. :)

Gonzalo Medina

A "minimal" table illustrating a problem: tex.stackexchange.com/q/48891/3954

Joseph Wright

@GonzaloMedina Yes. I can't find any negative numbers, and what is with all of the \multicolumns

percusse

As usual, it needs more cowbell

egreg

21:26

@JosephWright There are negative numbers but they are very carefully hidden. :)

Joseph Wright

@egreg I just skimmed over

David Carlisle

It seems that no one can use any of my table packages today....

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Do you fancy writing the table support for LaTeX3 :-)

David Carlisle

I only ever write packages by accident.

8

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Oh, same here, for example my rather stupid "Oh, I will take a look at this small bug" comment on SIunits which led to siunitx!

Alan Munn

21:34

@DavidCarlisle This is so true of me too. And two of them come from questions here. My very first package is for phonetic diagrams that I never use.

David Carlisle

@JosephWright actually l3longtable probably ought to be deeply integrated into xor, as switching output routines mid document is just so flaky (and the cause of all known bugs) I understood xor once:-)

Paulo Cereda

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka' but 'That's funny'."

Alan Munn

And now I seem to be writing a backgammon package.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I suspect we want to take an approach that does not mess with the OR. I'm also pretty sure we want a single interface for breakable on non-breakable tables. Bruno has some ideas about how to implement \halign-like abilities without the primitive, which that will need.

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn The coolest package, BTW. :)

David Carlisle

21:36

@AlanMunn I never use tables (at least I can't ever remember putting a table in a paper when i was writing papers, certainly not multipage landscape tables 95% of which were made up with footnotes)

@JosephWright yes I once implemented a table package that didn't use halign and just measured and positioned everything by hand. At least think I did, not sure where t is, may have been on back of an envelope somewhere on the plane back from mainz:-)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle :-)

One for the future. I need to get xor sorted, then fonts, then perhaps something like a usable format ...

egreg

@DavidCarlisle An accepted answer, at last. :)

Joseph Wright

Also need to get a new job!

Alan Munn

@PauloCereda I'm actually kind of enthused by it. It's also the most complicated bit of LaTeX code I've ever written. (Which probably means awful.)

David Carlisle

@egreg congratulations:-)

Yiannis Lazarides

21:51

@AlanMunn If you need any backgammon help I grew up with it:)

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn Nice. :) You could even write a blog post about this adventure. wink wink

Alan Munn

@YiannisLazarides So did I, almost. I've been playing since I was about 12 or 13. I was taught originally by an Armenian. So the backgammon part of it I think I understand, the LaTeX sometimes not so much. Especially the interaction between tikz and other bits of TeX is sometimes complicated.

@YiannisLazarides In fact I once won quite a bit of money off of a friend who thought it was an easy game. I managed to dissuade him of that opinion. :)

Yiannis Lazarides

@AlanMunn That is amazing, I learned at about the same age. Can't get my head around tikz either sometimes. Just too many commands.

Alan Munn

@YiannisLazarides What makes this code especially messy is that I have 24 counters (one for each point) which are numbered (so they can be looped through) which means that any access to them has to be via \csname ... \endcsname.

Yiannis Lazarides

@AlanMunn We used to hang around at a football club and play for hours on end. Once I bit the old timers when I was around 15 and got a prize. Best won ever:) Don't play much now, only when I go on holiday to Cyprus.

@AlanMunn You should perhaps consider moving some code to LuaLaTeX, if it gets complicated.

Alan Munn

22:01

@YiannisLazarides I thought about that, and it might make some sense, but would limit the generality of the package. Given that it's not a package that is aimed at TeXnophiles, I thought that making it engine independent would be best. It's only for displaying boards/positions; it doesn't actually play the game. (That's for Bruno to write.)

The main thing is a data structure to keep track of the current state of the game. Most of it works, but the code for the bar still needs some tweaking, because I just realised that it's possible to have both black and white on the bar at the same time, so I can't just track the bar state itself.

Paulo Cereda

Friends, any names for our next TeXtalk?

Yiannis Lazarides

@AlanMunn You right! I also actually dislike mixing languages -- besides the generality limitations you mention. You could represent the board with a long string of numbers?

