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GuM
3:10 AM
Hi everybody! Look at this question:
0
Q: braces/parentheses don't display as expected

desperateman101I have the following code \documentclass{article} \begin{document} \Bigg\{ \big( \big( i,j \big) \big (i+1,j \big) \big) \\ \big(i,j\big)\big(i,j+1\big)\big) \Bigg\} \end{document} after the opening brace the output goes to the next line and I don't understand why especially since this site...

Shouldn’t the lack of \mathord in the definition of \Bigg and siblings being regarded as a bug?
 
@GuM -- what should really be used is \Biggl, etc.
 
GuM
(Indeed, what happens here is that the \hbox command is executed in vertical mode, thereby appending the boxes to the main vertical list. Had the expansion of \Bigg begun with \mathord, a “missing $” error would have ensued.
@barbarabeeton Yes, I know, but I’m saying: the absence of \mathord (a “premature optimization”? :-) yields to an uexpected result, instead of what would be really useful to the user, that is, an error message.
Of course I meant “Shouldn’t the lack of \mathord in the definition of \Bigg and siblings be regarded as a bug?”
 
@GuM -- they're defined without \mathord in plain tex. i haven't got the ability at the moment to check the texbook or the web code to see if there's an explanation of why not. if you really feel it's a bug, the procedure for reporting same is shown on knuth's tex home page at stanford. when reporting, you should make a very careful and thorough , but compact, argument.
 
 
2 hours later…
5:48 AM
-3
Q: i want to change margin in my thesis templates 1.5inch left 1.25 inch right 1 inch up and 1 inch down

DINESH MITTAL%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% %% %% Class ``PhD Thesis PSnPDF'' %% %% ...

Does anyone see a good way to improve the question? Package geometry is working fine with this template. The accepted answer uses old school margin setting.
 
@Johannes_B Well, editing the question will push it on the reopen queue...
 
6:11 AM
@ChristianHupfer Editing to provide a minimal example will yield to: There is no problem. geometry works just fine. -> Unclear/Off-topic. This is rather a candidate for deletion, since it is absolutely not helpful to anybody,
@ChristianHupfer Or mention the weird \ifCustomMargin stuff as explained here: github.com/kks32/phd-thesis-template
The template really acts not-clever with those strange options.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:23 AM
@GuM The definition of \big has outer braces: \def\big#1{{\hbox{$\left#1\vbox to8.5\p@{}\right.\n@space$}}}, so it behaves as an Ord; moreover \bigl can be defined as \mathopen\big. I agree that first defining \@big like above and then doing \def\big{\mathord\@big} and so on would be better for catching errors.
 
 
1 hour later…
yo'
8:38 AM
@egreg @GuM but it would consume an extra cs -- precious at those times!
 
@yo' Yes, that might be the reason. And the simple \big (or friends) should appear only rarely.
@yo' But I'm seeing it quite often. :-(
 
GuM
9:25 AM
@egreg Yes, exactly: it behaves as an Ord in math mode, but having \mathord in front of it would catch an error like that in the cited question. I agree with @yo' that, in the early ‘80s, an extra cs could be deemed too costly, but what about making this change in today’s LaTeX kernel?
 
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}

\big(\big)
\end{document}
@GuM ^^
although adding $x$ before that changes things a bit:-)
 
10:00 AM
@GuM I suspect it's just a feature now, \big shouldn't really be used in documents and it's defined in the format, and in (at least) amsmath, libertinust1math, stix so changing it might be disruptive with little benefit
 
10:18 AM
Quack from the shaky bus
(mobile is terrible)
The best part of being a duck is being a duck
😬
@DavidCarlisle you lost a good opportunity to blame @JosephWright... :)
 
I blame @PauloCereda
 
11:10 AM
@DavidCarlisle Chris is on form
 
@JosephWright :-)
 
@DavidCarlisle I have a game for you:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\seq_new:N\l_dc_blame_seq
\seq_set_split:Nnn\l_dc_blame_seq{,}{@egreg,@paulocereda,@josephwright,@frank,NOT~MY~FAULT}

\NewDocumentCommand\blame {}
{
 \seq_item:Nn \l_dc_blame_seq {\fp_eval:n { randint( 1, \seq_count:N\l_dc_blame_seq ) }}
}

\newcommand\showblame{\fbox{\makebox[3cm]{\strut\blame}}}
\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
\section*{Blame Slot machine}
\showblame\quad\showblame\quad\showblame
\end{document}
3
 
@DavidCarlisle I think the problem is the idea of 'we can pre-filter issues' simply doesn't work: the GitHub model is you triage them as they come in ...
@UlrikeFischer \seq_rand_item:N perhaps?
 
11:26 AM
@JosephWright didn't know that this exists ...
 
@UlrikeFischer l3candidates
 
I saw an answer to a question once which described how to add an "[Online]" tag to a bibliography item for websites using biblatex, but I can't find it now. Anyone know how to find it (or do it) off the top of their head?
 
@UlrikeFischer after a simulation of 1000000 iterations, it suggests that it's never my fault. Seems reasonable to me.
2
 
@DavidCarlisle you are mean (from mobile)
 
@PauloCereda you are a duck
 
11:38 AM
@DavidCarlisle why thank you
I feel good today
@JosephWright Bruno? :)
 
@PauloCereda Yup
 
@JosephWright Bruno: I will implement this feature because of REASONS.
2
@DavidCarlisle I saw a girl in the cafe using emacs
 
@PauloCereda don't they all?
 
@DavidCarlisle I saw one using vim as well...
Not today.
I will talk to her
 
11:53 AM
@PauloCereda it's hard to find really reputable establishments these days, these things happen.
 
@DavidCarlisle it can't be helped, it's an engineering department
 
12:53 PM
@DavidCarlisle Well naturally. It was a game for you.
 
@UlrikeFischer Well, there's the problem, then.
 
@HaraldHanche-Olsen A problem for who?
 
@UlrikeFischer For whom. I mean, the obvious bug in the program pointed out by @DavidCarlisle. Though he seems to think it's a feature.
Nothing that can't be fixed with an update to the lookup table.
 
@HaraldHanche-Olsen I should add "it's a feature".
 
@UlrikeFischer As a simulation of @DavidCarlisle, it is of course perfect.
 
1:03 PM
@HaraldHanche-Olsen @DavidCarlisle is mapping anything to be a feature ;-) \let\bug\feature ... \let\colordesign\feature ;-)
 
@ChristianHupfer Even picture mode!
 
1:29 PM
@ChristianHupfer xsim is very mighty. I'm also a "new user". But for one of my projects I needed such a tcolorbox setup, which was quite easy. And it also supports verbatim inside etc. Regarding the counter thing it's probably just my feeling that it looks awkward.
 
@TeXnician: I can't say about xsim, at the 'moment' I am still working on a package that is applicable for ordinary schools, not for university education exercises etc.
 
@ChristianHupfer I'm pretty sure xsim can do this. But populating CTAN is never a bad idea ;)
 
@TeXnician Yes, if there is space for xii.tex, there's space for YetAnotherSophisticatedQuestionAndAnswerPackage.sty ;-)
 
@ChristianHupfer YasQaAP? Sounds like a reasonable package name ;)
@ChristianHupfer But maybe something not as sophisticated as xsim, but something easy to use would not be bad.
 
@TeXnician Easy to remember, isn't it? :D
@TeXnician ximproved, how about that? :-P Let us say, what @clemens will say about that ;-)
 
1:37 PM
@ChristianHupfer Sounds like either a bad fork of X11 or some official l3 package (although improved is rather boring compared with coffins)...
@ChristianHupfer I'm sure @clemens won't hear us (at least pinging him that way) :)
 
@TeXnician That's why I mentioned @clemens explicitly :-P
 
@ChristianHupfer Btw: Just found out that xsim can do random exercise as well as grading tables. Pretty handy. Are that also YasQaAP features?
 
yippee! another palindrome! (even if the comma is interfering.)
 
@TeXnician Yes. But my focus lies also on reusability on education levels, grouping of exercises to form a class test, randomizing the order how they appear in the test, so student A will get version B, and student C will get version D...
 
