TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Skillmon

00:17

Why is int_rand:nn only available in pdfTeX and LuaTeX?

David Carlisle

@Skillmon xetex didn't have the RNG, but I thought it got added... (@egreg?) will check...

@Skillmon doesn't seem to be added yet it was discussed on the xetex list

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle Thank you for the quick reply. I hope it will be added for the other engines.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon failing that I suppose we get Bruno to implement a RNG using expl3 arithmetic but a built in one would be quicker

@Skillmon tug.org/pipermail/xetex/2016-November/thread.html

Paulo Cereda

00:37

@DavidCarlisle, @AlanMunn: magiquiz.com/quiz/…

My score:

> You have a WEST COAST ACCENT!

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda didn't we do that before? last one had several questions I couldn't answer at all about baseball teams then assigned some random part of the usa to my accent

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh

@DavidCarlisle This time is about American football, I guess

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda could have been football, I think the question was something like "do you support juventus or barcelona" and I had no idea what sport it was:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle LOL

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda "It's not cricket" as the saying goes

Paulo Cereda

00:46

@DavidCarlisle :)

Alan Munn

02:06

@DavidCarlisle Yes, this one is similar, which defeats the point of the quiz.

CarLaTeX

04:01

@PauloCereda The same for me!

marmot

@CarLaTeX Just saw you're online. Do you by chance understand what the OP of this question wants? I'd like to help him but I cannot make sense of his statements (even though he seems to try hard to explain).

CarLaTeX

04:31

@marmot Sorry, no, too difficult to me at 5:30 a.m. ...

marmot

Mille grazie! (I'm also stuck... but it's 9:30 pm here)

CarLaTeX

@marmot and I think it is too difficult even if I were completely awake...

Sebastiano

08:19

@egreg Good morning Prof. Can I ask your precoius help for MikTeX?

@egreg When I download MiKTeX and install it, I have only MikTeX console and I have not mantening settings. I not find this figure

@daleif Good morning to you.

Torbjørn T.

@Sebastiano @egreg doesn't use Windows, or MikTeX. Neither do I for that matter. But it seems that MikTeX has moved everything into one program. I think previously they had the Options, another program for updating, and a package manager in addition. If you look around the menus and tabs of that Console you'll probably find the same things as in the Options-dialog.

Sebastiano

@TorbjørnT. Dear I have looked at everything but there is not what you wrote to me. Yesterday I finished at 1 am but I tried to install it both as an administrator (just for me) and for everyone (to everybody). I should install mt2pro [lite] and classic (optima font clone) and I do not know how to do it.

egreg

08:38

@Sebastiano You can ask, but I can only answer that I used MiKTex a couple of ti se something like ten years ago and know essentially nothing about it.

Torbjørn T.

@Sebastiano I didn't mean you'll find exactly that window, but you'll probably find the same things as in that window. If I were to guess, I would think that the Packages tab is where you install packages. But as I say, I don't use MikTeX, so I cannot give you specifics.

Sebastiano

@egreg Hi with all my heart from hot Sicily.

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano Which task do you want to do? Add a new root? This you can do in the new miktex console by clicking on "settings" and then the tab "directories".

Sebastiano

@TorbjørnT. Before the new MikTeX I had installed the old version on windows 7 and with the update I found the new icons: console, settings, options, update. Now I can not find them anymore and I do not know how to install new packages with the console.

@UlrikeFischer Hi, and good morning to you and thanks for your help

@UlrikeFischer I should install mt2pro [lite] and classic, the optima font clone and I do not know how to do with the console. I always wonder why when the old things work perfectly must be changed for the worse.

@TorbjørnT. @egreg @UlrikeFischer See my picture. I find only MikTeX console and maintenance is empty. You show me the console with a screenshot of the directory screen that last night I did not see well from exhaustion?

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano Well miktex-settings is still there. If don't have an entry in the start menu, simply search in the miktex bin folder for mo.exe or mo_admin.exe and start it.

Sebastiano

08:54

@UlrikeFischer I have finded miktex bin folder mo_admin.exe. But when i start it I have same the Console.

Good morning to all newcomers and sorry if I did not say hello right away.

Torbjørn T.

@Sebastiano I already said I don't use MikTeX, so cannot give specifics. But I see from your screenshot it says Packages on the left side of the Console. Is that not where you do package installation?

Sebastiano

I am anxious for a job I am doing with a university professor and I would like to find a solution.

@TorbjørnT. No, :-(

@TorbjørnT., @UlrikeFischer With the old version inserting the folder C:> Local TeX file and using root I succeeded with MS-DOS to install the packages not inserted in the distribution of MikTeX.

Torbjørn T.

@Sebastiano I can't help you anymore, so there's no point in asking me.

Ulrike Fischer

@TorbjørnT. mtpro2lite is an external package and normally must be installed by adding its texmf tree as a new root, enabling the map-files (by editing the local updmap.cfg) and then recreating the map files. The first step is in the console in settings/tab directories and the third (now) in the tasks menu. The second must still be done on the command line. All this wasn't easier or very different with the old miktex options. @Sebastiano

Torbjørn T.

@UlrikeFischer Ah, I see. Thanks.

Sebastiano

09:05

@DavidCarlisle Good morning from hot Sicily

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano Try mo.exe.

Sebastiano

@UlrikeFischer Yes, I know that mt2pro and classic are external packages and must be added to a local folder. Then, after the appropriate dos commands, the text file with the extension .txt named updmap.cfg appeared. I wrote the mt2pro and classic packages in the text file and then did some refresh.

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano This still works in the same way. And if you don't like the console you can do everything on the command line.

Sebastiano

@UlrikeFischer From the location where I write you I do not have MikTeX. But does not a guide exist? I do not like this kind of new procedure with all sincerity

daleif

@Sebastiano morning

Sebastiano

09:12

@TorbjørnT. Always thaks for you precious help. Hi

@daleif Again morning

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano There is no new procedure. The look and the buttons changed a bit that's all.

Sebastiano

@UlrikeFischer I have read miktex.org/howto/miktex-console and ctan.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/CTAN/systems/win32/miktex/doc/2.9/…. before it was simpler

@UlrikeFischer Last night with fatigue and anxiety I canceled everything and tomorrow I will try to download it again. I'd like to have screenshots with a step-by-step guide.

@TorbjørnT. Meanwhile, I greet you and thank you so much. I will let you know.

Ulrike Fischer

@Sebastiano Well ask a question on the main site. If I have time I will answer it.

Sebastiano

09:27

@UlrikeFischer Surely I will do it as soon as possible. Hoping that someone does not copy :-). a hug from Sicily. Thank you so much, you are all very good and I'm happy.

Bye to everybody.

Paulo Cereda

11:14

6

Ulrike Fischer

12:08

7

@PauloCereda ^^^

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@UlrikeFischer My guess would have been this chat. (Not going to Rio myself, sorry.)

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer wooo

AlexG

12:41

Good afternoon, everybody! Do know whether it is possible to move an answer between topics? I would like to move my answer given here to this question. Our fellow @marmot made this suggestion.

marmot

@AlexG What I had in mind is just to copy it there. It seems that the OP completely ignored your, the upvote is from me and I will also upvote the copy ;-)

CarLaTeX

12:57

@UlrikeFischer I met @egreg at the seaside

Johannes_B

0

Q: How to make full-page section boiler plates for article class?

I am trying to finish a math-heavy project for college and I need to have 5 sections. I would like to demarcate these sections with full-page, centered headers for each section because I have needed every inch of page space for content up til now. I can't use the \chapter{} header because that on...

formatting

Paulo Cereda

@Johannes_B: did you enjoy the penguin? :)

AlexG

Thank you @marmot ! This is what I already guessed. I am working on an answer.

marmot

@AlexG Cool. Since you are online, may I ask you a potentially embarassing question: do you know how to convert an animate animation to gif (or anything that I can upload to the main site and that animates)? (Beamer animations, or more generally any animation that is based on several pages of a pdf document, I can convert.)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot The convert tool from ImageMagick can help. Ulrike, Carla and I used it for the tikzducks video.

marmot

13:13

@PauloCereda OK, what's the magic syntax? All my attempt like convert -delay 0.1 -loop 1 -density 300 -alpha on texsx4.pdf ani.gif with several variations failed.

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Try:

convert -density 300 mypdf.pdf -dispose previous -delay 20 -loop 1 mygif.gif

IIRC correctly, parameter order in convert matters.

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda @marmot but we didn't use it with animated pdf, we had simply multi page pdf's.

marmot

@PauloCereda Are you sure that this works for animations made by the animate package?

Paulo Cereda

@marmot aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah apologies

I missed the animate part.

Sorry mr. marmot.

marmot

@UlrikeFischer Yes, those I also can convert...

Paulo Cereda

13:17

I is stoopid

marmot

@PauloCereda No problem and thanks for your answers. I was just worried that I am asking something trivial. In principle it should be possible to convert these things, right?

@PauloCereda @UlrikeFischer What I mean is that animate produces (?) all the files (?) <a0,fr0> <a0,fr1> etc., somehow these could/should be the basis of a conversion to gif, or am I missing something?

Ulrike Fischer

@marmot I have no idea if convert can extract such frames. I have some doubts as imho javascript is involved.

AlexG

@marmot You must modify the source a bit: article to [tikz]{standalone}, remove everything that animates, replace \multiframe by \multido (pkg multido) and then use the convert magic from ImageMagick to convert the multipage PDF into animated GIF.

David Carlisle

it would be easier to see two images than an animated one (perhaps it's just me but I find the cycle rate of this particularly painful) — David Carlisle Nov 3 '16 at 10:54

Johannes_B

13:33

@marmot Yes :-)

marmot

13:46

@AlexG Thanks a lot! (There is no package that takes care of that, right?)

@DavidCarlisle In the case at hand these are 300 pictures instead of one animation... (and I am wondering if you also dislike this animation ;-)

Phelype Oleinik

@marmot You can use pdftk to split a multi-page pdf into several files, if that helps. Then pass it to convert as @PauloCereda said.

pdftk input.pdf burst output

samcarter

@marmot Maybe ask @Dr.ManuelKuehner. He has sometimes gifs in his answers, e.g. tex.stackexchange.com/a/419849/36296

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik no need to split, convert handles multipage PDF's.

marmot

@PhelypeOleinik See @PauloCereda 's comment ;-)

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Ooh

marmot

13:58

@samcarter @PauloCereda @AlexG @UlrikeFischer @PhelypeOleinik Hmmh, given the replies so far (THANKS!) I guess I could go the "official way", i.e ask on the main site. Does that sound reasonable?

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Me too :P

AlexG

How can I insert a code block here?

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Fire at will! Not at @WillRobertson. :)

Phelype Oleinik

@marmot Meta, maybe?

AlexG

Indenting it by 4 spaces?

Phelype Oleinik

13:59

@AlexG Same as in the site. Indent with four spaces :)

Paulo Cereda

@AlexG Yes. If it has multiple lines, a button named fixed font will appear then you can click it.

marmot

@AlexG If this code block is on the animation stuff, shouldn't we go the official way such that it is in the records? (If not, forget about this message.)

@PhelypeOleinik Why meta? This post is on the main site and VERY helpful to poor creatures like me.

Phelype Oleinik

@marmot Just a guess, since it's not (directly) related to LaTeX :P

marmot

@PhelypeOleinik I think it is since it is on the animate package.

Phelype Oleinik

@marmot Good point :)

AlexG

14:04

Actually there is already a topic on this on the main site, I just don't remember. For the recent topic the standalone code for generating multipage PDF, serving as input for convert -delay 0.025 -density 300 texsx419925.pdf texsx419925.gif would be:

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usepackage{multido}

\newcommand\staticParts{%
  \draw (7,0)[line width=1pt]--(11,0);
  \draw (7,0)[line width=1pt]--(7,4);
  \draw (7,4)[line width=1pt]--(11,4);
  \draw (11,0)[line width=1pt]--(11,4);
  \draw (7,0)[white,line width=1pt]--(8,1);
  \draw (7,4)[white,line width=1pt]--(8,3);
  \draw (11,0)[white,line width=1pt]--(10,1);
  \draw (11,4)[white,line width=1pt]--(10,3);
  \draw (8,1)[line width=1pt]--(8,3);
  \draw (8,1)[line width=1pt]--(10,1);
  \draw (10,1)[line width=1pt]--(10,3);

I dont know, how to implement the animation pause in the middle.

... of the final animated GIF

Forgot to insert @marmot :)

marmot

@AlexG Thanks a lot! I tried to find this topic on the main site for quite some time and failed. So with your permission I could ask a question, and if it turns out to be a duplicate, then at least I could find the original question. ;-)

AlexG

@marmot: tex.stackexchange.com/q/136666

marmot

@AlexG Thank you soooooo much!

AlexG

14:20

@amrmot Argh, it is an old post and not up to date anymore (using preview instead of standalone).

marmot

@AlexG Please let me know if I should ask a new question ;-)

AlexG

@marmot I try to get the code of the old answer working again.

barbara beeton

14:56

@AlanMunn -- totally bogus, if you ask me. told me i have a west coast accent. don't know how that can possibly be the conclusion when i chose yankees vs. red sox. (the only baseball contest among all the others, which are (u.s.) football.

AlexG

@marmot: done, but still using preview. Don't think it hurts.

AlexG

15:20

@marmot : updated once more to also cope with \newframe*.

marmot

15:41

2

@AlexG Thanks! Most likely I am doing something wrong. (I also don't know how to delete the above post.)

AlexG

@marmot : Haha, funny. I would like to look at the code, to remove the duck-trace. Or is it on purpose?

marmot

@AlexG No it's not on purpose.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{animate}
\usepackage{tikzducks}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.callouts,calc}
\newcommand{\DuckSong}[1]{\ifcase#1
All
\or
my
\or
little
\or
ducklings,
\or
Swimming
\or
in
\or
the
\or
lake,
\or
Heads
\or
dunk
\or
in
\or
the
\or
water,
\or
As
\or
little
\or
tails
\or
do
\or
shake.
\or
All
\or
my
\or
little
\or
ducklings,
\or
Swimming
\or
in
\or
the
\or
lake,
\or
Heads
\or
dunk
\or
in
\or
the
\or
water,
\or
As
\or
little
\or
tails
\or
do
\or

2

AlexG

@marmot : The PDF is ok. Something must have happened during conversion to GIF

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@marmot A duckworm?

marmot

@AlexG But I was using the very convert call from your answer.

AlexG

15:54

@marmot Indeed, I get the same result. But in other cases it used to work as intended.

samcarter

@marmot with convert -delay 1 -loop 0 -density 100 -alpha remove document.pdf output.gif

2

marmot

@samcarter I knew you would make the duck sing ;-)

AlexG

@sam Thanks a lot, but please, decrease the speed. My brain doesn't work that fast.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AlexG @samcarter And put the wave in front of the duck?

samcarter

@marmot They can also do X-mas songs tex.stackexchange.com/a/344842/36296

AlexG

15:59

@marmot could you make the duck swing around the paper normal vector to smoothly follow the waves while moving?

samcarter

@AlexG :) better?

AlexG

@sam much better!!!

marmot

@AlexG Sure

@samcarter Is there a lifebelt option for the ducks?

samcarter

@marmot There could be ... however I had the impressions that ducks can swim?

marmot

@samcarter Do you really want to take chances? ;-)

AlexG

16:12

@marmot . Trop mignon!

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@samcarter Not only do ducks swim; they must be able to dive on order to find food. (Well, most ducks do.)

marmot

@AlexG you just need to add [rotate={-15*cos(10*\iX)}] to the duck node (and text width=1.5cm,align=center to the options of the song node to make the callouts more stable)

AlexG

@marmot thanks, I was about using [rotate={-45*cos(10*\iX)}].

45 would have been too much.

marmot

@AlexG No, that's too much because of the 0.3 in front of the sin in the plot. (15 is also not perfect...)

AlexG

@marmot But the 0.3 does not affect the normal to the curve.

marmot

16:22

@AlexG Of course it does. Imagine I would put 0 instead.

AlexG

I mean the largest slope of the sin is still 45 degrees, isn't it?

@marmot : You are right. The max slope is 0.3, of course.

The correct value is 90-arccos(30)=17.4576°.

marmot

@AlexG Yes, but this does not take into account the weight distribution of the duck. ;-) The duck is not truly parallel to the local surface of the water. So you have to reduce it a bit and arrive at 15 degrees ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot ooh

@HaraldHanche-Olsen pizza delivery. :)

AlexG

@marmot : I must correct myself the maximum slope is 0.3 and the amplitude is arctan(0.3)=16.699°

Paulo Cereda

Nutella pizza is good.

egreg

16:48

@PauloCereda I can bring with me a frying pan with the only purpose of smashing it on your head.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg oh no

yo'

17:27

@egreg I didn't know you fry a pizza

Christian Hupfer

17:41

6

samcarter

17:56

@marmot I have a suggestion for your nice swimming duck: the MWE package is looking for a short free video, see bitbucket.org/martin_scharrer/mwe/issues/3/sample-movie-files (and before you ask how to convert the .gif into a video, there is nice step-by-step description by @PauloCereda github.com/cereda/duck-extravaganza/blob/master/README.md )

marmot

@samcarter Sounds great! How can I view an avi file (to see if the conversion worked). I also think that it would be great if someone could collect all these magical command lines somewhere ...

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter Oh it's not entirely accurate. I will update a correct version soon. :)

marmot

@PauloCereda @samcarter Yes, I could not view the avi file. So chances are that the conversion didn't work. How about I post the TeX code and Paulo sends the video to Martin? (I am not very good at these things.)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Which is your system?

marmot

@PauloCereda Mac OS

Paulo Cereda

18:09

@marmot Ah OK. Out of curiosity, do you have Homebrew installed?

Sometimes, ffmpeg generates noncompliant files.

I was going to suggest trying to view the video with mpv.

samcarter

@marmot Maybe we should also consult @AlexG: Which video formats do you think make sense to include in the MWE package? .mov and .mp4?

marmot

@PauloCereda Yes, the next-to-next-to -last command I typed was ` brew install ffmpeg` ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Ah. :)

@marmot Do you have mpv? It's a video player.

Better, you can send me the video, I can try (and eventually fix it) for you.

marmot

@PauloCereda Nope. But if I open the avi file with finder, it says that the movie cannot be played...

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Could you send me the source and/or video?

marmot

18:12

@PauloCereda Here is the TeX code, perhaps that's the simplest way ...
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{animate}
\usepackage{tikzducks}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.callouts,calc}
\newcommand{\DuckSong}[1]{\ifcase#1
All
\or
my
\or
little
\or
ducklings,
\or
Swimming
\or
in
\or
the
\or
lake,
\or
Heads
\or
dunk
\or
in
\or
the
\or
water,
\or
As
\or
little
\or
tails
\or
do
\or
shake.
\or
All
\or
my
\or
little
\or
ducklings,
\or
Swimming
\or
in
\or
the
\or
lake,
\or
Heads
\or
dunk
\or
in
\or
the
\or
water,

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Thanks, hold on.

marmot

@PauloCereda I think the conversion failed because the duck does not wear a lifebelt (safety issues) ;-)

samcarter

@marmot backyardchickens.com/threads/…

Paulo Cereda

My convert command is bringing some strange lines...

@marmot: how many times do I repeat the animation?

marmot

@PauloCereda How would I know? Probably you should stop before the duck becomes sea-sick;-) (If that helps, I can rewrite the code in such a way that either (a) the duck changes her or his direction or (b) it swims along a loop in a 3D setting. Just let me know.

Sebastiano

18:27

Good evening to everybody

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Let me try something first. :)

Sebastiano

@egreg Good evening Prof.. Can you know, please if my question is correct in English and clear? tex.stackexchange.com/questions/419957/…

0

Q: Latest MiKTeX: suggestions how to install new fonts using MikTeX Console

MikTeX have changed its look by introducing the MikTeX Console: Before I have always updated and added fonts not included in the MikTeX distribution using the mask Settings, Update and Package Manager. I don't understand, now, the procedure how I can to install new additional packages fonts n...

miktex package-writing miktex2.9

egreg

@Sebastiano Polished some grammar. Ciao!

Paulo Cereda

@marmot: dropbox.com/s/sq84sby0ykv3vbx/duck.mp4?dl=0

egreg

@PauloCereda Second glass of wine served. :-)

Paulo Cereda

18:33

@egreg ooh :D

egreg

@PauloCereda I always drink… wine.

Paulo Cereda

@egreg :D

Sebastiano

@egreg You are great!!!!!!!!! :-)

marmot

@PauloCereda WOW! Great!

Sebastiano

@egreg Sincerely I am very anxious and I hope to receive an answer. I'm doing an important job with a university professor and I was stuck because I do not know how to install the fonts with the console. Thanks for the positive score, and I wish you all good always.

Paulo Cereda

18:41

@marmot <3

@marmot: I believe macOS can open it. :)

Sebastiano

@marmot @PauloCereda @egreg I wish you a good evening and a good job and a good dinner. Hi

Paulo Cereda

@Sebastiano Ciao, good day to you as well.

marmot

@PauloCereda Well, at least when I viewed it on dropbox, it worked ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot ooh :)

marmot

@Sebastiano Dinner? At 11:42?

Sebastiano

18:43

@marmot Excuse me. Here in Italy it is 7:43 pm :(. Hence good lunch

marmot

@PauloCereda Please share the nice video with Martin Scharrer (and with me the information how you made it ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot This is your video, be my guest, pal. :)

@marmot: first things first, I converted all pages of your PDF file to a list of PNG images with convert marmot.pdf -background white -alpha remove frame%05d.png.

marmot

@PauloCereda I can't, I do not have any bitbucket account.

Paulo Cereda

Then I used the following command to get a MP4 file.

ffmpeg -loop 1 -t 10 -i frame%05d.png -filter:v "setpts=5.0*PTS" -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast marmot.mp4

-t 10 is the time, but not accurate because of reasons told in a second. :)

5.0*PTS tells the output to be slower, so we can see the duck saying. :) The higher the value, the slower the video. Hence the duration becames messy.

After that, the duck.mp4 won't be exactly compliant. I then opened it with Handbrake and asked for a reconversion. :)

marmot

@PauloCereda Molto obrigado (is that correct)

Paulo Cereda

18:49

@marmot Close. :) s/molto/muito/g :)

@marmot: bitbucket.org/martin_scharrer/mwe/issues/3/…

marmot

@PauloCereda Muito obrigado!

Paulo Cereda

@marmot Disponha sempre, senhor marmota. :)

marmot

@PauloCereda I guess you need to convert this for me as well (OK, the last three words I can understand ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@marmot I think a close translation would be Always at your service, mr. marmot. :)

marmot

@PauloCereda Again thanks a lot!

Paulo Cereda

18:59

@marmot <3

marmot

@PauloCereda in marmot language: phfftht fpfffht fffpt

Paulo Cereda

@marmot :)

CarLaTeX

@marmot Molto is Italian

marmot

@CarLaTeX Si. Why do you ducks talk in so many languages? ;-)

CarLaTeX

19:15

@marmot Qua qua qua

marmot

Christian Hupfer

@marmot A Duck - Marmot - Duck - Sandwich? ;-)

3

marmot

I guess when users from other sites see this they will think we are crazy. Perhaps for good reasons ;-)

Christian Hupfer

@marmot Though madness it is, there's wit in it ;-)

marmot

OK, @ChristianHupfer saved our reputation ;-)

CarLaTeX

19:18

@marmot We're wacky :)

marmot

@CarLaTeX Or quacky?

Christian Hupfer

@marmot Yes, I am the firm representative of common sense here ;-) Perhaps the only one :-P

Paulo Cereda

quack

CarLaTeX

19:35

@marmot wacky and quacky

David Carlisle

20:09

anyone seen @WillRobertson :-)

The error message comes from kpathsea:make_tex before fontspec says it can't find the file. Note that the two comments to my question both solved my problem, though in different ways. Any chance that someone will produce a fontspec guide for simple minded folk (apologies to Will Robertson)? — Peter Wilson 5 mins ago

Alan Munn

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multicol}
\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{0} % or {1}
\begin{itemize}
\item foo
\item bar
\end{itemize}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

Bug or feature?

John Dorian

Hello :-)

Alan Munn

@JohnDorian Hi

David Carlisle

@AlanMunn feature (but Frank changed it to allow 1 recently, perhaps not yet on ctan)

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle Apparently. The 0 case is ill-defined, but it seems that 1 should give you one column, at least logically for sure.

David Carlisle

20:24

@AlanMunn yes but Frank thought no one would do it but enough people did that he changed it:-0 It's not exactly trivial, and multicolumn{1} isn't the same as not having iit at all as it still switches to the multicol output routine etc

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I understand the issue. I was just surprised at the result. And it doesn't appear that it's part of TL 2017 at least.

@DavidCarlisle It does at least throw a warning saying what it's doing. :) I hadn't looked at that.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AlanMunn Well, who ever reads warnings?

Alan Munn

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Not me. :) They're even lower priority than documentation. :)

yo'

\def\duckument{\endgroup\begin{document}}
\def\endduckument{\end{document}\begingroup\def\@currenvir{duckument}}

2

Alan Munn

@yo' :)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

20:37

@AlanMunn Right. Now that I have your attention (and @barbarabeeton is also here) I succumb to the temptation to ask an off-topic question (the horror!): In much mathematical writing, especially but not exclusively by Norwegian authors, I come across the expression “we have that”. As in: Assume [hypothesis]. Then we have that [conclusion]. (to be cont'd …)

I hate it! On odd numbered days, I think it's wrong, and on even numbered days, I think it's merely bad taste. And certainly superfluous. Opinions? Am I just becoming a grumpy old man?

yo'

@HaraldHanche-Olsen IMHO you are :) I use it sometimes too, but I try to avoid it in cases where it's superfluous, since often crossing out the three words don't change anything meaning-wise. I primarily use it to separate two inline math formulas, or at the beginning of a sentence.

as in: ... because while $\TS$ has more than one discontinuity point when $\beta>2$, we have that $\TS x=\frac12$ for all these points. Or: We have that $x_1x_2x_3\dotsm$ is $\TB$-admissible if and only if for all $i\geq1$ we have \begin{align*}...

Harald Hanche-Olsen

20:51

@yo' I would replace the first “we have that” by “then”. Or “we have” without “that”. For the second one, the usage is merely to avoid starting a sentence with a formula. I would prefer a descriptive term like “The product” instead (or whatever that expression signifies).

@yo' See? I really am becoming a grumpy old fart. More grumpy than old, perhaps, but I am working on the latter.

Alan Munn

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Despite having been accused recently by a colleague of having a 'math' dialect of English, I find this usage completely ungrammatical for me. And @yo' s example doesn't leave me any more convinced. :)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I'd also be interested to hear @barbarabeeton 's take on it.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AlanMunn Exactly my feeling, but how exactly does it differ from “we know that”, which is perfectly fine? The thing is, after “we have” I expect some object (or objects), like we have duck for dinner, or a rainy day, not some mere mathematical fact. And the word “that” shatters all my expectations of what is coming next. But I can't explain why.

Alan Munn

@HaraldHanche-Olsen @yo' I just did a search of my computer and found only 5 instances of it, four from the semantics literature, which makes sense, given their use of math.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen These kinds of selectional restrictions are really quite idiosyncratic. For example, know can combine with either a clause or an NP, but think really only combines with a clause. ask can combine with a clause or an NP (ask a question), but wonder can't (??wonder a question).

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Another example I like to use is before and after can both combine with either an NP or a clause, but while only combines with clauses and during only combines with NPs, even though temporal while and during mean the same thing.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen So these are for the most part purely syntactic restrictions that are not derivable from the semantics.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

21:09

@AlanMunn And NP stands for –?

@AlanMunn … noun phrase?

yo'

@AlanMunn My problem with "A product" is that it'such more a filler tham anyhing else, and moreover it does not feel like a filler so you have to think about it, you can' simply skip it when parsing the text...

@AlanMunn I wonder what's gramatically wrong with "We have that clause"

@HaraldHanche-Olsen yes.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen the first message above is a reply.to you, sorry, wrong buttons :)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@yo' Note that @AlanMunn said “completely ungrammatical for me” (my italics). He seems to imply that there is no firm grammatical rule in play, more a question of language “feeling”. It's the same for me. I really can't explain why it rubs me the wrong way.

@yo' Yeah, I figured that out.

yo'

Anyway, metro train leaves in 3 minutes and there's no 4G coverage down there, see you in a while!

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@yo' Oops. Run!

samcarter

21:30

@UlrikeFischer @marmot @PauloCereda Did you already see github.com/Skillmon/ltx_duckuments ?

3

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter yes. But it seems to be needing an example-image-duck.pdf so it looks as if you will have to update tikzducks soon ;-)

@samcarter Ah no, I misread the code, it creates an example-image-duck.tex.

samcarter

@UlrikeFischer Just tried the package. Seems to work really nicely!

@UlrikeFischer It seems to combine the best ideas from both your answers to tex.stackexchange.com/questions/419751/… :)

barbara beeton

@HaraldHanche-Olsen -- i think it's ungraceful, but i don't write mathematics. i'm housebound today, on account of "yet another nor'easter". tomorrow, i'll ask my go-to editor, and ask her. (re later comment about grumpy and old, the first can often be remedied, but the second is, sadly, irreversible.)

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter Yes I saw the random page selection ;-). But I guess it would be better if it checks the pages number of the external pdf in case someone created another one.

samcarter

21:50

@UlrikeFischer Checking the page number would indeed be a very good idea!

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter It is rather easy: tex.stackexchange.com/a/8324/2388

samcarter

@UlrikeFischer Maybe report to github.com/Skillmon/ltx_duckuments/issues ?

Did you read the story from the blind duckument?

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter I added a comment.

Bernardo Meurer

22:13

Hey there, sorry to bother you guys

I just had my question marked as a duplicate

And it might be a duplicate, but definitely not of the linked question

0

Q: Drawing the Complexity Space Diagram

On the Wikipedia article for Complexity Theory, we can find the following diagram that shows how Complexity Classes are divided: How could I draw something similar to this in LaTeX? Also is it possible to make the diagram less ugly, perhaps by giving the P Problems and NP Complete groups more ...

tikz-pgf diagrams

I mean, sure, you can say that I'm trying to draw a box, but that seems really reductive

marmot

@samcarter Looks like a really great package that will revolutionize (or duckify?) modern typesetting ;-)

@BernardoMeurer I think you are posting this at the wrong place. None of those active in the current chat has closed your question, and even if one of them had, you still would have to go the official way. This is just a chat.

Ulrike Fischer

22:31

@BernardoMeurer I didn't check if it is a duplicate of the other answers but it looks like a "do it for me" question. It would be better if you would create some starting code.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@barbarabeeton “Ungraceful” seems like a good word to describe what I feel about it. Thanks.

Bernardo Meurer

@marmot I was mostly just wanting to understand why it got closed from people who use this more often than I do, which @UlrikeFischer did :)

I went ahead and made a proper question

Also, @marmot Thanks a lot for the answer yesterday, it yielded a beautiful final graph

marmot

22:55

@BernardoMeurer You got already a nice answer by Phelype ;-)

Bernardo Meurer

@marmot Yep, just waiting one more minute to accept it

yo'

@barbarabeeton oh, gracefulness of mathematical texts, what a revolutionary idea!

barbara beeton

@yo' -- there are (or have been) at least a few notable mathematicians who have encouraged it. (don't have access to my bookshelf at home, but given some time could come up with some references.)

yo'

23:23

@barbarabeeton I hope you realize that I was joking. Mathematical texts should have a nice prose, yet the mathematical mesaage is the primary goal.

(sorry, cellphone struggles)

barbara beeton

@yo' -- i think the highest goal is (or should be) clarity.

yo'

@barbarabeeton indeed. Funny how it's similar to scientific typography

Time to close the day, see you tomorrow!

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