Alan Munn

@YiannisLazarides Maybe. You need really ordered pairs, one for each point: <colour,count>, where colour is white, black, none. So I have counters for the counts and macros for the state. It works pretty well. Unless there's some really simple way of doing it, I'll just stick with that. The code is here if you're interested: github.com/amunn/tikz-backgammon and an earlier example here: tex.stackexchange.com/q/48591/2693 (I don't know if you saw the question).

Yiannis Lazarides

@AlanMunn No I missed the question, but I will have a good look at the code in the morning. It is getting a bit late here.

egreg

@PauloCereda What about Gonzalo?

Alan Munn

22:12

@YiannisLazarides Any suggestions very welcome. (Look at the GitHub version, since I've modified some stuff since then.)

Yiannis Lazarides

@AlanMunn Sure will do. Goodnight from me and happy coding:)

Paulo Cereda

22:44

@egreg Great idea! :)

@YiannisLazarides Good night Yiannis! :)

Yiannis Lazarides

@PauloCereda Good night!

egreg

@PauloCereda I believe to have already proposed him, but it was when he wasn't showing up.

Paulo Cereda

23:10

@egreg Indeed. :)

@GonzaloMedina: We'd like to interview you for the next TeXtalk. :)

5

Q: Why this bibtex entry give me a 'undefined control sequence'?

Having this bibtex entry in file.bib: @ARTICLE{Silva2007, author = {Newton José Rodrigues da Silva and Jean-Eudes Beuret and Olivier Mikolasek and Guy Fontenelle and Lionel Dabbadie and Maria Inez Espagnoli Geraldo Martins}, title = {Modelo Teórico de Análise de Políticas Públicas e Desenvol...

bibtex

I really, really can't reproduce the error, even with the new preamble.

Unless his bib file is not properly encoded. Hm.

Nope, no encoding.

Hey, look! A tikz-backgammon package! :P /ducks

egreg

23:30

@PauloCereda ABNT strikes again.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Indeed. :)

@egreg: I don't know what to suggest to the OP. Maybe the TeX distro is outdated, but so it's abntex - no new versions since 2006. I'm beginning to suspect the offending code is somewhere near that citation.

@AlanMunn: Your devoted disciple now follows the sacred backgammon package. :)

Alan Munn

@PauloCereda Hehe. It's certainly likely to be the most active of my packages. Most of the others have limited use and therefore no bugs. :-)

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn :D I have some opensource libraries and no bugs so far, which makes me wonder if someone actually uses it. :)

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda Really?

Alan Munn

@PauloCereda Indeed, that's the corollary. But I have faith in your coding abilities, so you probably have plenty of users.

@PauloCereda I'm actually afraid of this package, since it's likely that it will have users, and then the bugs will simply follow.

Paulo Cereda

23:39

@GonzaloMedina Of course, we'd love to! :)

@AlanMunn <3

Gonzalo Medina

I don't seem to be able to include tabs properly in an answer. Can anyone please help me?

@PauloCereda (me blushes)

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn Ah that's the beauty of coding. :) I always get worried when I receive a bug report. But even more desperate when I can't solve it. :P

@GonzaloMedina <3

egreg

@GonzaloMedina Did you try copying from an editor window and pasting?

Gonzalo Medina

@egreg yes, but the tabs tend to disappear...

egreg

@GonzaloMedina There's a reason why I never use tabs. :)

Gonzalo Medina

23:44

@PauloCereda: sure you want to interview someone who can't write some tabs in an answer?

@egreg I don't use them either; it's that question about listings and tabs...

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina Tab? What's a tab? :P

egreg

@PauloCereda What about Python?

Gonzalo Medina

@PauloCereda and when would the interview take place?

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina It's up to you. :)

@egreg Pythons are dangerous. :P

egreg

@PauloCereda Do you have pythons in your neighborhood?

More probably anacondas.

Paulo Cereda

23:55

@egreg Not pythons. :) Let me see their names. :)

@egreg: I've seen some boidae, coral snakes, and the tropical rattlesnake. :)

egreg

@PauloCereda Nice animals. :) Good night.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg Good night! :)

David Carlisle

@egreg good luck for 200 tomorrow

Paulo Cereda

@GonzaloMedina: The rattlesnake - cascabel, cascabel - is found in Colombia too, I guess. :)

Transcript for

$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends