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05:50
@AlanMunn You want that removed from the chat?
@RavenDreamer Yes. It turns out that I initiated a close request too early, and rather than have others continue to close, I thought I'd just have the chat comments deleted. I seem to have attracted a lot of attention by doing so, though. :-)
Then I'll do that and take my leave. /tiphat.
@RavenDreamer Thanks.
Come visit us on Gaming! Gnight.
Wow. I'm very impressed with the quick response from everywhere to my flag. I guess flags in chat are more urgent than flags in the main site.
 
1 hour later…
07:00
@egreg I know this -- but I think fpr the user it's easier to start at 1-
@StefanKottwitz unfortunately no. I have to work ;-(
07:49
@MarcoDaniel In the question "Laura" is the third item, but the user denotes it with \names[2]. :)
 
1 hour later…
09:12
@egreg:percusse's comment is fantastic: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/45048/… :)
Hey there
Hi @Raphink! :)
What's up?
Carnaval! :)
I almost could not sleep. :(
How are you? :)
hehe
fine
last monday at work
after hundreds of them, it feels a bit awkward
09:18
It really does. :(
Though in my experience this feeling is light enough
;)
it's my first job here :-)
and I've been here almost 6 years
so it's a big change
 
1 hour later…
10:24
@PauloCereda Quite strange bug.
@PauloCereda It takes so little to make people happy! :) tex.stackexchange.com/a/45065/4427
@egreg =)
Quick question, is there anyway to define a minima space between a fixed number of columns? Kinda seems like a strange question
But I have a page with three columns, and each columns is part of a list with integrals.
@N3buchadnezzar How do you input it? With longtable?
hi
2sec, I will show the source code.
Using the multicolumn package along with enumitem
\SetEnumitemKey{threecol}{
itemsep=1\itemsep,
parsep=1.5\parsep,
before=\raggedcolumns\begin{multicols}{3},
after=\end{multicols}}

\newenvironment{IntList}{\begin{enumerate}[threecol]}{\end{enumerate}}
10:34
@N3buchadnezzar This is not a tabular, so the columns have equal size.
@egreg I see no problem in making everything wider, as I have quite large margins on either size.
@N3buchadnezzar So make it wider!
@DavidCarlisle TeX isn't very happy with \hbox{\halign{...}}. :)
I do not know how, that is why I asked!
It is like someone asks a question on the site, and you respond with: Then just do it ^^
I guess I have to add something like "leftmargin=2em"
@N3buchadnezzar Sorry, can't look at the source right now. Just sitting here while students take a test and can't run TeX reliably.
@egreg What sort of test?
10:44
@AndreyVihrov Linear algebra
@egreg It is no biggie =)
@egreg Enter the matrix
@N3buchadnezzar LU decomposition, Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization, change of basis for the matrix of a linear map, diagonalization.
I have the exact same this year =)
Last time I studied LA was about 4 years ago and I hardly remember it :-|
@egreg sign as I said in the reply it;s vertical mode, will change to vbox, thanks:-)
@egreg oh you've fixed it for me:-)
10:52
@egreg A nice way to start a Monday. :)
I still can not figure it out
darn =(
@N3buchadnezzar the space between columns is \columnsep so you can just set that to something bigger, and increase \textwidth as well if need be
why the ams command align not work for me?
can I use \newcommand to define something?
@vanabel, "I don't know" and "yes" are two possible answers to those two questions. Make a working example and ask on the main site, it would be easier to help.
\SetEnumitemKey{threecol}{
itemsep=1\itemsep,
parsep=1.5\parsep,
\setlength{\columnsep}{15pt},
before=\raggedcolumns\begin{multicols}{3},
after=\end{multicols}}
This still does not work, where do I need to put the columnsep ?
11:03
@vanabel You can't use \newcommand{\ba}{\begin{align}}, if that's your question
And I wouldn't recommend it even if it were possible. :)
@N3buchadnezzar No idea about those packages wrapping multicol, if you stuck a MWE with the right package includes , perhaps it needs to go in that before field (it certainly needs to be set before multicol starts)
I gave a MWE earlier in chat
If the French really do this, they're wrong. :)
0
Q: How to add an academic title before the author name with \citeauthor?

ienisseiIn French legal citation, one is supposed to refer to "professor X" or "Dean Y" when referring to an author in a sentence. Using biblatex and Biber, this would mean that \citeauthor{key} should prepend the right academic title (if any) before each author. The idea would be to have a separate dat...

@N3buchadnezzar ah the pastebin, sorry missed that
@DavidCarlisle Np, I am thinking of perhaps switching to something cleaner and easier as well. Not quite sure what though, I am not that experienced in latex yet...
11:12
@egreg: I've never noticed that this has to be done
@Raphink It's "legal citation" that makes me suspect some specialized field where one has to be subservient to the bosses. :(
@DavidCarlisle Sorry for bothering you, though.
@egreg: you ought to type @MasterRaphink, not @Raphink
I'm French :p
(I am sure to have less titles than you do though, Pr ;))
Close as "too localized", based on the last comment?
0
Q: Figure does not appear in pdf

JohnI know that this issue mostly arises when you use the draft-mode. However, I am not using the draft-mode. Throughout my paper I use the following code to implement figures: \begin{figure}[hbt] \centering \subfloat[\textit{caption1}]{\label{fig:pic1} \includegraphics{pic1}} \hspace{0.5c...

What does His Excellency Raphink think?
He thinks He's hungry and will grab something to eat.
laters :-)
11:27
@Raphink I noticed the capitalized "He" ;-) I'm hungry, too, but still have to wait half an hour, when the test ends. :(
11:44
bah!
@egreg voted too. :)
Should we talk in the third person?
How was it one avoided linebreaks at all costs?
:)
@egreg Oh no, tests! :)
@N3buchadnezzar Just put the material in \mbox
@egreg It worked! Hugs egreg, all the way back to Linear Algbebra
11:51
@PauloCereda Egreg has only 10 minutes for the test to finish. :) He's very tired to be here just in order that the students don't talk too much with each other.
3
@egreg, they're all too busy looking up the answers with their phones on google to talk to each other
@DavidCarlisle Or using smoke signals
@DavidCarlisle Electronic devices are disallowed. At least they can't put one on the desk. :)
Alan Mouth, hello! =D
@egreg Yay 10 minutes! :)
12:00
@PauloCereda Ten minutes ago! Now I'm just going to tell that the time is over!
@egreg Cool! Make it sound dramatic. /evil :)
@N3buchadnezzar Mouth? Brooklyn accent You talkin' to me?
Munn means mouth in Norwegian =)
How do white text and black background look in a tex file ?
Not for the whole document just one page for every section (There are 5 sections, each around 100-70 pages)
@N3buchadnezzar Ah, I thought that might be it, but I'm just waking up, and had only gotten to German (Mund).
@AlanMunn I had to Google that accent. :P
12:05
@N3buchadnezzar I'll buy more toner manufacturer stock.
@AlanMunn ^^ It is not neccecarily meant for printing.
@PauloCereda Well it's about time you have to google something. I'm clearly not obscure enough normally.
@AlanMunn LOL!
13:00
2
Q: Help identifying fonts used in this paper

aengle1429Dr. Ravi Vakil's Algebraic Geometry notes use fonts that I really like; I was wondering if anyone knew off hand how to implement them. I could not find any source tex files unfortunately. http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/216blog/FOAGjan1412public.pdf Thanks a lot!

98 Fonts!!! But no Comic Sans, snif
@BrentLongborough on removing the answer, I don't know I've not really been here long enough to know the etiquette.
@DavidCarlisle It just struck me that your answer was better-informed (LOL) than mine, and that \mbox{} is so much simpler. I think I'll remove it.
@DavidCarlisle BTW, I only just twigged (reading TLC2) that tabularx was your work; what a blessing -- thank you. I would have nightmares about coding something like that in (La)TeX.
I prerer Tabulary myself, although it's probably 10 years since I actualy wrote a document in latex so either way:-) glad you find it useful. Although about half the TX questions I see here should be answered by "don't use tabularx for that:-)
13:21
@DavidCarlisle 10 years ?
probably
Any reason ?
it's that long since I needed a paper document, this new fangled web thing you know
@DavidCarlisle Indeed, I write a few papers in it so =)'
@DavidCarlisle Yes, I only just discovered tabulary, too. The trouble is, I'm discovering so much "new" stuff in TLC2 that (a) I have a problem keeping track of stuff I've got to investigate (aka "play with"), and (b) there aren't enough hours in the next thousand days. Well, TG for todonotes LOL
13:24
Not unrelated it's 13 or so years since I stopped working at a University:-)
@DavidCarlisle I'm glad someone besides me realises that TeX is for printing. (Well, maybe graphics, too, now we have TikZ) ;-P
@BrentLongborough Latex is for procastination when writing your thesis
@N3buchadnezzar Oh, believe me, so is Word
@N3buchadnezzar I even managed to procrastinate with a typewriter
@DavidCarlisle TeX is a bit like Perl in that way -- there are N ways to do anything you want, and somewhere between N-1 and N of them are either wrong, mystical, or both.
5
@BrentLongborough Agrees with the mystical part
14:07
@BrentLongborough But one of them can be mystical and right. For example a solution exploiting \valign. :)
@egreg \valign has the useful property of being allowed in \hbox
@DavidCarlisle I've used it to typeset train timetables. :)
In Plain TeX, of course.
 
2 hours later…
15:51
@BrentLongborough Sure, but the difference is that LaTeX is fun, and therefore a much more efficient procrastination tool.
16:39
@AlanMunn Yes, LaTeX is like solving the Times crossword, while Word is like getting to the next level on Farmville
3
Or, of course, the Poincaré conjecture... (LaTeX)
17:02
0
Q: I'm trying to use biblatex for citations but \cite returns key not value

AndyI'm trying to use biblatex and I want to cite something but if I use \cite{key} or \footcite{key} the author and title is not printed but the key itself is printed. bibtex says there are no \citation commands TUDreport.tex \documentclass[11pt, nochapterpage,bigchapter,linedtoc,longdoc,colorbac...

Too localised?
@BrentLongborough Not being a crossword solver or having ever played Farmville, I'll take your word for it. :-) The big difference between Word and LaTeX for thesis writing is that with Word, the frustration comes at the end and with LaTeX it comes at the beginning.
4
@JosephWright At least the answer points out that biber should be used.
@egreg Oh yes, I'd agree, but that does not necessarily prevent it being closed.
@JosephWright I've no objection. Do you want a vote?
@egreg Just gauging opinion :-) (I can always close it)
17:10
@JosephWright Let's wait some minutes
17:30
Voted too! :)
Liverpool vs Brighton, 3 own goals! Wow.
@PauloCereda My dad was happy
@JosephWright Cool! :) It was a great game.
Speaking of games, we could think of an "educational" LaTeX editor with achievements/trophies while the user interacts with it. :)
@PauloCereda A bronze badge for properly balancing braces and a silver badge for using \[...\] instead of $$...$$. A golden badge for using \ensuremath and \xspace when they are really useful. :)
1
Q: Free substitute for Word2Tex on Windows

prraoI work with a lot of word documents. I want to make some of these look better with LaTex, but it's almost impossible to manually extract images/equations and put them into a .tex file and then convert them to LaTex. I know I might be asking for too much, but is there a nice, free way to do conve...

Where is debroglie/broccolli/crocodile when we need it? :P
@egreg Yes! That's the idea! :)
And we could also decrease achievement points for every misuse of stuff. :)
@PauloCereda Platinum badge for a neat usage of \valign. In my LaTeX notes I use a \valign nested in a \valign. :)
17:45
@egreg Wow!!!!1
18:05
@egreg And the David Carlisle Medal for using tabularx only where needed.
18:17
I am against LaTeX achivements!
Egreg would just instantly obtain them all!
Gold Achvement: Use eqnarray in a useful setting.
@N3buchadnezzar Actually, when egreg uses the editor, the editor earns the achievement for being used by egreg. :)
:)
Latex achivement: Use the gag ball and whip properly
18:34
@PauloCereda Sounds like Chuck Norris
@N3buchadnezzar sorry, but there is no useful application of eqnarray ... it is there because it can't be taken awaybecause of compatibility, but it is just A Bad Thing
^^
I thought one could use eqnarray to obtain matricies with a bar in the middle?
@N3buchadnezzar eqnarray is supposed to align equations but it is implemented as a 3-column array which means that the spacing withing the formulas is all wrong
@FrankMittelbach Yeah I know... But my point is that even though it sucks for that purpose, ( align <3 ) there might be some slim useful area for it.
@N3buchadnezzar you mean a "proper" misuse? well I wouldn't give a badge for that
18:49
@FrankMittelbach Well I am very sure you can not put a horizontal line inside of a matrix using align!
@N3buchadnezzar if you want a matrix, use "array", why not. If you want horizontal lines when aligning formulas, specify the spec of what is wanted and then one can see
@FrankMittelbach to change the topic (since we basically agree) I continued working on my latex book =)
@N3buchadnezzar LaTeX book with what target audience / focus?
Everything that has to do with integration, from the basics to the abstract. It is a long term hobby thingy.
19:08
Meh
I have to ask a question here on the site again =(
19:21
Hahahaa
I found out Latex actually does what I want it to, thats rare
I have a funny idea of asking a question about how to quickly answer tex.sx questions (since people are getting serious here and already use various techniques). Would this be on-topic on the main site or meta?
19:37
3
Q: LaTeX3 versus pure Lua

Ryan ReichReading this site for the last nearly two years I've learned a lot about LaTeX3 (which I had previously understood to be a defunct pipe dream) and LuaTeX (of which I was previously totally unaware). As I have said before, TeX itself is a bad programming language, though a good typesetting engine...

Right, who wants to answer that :-)
/me pokes @JosephWright
@PauloCereda One obvious candidate :-) @FrankMittelbach is of course another. Who wants to tackle the Lua side of things?
I can't. I'm biased. :P
@PauloCereda The fantasticity is in the eye of the beholder! (is that even a word ? :P)
Thanks for the praise about my comment to the surgeon Dr. egreg.
@JosephWright You
19:50
@MarcoDaniel Probably
Oh man, my avatar changed again? Or gravatar or QR code or whatever it is ....
Sigh, I had other things to do
@JosephWright I know. But the answer is a little bit longer (not only one sentence) and I think an expert of LaTeX3 should be answer this. The circle becomes smaller and smaller.
@MarcoDaniel Yes, I can see that really it has to be one of the team
Writing balanced answers is always fun!
First, though, I have some work to do, and then want to do some batch file programming :-)
@JosephWright The third part?
19:56
@MarcoDaniel Washing up
@MarcoDaniel Or do you mean of the question?
@JosephWright No the batch file. I got the e-mails from the mailing list ;-)
@MarcoDaniel Oh of course. I want to do l3kernel to the same standard as everything else. Next week, I'll look at the *nix versions. I've been meaning to do this for ages.
@JosephWright I'm curious about it. No it's time for `\expandafter\LaTeX\expandafter\wife
20:10
4
Q: LaTeX3 versus pure Lua

Ryan ReichReading this site for the last nearly two years I've learned a lot about LaTeX3 (which I had previously understood to be a defunct pipe dream) and LuaTeX (of which I was previously totally unaware). As I have said before, TeX itself is a bad programming language, though a good typesetting engine...

@N3buchadnezzar Indeed
@JosephWright It would be great to listen to Frank and you, and Patrick and Taco. :)
And Bruno and Will too, of course. :)
@PauloCereda Sounds a bit one-sided
For real 'fun', I'd suggest asking Jonathan Fine
20:27
How did one change the pagelayout of a single page again ?
I need smaller margins and a tad less vertical space, for a single page..
21:02
@JosephWright @Joseph @Paulo ... That question on Lua viz LaTeX3 is extremely brought and I'm not sure that anybody answering it would be able to do it justice ... but for a start I don't think even that the question does the subject right as it mistakes expl3 for LaTeX3
@FrankMittelbach Well yes, that would be part of my answer
@FrankMittelbach I already can guess your feeling on this :-)
@JosephWright well I'm seriously debating with myself whether or not to waste time on the discussion as it is not going to bring anybody any further
@FrankMittelbach See my earlier comment 'I have other things to do this evening' :-)
@JosephWright no haven't seen it ... already had other things todo (watching P.D. James from the 80' ) only returned from it now
One of the aims of LaTeX3 is to provide a well defined set of programming tools; once these are available, their internal implementation is something that doesn't bother the programmer. If the "system calls" are implemented in TeX or in Lua is, for the LaTeX programmer completely irrelevant, as long as they work as advertised.
Of course one can always go in the basement and make some low-level trick with the pipes to get something that the LaTeX developers didn't think to and maybe is realizable in Lua. But so doing one loses portability. Maybe in ten years we'll all use LuaTeX and the problem will be solved.
21:15
@egreg At least part of the story, certainly
@egreg that's what I meant when I said he is comparing apples with pears: a) he talks about expl3 not LaTeX3 and LuaTeX is an engine that at best is something replacing pdftex+expl
@FrankMittelbach On the other hand, if we want to wait until LuaTeX is declared stable, we'll not have LaTeX3 in ten years or more.
@egreg even if we all use Lua in 10 years we are no step closer to, say a complex pagelayout algorithm that deals with float placement more intelligently that what is currently available. And that kind of thing is what I'm interested in, the programming layer is only to have a solid base
What about bidirectional printing and support for Eastern alphabets that's been available in LaTeX for several years?
@egreg that is why I want a stable base now and not a moving target that has no implementation base ... that might of course change over time and I'm quite happy that Lua happens, but that doesn't mean I need or want discuption in several places at the same time
21:24
@FrankMittelbach And this links with what I said: the programming layer can be realized in LuaTeX, if one wants to. Probably in a faster and extendable way. But it's another thing.
Of course this has a big drawback: we'll all depend from the Lua team. If they change some important function, well, ...
@egreg full agreement (and for something like regex I wouldn't ever have attempted on top of etex, but Bruno proved me wrong and showed that it is possible), so one day if things stabilize ... fine
@egreg for the same reason the first kernel we build was on TeX not e-TeX and I still believe that the approach sound
@egreg that's the point of not opening several fronts at the same time. It is a different focus, e.g., algorithmic ideas on page makeup or designer interfaces do not depend much (if at all) on the underlying engine. Yes the engine has restrictions an some that I think can't be overcome sensibly with TeX ... but if they are overcome by adding a scripting language into the engine I doubt it
Only if the typesetting algorithms are slowly replaced as well (not augmented)
@FrankMittelbach I fully agree with you too: having a solid base spinned an incredible development of LaTeX packages. How many were they when LaTeX 2.09 was superseded by LaTeX2e? How many are there now? Maybe too much, actually, but that's not the point. :) Having a solid basis allowed to produce solid and useful packages.
@egreg yep ... looks like we are writing up the answer on the chat ;-) ... I'm not answering the post at least not now ... maybe in a day or two
21:43
And now for some completely different. Yesterday I raised on meta.stackoverflow the problem of the pages that continuously spawned a refresh; just to discover that there were already two threads on the same issue. Probably I was able to point to the right direction and this morning the problem had been solved. Great guys around here!
A meta.stackoverflow feature request that would (somewhat) improve tex.sx:
0
Q: Increase the indentation after date specifications in badge pages

lockstepThe indentation after the date specifications in pages like "Nice/Good/Great Question Badge" is somewhat too small, so that date specifications including (previous) years nearly touch or overlap the question names. The effect varies depending on the different SO/SE sites. Here's a (not too bad) e...

@lockstep Upvoted :)
 
1 hour later…
22:56
@egreg: I almost finished porting the printer app to Java 5. Could you test it for me?
@PauloCereda Sure!
@egreg I'll finish then send it to you. :)
@egreg: sent. :)
Well, I'll test it tomorrow (another student test, but it's the last for the session).
Grazie. :)
23:31
1
Q: Basic tkz-graph usage problems, errors, bad output

jtbandesI'm using TeXLive 2011 via MacTeX, and I keep my packages updated. I'm trying to start simple with tkz-graph. When I use the following code, copied directly from the tkz-graph documentation: \begin{tikzpicture} \GraphInit[vstyle=Classic] \Vertices[Lpos=90,unit=2]{circle}{A,B,C,D,E,F} \e...

Any ideas?
@jtbandes I have the same output of Peter's.
@PauloCereda I know, that's what it should be :/
I just tried using the TeX Live Utility's "reinstall package" function and that didn't help either...
@jtbandes As I said in my comment, I suspect an outdated version of PGF in some place.
What does the following Terminal command return?
kpsewhich pgf.sty
Try also kpsewhich tkz-graph.sty
23:49
/usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/tex/latex/pgf/basiclayer/pgf.sty and /usr/local/texlive/2011/../texmf-local/tex/latex/tkz-graph.sty
hm, that could be concerning
investigating...
@jtbandes That's the scoundrel: remove the file tkz-graph.sty you have under texmf-local and run sudo mktexlsr
Oh hurrah!
*Callooh Callay!
J G
J G
Hi, any tikz users?
mktexlsr? I've always done texhash
oh, they're the same thing
@jtbandes Yes, they are.
Better get used to the newer name (it's been around for many years, actually)
23:51
@egreg: Thanks for the help. post an answer and I'll accept it!
@egreg: You should earn the Sherlock Holmes badge. :)
@PauloCereda Elementary, Cereda-Watson. :)
@egreg :D
@jtbandes Answer on line. Wait five minutes before upvoting it, please. :) Usual rep cap problem :)
Too late :( :)

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