@Plergux -- I'm pleased to see that your crystal ball is in good working order. (tex.stackexchange.com/a/573716 ) +1 for your answer, but see my comment to the question. I was sorely tempted to downvote the question, but that's against my principles; however, I will avoid looking at further questions from that person.

@Plergux -- Actually, Zarko's answer has better (more conventional) spacing, but the OP doesn't appear smart (or experienced) enough to know the difference.

@DavidCarlisle Thought about it again in a semi-sleeping state, and I'll raise it with the team. It's however tricky, from what I view. Is it that (a) all fonts are cached when lualatex or context is first called, or (b) only the ones used/loaded? The thing is, we (re)start new serves quite often actually, so if (b) is the case, we definitely do not want to rebuild the whole cache of fonts each time. And then, the user can add any OTF/TTF font and then it will take some time again for the user, ...

... but again only the first time their project compiles on that specific server. However, if (a) is the case, meaning that the cache is rebuilt in a couple of minutes, that could be doable.

@yo' too late to think about it now:-) @MarcelKrüger better person to say exactly what gets cached and when.

@DavidCarlisle That package (scrpage2.sty) has been declared obsolete. I must have missed the memo.

@UlrikeFischer ^^

scrlayer.scrpage is the recommended replacement.

@barbarabeeton I must admit that I kind of regretted answering it after I saw his comment and I suppose I should have left it well alone as I clearly didn't think it through, for example with regards to the actual quality of my answer. I shall count to ten next time.

@barbarabeeton I agree actually, it looks much smarter. In a way the OP got what he asked for, he wanted "whatever" so the got "whatever".

@DavidCarlisle ok thanks!

@barbarabeeton “however, I will avoid looking at further questions from that person.” – I have often thought along similar lines, but my memory for names isn't up to it. (I am not as principled as you. I both downvoted, and cast the final vote to close.)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I have a do-not-answer-to-this-one list, to which I'm just adding someone :)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I don't think that means you've got less principles, just different ones. It should have been clear to me from the first few comments that this person was not willing to put any work in to facilitate a formal answer so I should have stepped away. I shall have to set myself some principles as well, if only to prevent myself from wasting time on people who obviously don't appreciate any time people take to address their problems.

@Plergux The jerks are usually quite obvious. On SE, at least.

To start with, they're usually quite ill mannered.

@FaheemMitha Yes, that's true. I probably mistook his rudeness as frustration. Dealing with all this "inner workings" of things can be frustrating, especially if you don't generally enjoy it but are required to do so, maybe in a class or something. I do enjoy fiddling with all this stuff but I still have moments of "Why the hell isn't this damn thing working!". But I will certainly be more scrutinising in the future.

@UlrikeFischer Wow! Did you like it?

@Plergux One should always strive to be polite, even if frustrated. And computers are frequently annoying. So if one loses ones temper every time something goes wrong, then that would be a whole lot of ill temper.

Some days working with software just feels like walking through an endless thorn forest.

@FaheemMitha Yes, of course. And I always try this myself, but then you get rudely reminded that some people just don't seem capable.

@Skillmon oh no

@Rmano yes, very nice. We like this fishes and it was a nice addition. Next time I will perhaps even make a few home made crisps.

@CarLaTeX wouldn't be nice to have a local script to add emblems to user names looking at a local list? (Hint for the Javascript experts...)

Decided to experiment with MacVim + vimtex last night and I kept getting false error messages (e.g. it didn't recognize an align environment) and yet a PDF was produced, albeit with the wrong output. Very strange.

And of course now that I've told someone, the very same MWE works perfectly. Ah well.

The latex3/latex3 repo has got to 1000 stars!

Do you guys know if I can make LaTeX stretch paragraphs rather than the space between paragraphs? I'm not allowed to have a ragged bottom, but I absolutely hate the extra space that appears between some paragraphs if the text needs to be slightly stretched. I tried setting parskip to 0 but that has the same effect as \raggedbottom in that the page text is now unstretched and there is a gap at the bottom.

@PauloCereda drat, I mispredicted your spelling.

@Plergux hm. you would hate stretched paragraphs much more. It looks awfull if line distances change all the time.

@UlrikeFischer But it also looks awful if the gaps between the paragraphs change all the time *whiiine

@Plergux normally if you have only text and the layout is right there shouldn't be gaps. So if you get lots of differences you probably have objects like tables or figures or similar. You could try to hide the extra spaces there.

@UlrikeFischer ooh! Excuse for more pictures :p

@Rmano There used to be a browser addon, but the great site re un-designing broke it :(

Do somebody know if I can convince any (Linux) PDF viewer to show me what happens outside the page margins? (using showkeys and trying to read full keys...)

@Rmano Maybe inkscape could do that if the content is not actually clipped to the page size

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas oh, yes, thanks, that worked. A pity I can import just a page at a time, but in a pinch...

@Rmano perhaps by changing the mediabox, but I would need an example to try.

\documentclass[journal, onecolumn]{IEEEtran}
\usepackage{showkeys}
\begin{document}
\begin{thebibliography}{100}

\bibitem{VeryLongAndNotAdvisableKeyforLynch1974}
A.~C. Lynch, ``{Precise Measurements on Dielectric and Magnetic Materials},''
  {\em IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement}, vol.~23, no.~4,
  pp.~425--431, 1974.
\end{thebibliography}
\end{document}

@UlrikeFischer Like this, for example ^^^

@Rmano Untested: using pgfpages and include the pages in a bigger pagesize?

@Plergux \loosness=1 or write more words to fit

@Diaa yes but 7ex not 7*1ex

@Rmano the pdf viewer don't like negative media box settings. But you could do something like this in the draft:

\hoffset=10cm
\pdfpagewidth=\dimexpr \paperwidth+10cm\relax

@DavidCarlisle Thanks. I'll try loosness (it is "loos-ness" not "loose-ness" ?). Don't know about writing more words. Getting kind of sick of words. :p

@Plergux Given that Knuth can spell, I'd place my bet on \looseness.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen :p

(TeXbook, bottom of p. 103)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen :D I've not made it that far. I'm only up to Glue :p

@Plergux Useful to know: \looseness is reset after each paragraph. Use it for paragraphs you want to make longer (or shorter), don't worry about resetting it after.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen especially on the phone getting within 1 or 2 characters accuracy is success

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Righto!

@DavidCarlisle :) I guess Knuth didn't use a phone to write the TeXbook.

@DavidCarlisle My phone is getting quite good at LaTeX. When I start to type "a small" on my phone it offers me "but complete example" as continuation ;-)

@UlrikeFischer ooh :)

@UlrikeFischer ah, yes, thanks!

@DavidCarlisle isn't it the same math?

@Diaa no it is a syntax error

@Plergux as @UlrikeFischer says if you are getting gaps then it is usually a sign that something is wrong, eg \textheight-\topskip not being a multiple of \baselineskip

@Diaa yes, as I'd expect.

@Diaa also best not to mix calc and dimexpr in the same expression, use one or the other.

@Plergux only read the dangerous bend paragraphs and appendix D, you can skip the rest.

@DavidCarlisle Ok, so like, if I've messed with the margins I might have thrown it all out of whack?

@DavidCarlisle Righto :D That's good. Means I'll get to Einführung in LuaTex und LuaLaTeX sooner. :p

@Plergux yes standard latex team response to any user complaint about latex: It was all perfect until you messed it up.

@DavidCarlisle damn users, they ruined LaTeX

@Diaa you showed an expression using \dimexpr and an error message from the calc package. (I don't think 3*2em is legal with either actually)

@DavidCarlisle Well, I'm good at that. In all reality I should wear a great big sign saying "I void warranties" :p

@DavidCarlisle So, if I need to do this calculation and pass the result to headheight, how can I do it?

@Diaa use 9em not 3em+3*2em

@Rmano There was, @samcarter_preparing_for_xmas already replied

What are the default skips before and after \hrule?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen -- Thank you. I see that the really insulting comment has been removed, but he still insisted on having the last word. I'm not responding. (@Plergux)

@Diaa 0

@FaheemMitha -- Add poison ivy and a hailstorm.

@barbarabeeton Yeah, I'm leaving it.

@barbarabeeton I flagged it

@Plergux -- You can (potentially) tighten or loosen a paragraph by a line by applying \looseness to individual paragraphs. Actual effect depends on TeX finding sufficient legitimate and appropriate breakpoints. To lengthen, \looseness=1 for a paragraph already having a long last line. To shorten. pick a paragraph with a very short last line, \looseness=-1. The longer the paragraph, the more likely to be successful.

@barbarabeeton Cool. I shall keep that in mind :)

@CarLaTeX -- Thank you. I do tend to annoy people, sometimes on purpose, but usually unintentionally. That person isn't capable of understanding valid advice.

@barbarabeeton Ugh. No thanks. :-)

@barbarabeeton I hope you are doing well.

@DavidCarlisle Not a single backslash out of place?

@Plergux -- I see that both @DavidCarlisle and @HaraldHanche-Olsen beat me to it. I suspect that you've got a lot of insertions that don't conform to the nominal \baselineskip. (I wrote a linguistics thesis once.) You may have to go back a page or two at times to find a good candidate, but it's worth it.

@barbarabeeton Yeah, I'm doing this on a page by page basis so it won't get any slower :p

@FaheemMitha -- Doing tolerably well, thank you, although winter seems to be coming. (Two nearby communities are still clearing slush off the streets from yesterday's nor'easter.) I hope you are doing well too.

@barbarabeeton I think that person was very rude

@barbarabeeton I'm ok, all things considered. It would be nice if I could become much smarter and more efficient, though.

@CarLaTeX -- The kind of person that makes one want to bring out a voodoo doll, and start applying pind.

@barbarabeeton :)

@FaheemMitha -- Not sure that works. So it's worth trying to acquire a community of helpful and knowledgeable contacts. Probably better than "knowing everything" oneself -- often a different point of view produces a superior result.

@barbarabeeton That's a good point.

@CarLaTeX -- Er, "pind" = "pins". (I really need to learn to proofread!)

@PhelypeOleinik the documentation of \tl_map_tokens:nn contains errors. First: <tokens> should be \marg. Second: As one trailing group, not two.

@barbarabeeton I thought it was some obscure LaTeX in-joke I was unaware of and ignored it XD

@Skillmon Got it. Thanks!

@Skillmon Looking at Ulrich's question?

@barbarabeeton :)

@PhelypeOleinik which question? (link?)

@Skillmon Looks like it's asking for a \keyval_parse_tokens:nnn or something like that: tex.stackexchange.com/q/573812/134574

Another day, another bout of wishing that Lua had Python's subprocess library. Or better, that I was writing Python instead.

@PhelypeOleinik hm, I missed that one :) Actually I was taking a look at a question you answered more than a year ago (tex.stackexchange.com/questions/498962/…) and wondered why "we" have a \tl_map_tokens:nn but not \clist_map_tokens:nn or similar, then I took a look at \tl_map_tokens:nn and noticed the error.

@FaheemMitha Lua and Python have very different advantages; why have you chosen Lua here?

@JosephWright I didn't. It's more like LuaTeX chose me.

If there was a PythonTeX, that's what I would be using instead.

@Skillmon Ah. I just thought the timing was too coincidental :)

Hey @PhelypeOleinik.

@FaheemMitha Hello!

How goes it?

@FaheemMitha there is

@PhelypeOleinik :) I don't need the documentation to know about \keyval_parse:NNn for some reason :P

@FaheemMitha Good :) Fixing typos in my thesis and in the expl3 docs thanks to @Skillmon

@Skillmon No idea why ;-) Though I would never suggest reading the documentation. @DavidCarlisle would be disappointed

@PhelypeOleinik sorry, but I thought an external PR just for this is a bit over-the-top :)

@Skillmon No problem :)

@FaheemMitha ctan.org/pkg/pythontex?lang=en

@PhelypeOleinik in the german group they are complaining that the ligatures in the LaTeX documentation doesn't copy & paste correctly. We should at least there use \input{glyphtounicode}\pdfgentounicode=1 ... @JosephWright

@UlrikeFischer Yes, like we said

@yo' Another Overleaf documentation request: there seems to be almost nothing about how regex search and replace works in the editor. I was trying to add a blank line after an environment but couldn't figure out how, so I ended up just copying the text into my editor and doing it there. Searching the online help yields only one hit on grouping replacement.

@AlanMunn ah the regex. We hope to improve it, so ...

@yo' I couldn't find enough documentation of it to even decide what needs improved. :)

@PhelypeOleinik one for the team whether things like \keyval_parse:nnn should be added. I can do the coding (there are a few other obfuscating performance improvements in \keyval_parse:NNn I might be able to port over from the latest expkv while doing so), but I'd like to first know whether this is something you want to add (I'd replace \keyval_parse:NNn completely and use \cs_new_eq:NN \keyval_parse:NNn \keyval_parse:nnn; it doesn't make much sense to support both versions, imho).

@Skillmon I guess it makes sense for them to be much the same code in an expandable context. Cool!

@Skillmon Though I don't see much use in the :nnn variant, other than "it exists because it technically works". The map_tokens functions are mostly for one-offs or where you can't define a macro to hold your code, but keys are mostly the opposite of that, I think

@Skillmon But I'm not the expert, so @JosephWright might have a better idea (also what do you think?)

@PhelypeOleinik it only makes sense when you really want to make use of the expandable nature of \keyval_parse:NNn and pass in more tokens to the two functions. While it is possible to do this in a different way (markers and doing things like \cs_new:Npn \foo_key:nw #1 #2 \__foo_addo:n #3 { \foo_code_for_only_key:nn {#1} {#3} #2 \__foo_addo:n {#3} }) that would be much slower and unnecessarily complicated, compared to just putting a few braces in internal code...

@PhelypeOleinik well, I think given the fact that Ulrich asked for it, that there might be good uses to it (and I often wonder why there is only \clist_map_function:nN and no \clist_map_tokens:nn, as that would also be just a minor change, but allow much more versatility). At the same time I decided for expkv to have the same interface like \keyval_parse:NNn with just N-types. Perhaps I should change that there as well... :)

@PhelypeOleinik my personal vote would be pro n-type, but I have the least to say in this context, I'm not in the team, I'm just the expansion-only freak of TeX :)

@Skillmon I just doubt it will be widely used, so it doesn't make much sense to slow down every document to the benefit of a single edge case. But I guess if the braces don't disrupt too much of your performance upgrade, then there is probably not much harm in it

Hi guys can anyone help me with this question.

@Ojasvsingh as you are using xelatex the first answer is wrong. Using lualatex as suggested by the other is worth a try. But I made a short test with the template and it worked ok. Did you use the original fonts of the template?

@PhelypeOleinik comparison:

Yes. I just changed the content but the specs are all the same

\gobbleno / \gobblebr
0.783
0.783
0.783
\gobblebr / \gobbleno
1.258
1.258
1.258

@Ojasvsingh and which pdf viewer did you use to copy&paste?

With:

\documentclass[]{article}

\input{comparing_benchmark.tex}

\makeatletter
\def\gobblebr{\@gobble{a}}
\def\gobbleno{\@gobble a}
\Compare \gobblebr \gobbleno {}
\Compare \gobbleno \gobblebr {}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\end{document}

adobe acrobat

(comparing_benchmark.tex is some code I wrote to ease performance comparisons, based on l3benchmark and some code Bruno wrote a while ago)

@Ojasvsingh create a pdf and put it somewhere for download. Then I can see if it copy&paste wrong for me too.

@Skillmon Secret rabbit code ;-)

So gobbling a single a without braces is 25% faster (with two steps of expansion)

@Skillmon I think that's an unfair comparison, isn't it? Because \keyval_parse:NNn doesn't only grab arguments...

@PhelypeOleinik if you want I can email it to you, it's just not worth it to publish it (and it is undocumented and has other serious limitations)

@Skillmon That's much more than I expected, I must say

@PhelypeOleinik of course, I just wanted to show that there is really a difference, when comparing with relative time, absolute looks a bit different:

unbraced
5.11e-8 seconds (0.157 ops)
braces
7e-8 seconds (0.22 ops)
unbraced
5.12e-8 seconds (0.16 ops)
braces
7.11e-8 seconds (0.219 ops)
unbraced
5.09e-8 seconds (0.16 ops)
braces
7.18e-8 seconds (0.221 ops)

@PhelypeOleinik so, we're talking about 20 nano seconds difference... :)

@Skillmon I guess if a deadline is close enough, that could make a difference :P

@PhelypeOleinik well, it's 20ns per step in \keyval_parse:NNn. That cumulates!

@Skillmon ^^

@PhelypeOleinik YES.

@PhelypeOleinik lol

@Skillmon you could use a regec to split up the comma list

@DavidCarlisle afaik, Bruno failed to make l3regex expandable...

@PhelypeOleinik performance hit for {key,key=val} as the argument to \keyval_parse:NNn compared with \ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn:

\ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn / \keyval_parse:NNn
1.058
1.058
1.058
\keyval_parse:NNn / \ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn
0.944
0.944
0.944

So about 5% for one key and one key=val pair.

@PhelypeOleinik roughly the same result for 100 keys and 100 key=val pairs with one empty list element.

@DavidCarlisle also, how long until you stop nagging me with that?

@Skillmon Hm, quite a bit more, I think, for every usage...

@PhelypeOleinik comparison for 100 keys and 100 key=val pairs and 1 empty list element, this time also with the latest \ekvparse (which doesn't test for the empty-key error and double =, so naturally is a bit faster):

\ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn / \keyval_parse:NNn
1.022
1.022
1.022
\ekvparse / \keyval_parse:NNn
0.698
0.698
0.698
\keyval_parse:NNn / \ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn
0.952
0.952
0.952
\ekvparse / \ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn
0.667
0.667
0.667
\ulrichkeyval_parse:nnn / \ekvparse
1.447
1.447
1.447
\keyval_parse:NNn / \ekvparse
1.445
1.445
1.445

@Skillmon Show off! :P

@Skillmon That's quite impressive

@Skillmon But still, I think 5% is too much to support a weird corner case. But that's just me; maybe it's not that weird or not that much...

@PhelypeOleinik not really, since I wrote both \ekvparse and \keyval_parse:NNn, just didn't port over the last revision of \ekvparse (which took me a week or more to write, in the middle of which my hard drive died)

@Skillmon Dead drives are lots of fun :/

@PhelypeOleinik well, if the team decides that the corner case might be supported, I promise I'll take a look at it, porting over the enhancements of \ekvparse where possible, so the result wouldn't be as fast as possible, but still faster than the current version, I guess. Also: \keyval_parse:NNn got a lot faster since I implemented expkv, so the TL2020 version is considerably faster than TL2019 and before. The 5% slowdown wouldn't be a huge hit by comparison.

@PhelypeOleinik Especially when you didn't push 4 days worth of work :)

@Skillmon Let's see what @JosephWright says

Hello. How is everyone?

@PhelypeOleinik luckily I managed to make a full dump from the dead drive, so I didn't lose anything. But that were horrible days before I managed.

@LaTeXereXeTaL procrastinating at the worst possible moment. How are you?

@Skillmon Glad you managed to salvage your stuff. Re-doing work is awful

@Skillmon I'm learning to use Vim and vimtex.

@LaTeXereXeTaL good decision (the former, not yet sure about the latter, on my own machine I'm still using latex-suite, on my work pc I'm testing vimtex).

@PhelypeOleinik I just realised that some of the changes I made to expkv are nothing I should port over to l3. I think too much pre-expansion isn't necessarily what the team wants (I remember that Bruno reverted some of those I did in l3tl during review).

Off for a while.

@DavidCarlisle Phew! Good thing you are asking @PauloCereda and not me

@PhelypeOleinik oh hold on

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@PauloCereda Order has been restored

@PhelypeOleinik ooh is it 66?

@PauloCereda 66?

@PhelypeOleinik starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Order_66

Hi

I have alist of references in a bib file but want to include all the references in the main tex file

i am using Overleaf

\nocite{*}

Trying th esecond answer

I get the bbl file but cant open it

in total i want to copy the contents from .bib file into the main tex file and make it work?

@PauloCereda Oh (I didn't watch the animated series... Yet :)

@PhelypeOleinik it's in the main movies too

@PauloCereda And that's how knowledgeable I am :)

@PauloCereda I know there's a guy in a breathing mask that has psychic powers

@PauloCereda Should there anything inside {}?

@PhelypeOleinik Yeah, and some guy named Joghurt or something :p

@PhelypeOleinik ooh a Pokémon

@Plergux LOL

@Plergux the cool thing is that my favourite Jedi is probably very unpopular. :)

@BAYMAX you can probably make it work but it seems a weird thing to want. You don't mind .aux and .toc file being separate files, why wrry about .bbl?

@BAYMAX See this: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/12175/…

Oh I am not worried about the .bbl file

@PauloCereda I know nothing about Jedis. I'm DarthMaul4Evah :p

rather the separate .bib file

@Plergux ooh I am a Depa Billaba fanboy. :)

I have around 50 references in the .bib file and want to incorporate all of them inside the main tex file without having the .bib file

@BAYMAX you can use filecontents but having document-specific bib file sort of misses the point about bibtex

@PauloCereda Ah, yes that's Clown Wars or something :p

@BAYMAX Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. You can include the .bib file using the {filecontents} environment.

@Plergux ooh naughty sheep. :)

@DavidCarlisle Yes and no. If you're submitting your TeX source to someone, you usually don't want to include your 1000s entry bib file. :)

@Plergux Yes, Master Billaba was killed during the Order 66. She acted as a shield to save her padawan, Caleb Dume, who grew up to be the awesome Jedi warrior Kanan Jarrus. :D

@PauloCereda :p Not really a Star Wars fan. If you want me to recommend space series I'll say Farscape and Red Dwarf.

It was actually the Clone wars IIRC.

@Plergux ooh it's cold outside

@PauloCereda I have no idea what you just said. :p

@Plergux baa <3

@PauloCereda Ribbid!

@Plergux This is not an uncommon occurrence with @PauloCereda. :)

@AlanMunn Yes, I seem to recall something of the sort. :p

@AlanMunn ooh one on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.

@PauloCereda Whot?

@AlanMunn@DavidCarlisle so i have to have the .bib file

@Plergux /whispering it's the... Spanish Inquisition sketch...

@BAYMAX as it says in the question you link to and Alan and I just said, you can put it in the main tex file using filecontents environment

@PauloCereda Yes I know. That's what the lady said when he said "One of the cross beams has gone out of skew on treddle." "Whot?" "One of the crossbeams has gone out of skew on the treddle." "I don't understand what you're saying! What do you mean!?" "I don't know! Mr. Wentworth just told me to come here and say one of the cross beams is out of skew on treddle. I didn't expect this kind of Spanish Inquisition!" aaaand cue!

@PauloCereda :p

@Plergux ooh sorry

JARRING SOUND

@PauloCereda aaand all together now....

@Plergux <3

thanks

@DavidCarlisle

I have the .bbl fle but cant open it in windows it asks for an app

@BAYMAX bbl file is just a tex file you can open it in any text editor

oh

oh

@PauloCereda oh

@DavidCarlisle oh

@PauloCereda except vim

@DavidCarlisle Is that a text editor? In my experience it's more of a torture chamber.

@Plergux Welcome to the Hotel Californivim, you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave.

@AlanMunn XD It is a bit like that, isn't it. If you get it it gets you :p

@Plergux your assessment is correct

I avoided Vim for many years but decided to give it a try.

@LaTeXereXeTaL emacs is the only editor to pass the "is it emacs" test.

@LaTeXereXeTaL I have made a few unsuccessful attempts. Each week I hide under the mattress for a week. :p I'd rather use Microsoft Word :p

@DavidCarlisle emacs has some of the best calendrical algorithms in the business. So much so that the authors of those algorithms published a book (Calendrical Calculations by Dershowitz and Reingold). I've always want to experience AUCTEX but just couldn't get the hand of emacs in general.

@Plergux Vim is kind of like edlin only a bit better. :D

@LaTeXereXeTaL I have no idea what edlin is. :p I use Notepad++, VS Code, TexWorks, or Scrivner, depending on what I'm writing. :p

@Plergux Oh dear I'm showing my age. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edlin

@JosephWright watching the finals?

I have a symbol who's font I can't identify. Detexify doesn't seem to recognize it. I've searched through all the font catalogs and of course the Comprehensive List of LaTeX Symbols. If I ask about it in main I know the question will be closed. What other options are there?

@LaTeXereXeTaL You're trying to find the symbol or identify the font? You could post an image here.

whose can't spell today

@yo' Snooker?

@AlanMunn I'd like to know how to get the symbol if possible.

@LaTeXereXeTaL Stupid spelling anyway. Worse than its (another stupid spelling).

It's the A that Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler use to label spacetime events.

@LaTeXereXeTaL That's a very funky A

@AlanMunn Yep. It looks like an "uppercase lowercase A"

@AlanMunn yep

Neil blunders in this frame so badly!

@DavidCarlisle and the only piece of software calling itself an editor, that includes a plethora of tools, except for a decent editor.

@Skillmon -- Oh piffle! You're just prejudiced.

@LaTeXereXeTaL It's just the calligraphic font the publisher decided to use. It's not a specific symbol.

@egreg Yes, I think @LaTeXereXeTaL wants to know the font it might come from. It certainly doesn't seem to be in any of the available TeX fonts.

@AlanMunn The question specifies symbol.

@egreg "whose font I can't identify"

@AlanMunn I pointed out that any calligraphic script would do as well.

@egreg Well, it won't if you're trying to mimic the specific glyph. (Whether that's important to do is a separate matter.)

@AlanMunn It's a frequent misunderstanding to think that the particular shape has a meaning; it doesn't, in general and in this case.

@egreg Of course, and I agree, but it depends on whether your goal is mathematical or typographical.

@egreg You know, I should have been clearer. I would like to use that particular character/glyph/letter in my documents for consistency with MTW's notation.

@egreg If you know of a calligraphic font with that particular glyph I would love to know about it too. I've searched and can't find one.

@LaTeXereXeTaL And you shouldn't: there's nothing special in those glyphs. The publisher (and perhaps the authors) liked them. A proprietary font, without any doubt.

@LaTeXereXeTaL They want to make the symbols for those quantities easily distinguishable. There's no magic in the glyphs.

@egreg I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I fully understand that it's merely a letter. I can find every other letter they use except that one.

@LaTeXereXeTaL I'd be very surprised if the A, B and P are not from the same font.

@egreg It's strange that it's the only symbol in the book I can't reproduce.

@LaTeXereXeTaL You're probably not reproducing the same B and P.

@egreg Pretty sure I did. :D

@egreg I spent significant time on this over the summer.

@egreg I've met Kip Thorne. I suppose I could email him and ask.

@LaTeXereXeTaL No, you just happened to find similar glyphs.

@AlanMunn Frame 19!

@yo' I have no live access.

@AlanMunn ah, sorry then :(

@yo' On here :)

@JosephWright cool. What a match!