1:41 PM
@ChristianHupfer It will probably be fun to compare both packages ;) Except one of you has gutenbergt.
 
@TeXnician No, it's coincidence, I think. I've been working on it and it is unpublished for years now (like @PauloCereda's thesis :-P)) and I have heard of xsim only recently.
 
@ChristianHupfer Sounds like xsim's tagging and randomization abilities. Seems that we will soon have two competing teachers on the exercise market. At least no student will suffer ;)
 
@TeXnician @barbarabeeton which reminds me, it's probably about time for ctan isn't it?
 
@DavidCarlisle For what on CTAN? You xii.tex l3 implementation?
 
@TeXnician it's a secret
 
1:45 PM
@DavidCarlisle Ah, packaged in a coffin?
 
@barbarabeeton Don't worry, only @DavidCarlisle cares about that!
 
@DavidCarlisle -- yes, it's time! and i have a couple of things to post as well. i think the "short math guide" is in good enough shape to set loose. i still have a file of notes, but the basics are now solid.
 
@CarLaTeX No, I know Barbara she cares deeply about punctuation, now it's pointed out to her she can't ignore it (even if she tries to cover herself by blaming me)
@barbarabeeton actually I've got a couple of questions, I'll mail
 
@DavidCarlisle -- oh, conspiring to spoil my monday, are you?
 
@barbarabeeton no these are easy questions:-)
 
1:58 PM
@barbarabeeton Did the new version of "short math guide" end up more or less the same, or did you do a lot of changes?
 
@TeXnician I don't try to compete with other packages. Perhaps my package is suitable only for me and no other one. And it is not finished by far.
 
@mickep -- rather a lot of changes. added references to quite a few new packages and updated bibliography; added a full alphabet showing of a few more scripts (since there are lots of questions here about "what font is this" and the "comprehensive symbol list" has only a few letters of each); added table of contents and full hyperlinking; fixed all reported errors. it's now 21 pages. less short, but easier to use, i think.
 
@barbarabeeton you've got secret mail:-)
 
2:25 PM
@DavidCarlisle OOOH!
@barbarabeeton Cool: hope UK-TUG 'publicity' was useful
 
@DavidCarlisle -- attended to. onward!
@JosephWright -- no comments yet, but one thing i haven't yet added is an index, so it's really not final yet. (index was suggested earlier, but i think it's better to get the file out now rather than wait; index can be added later. "short" has been essentially unavailable for years, and a lot of things have changed in the interim.)
 
2:44 PM
@barbarabeeton That sounds great! I'm looking forward to browse.
 
 
1 hour later…
3:52 PM
@barbarabeeton the deed is done
 
Is there a ready made command in some package like \smash, except it smashes only the height, and not the depth, of its argument? My own implementation below, but why reinvent the wheel?
\def\finhtsm@sh{\ht\z@\z@ \box\z@}
\def\htsmash#1{{\let\finsm@sh\finhtsm@sh \smash{#1}}}
Uh, forget that, it's in amsmath! Duh.
 
4:33 PM
@HaraldHanche-Olsen -- at times, it's useful to read documentation.
 
@barbarabeeton that's a bit far fetched, even for this chat
 
@AlanMunn -- any ideas about How to put quotation marks above and below letters d and p? (they're definitely not quotation marks.)
@DavidCarlisle -- hey, i write some of the stuff, and authors really like to be read!
 
@barbarabeeton don't ask what I do as a day job:-)
 
@barbarabeeton Actually, I have read it, more than once I think. The problem is with remembering what I read.
@DavidCarlisle I think you leaked this information right here not too long ago.
 
@HaraldHanche-Olsen -- well, you did actually remember it before you gave up.
 
4:37 PM
@DavidCarlisle ooh secret email
 
@CarLaTeX you tricked me, I started reading the answer and when I got to the end it wasn't Steven Segletes
 
@barbarabeeton No, I gave up and asked here; then I remembered it.
 
@PauloCereda how would you know about it, if it's secret?
 
@DavidCarlisle -- you said it was secret, just not what was in it.
 
@DavidCarlisle We are really good at keeping secrets on this chat, aren't we?
 
4:38 PM
@DavidCarlisle we ducks are good at keeping secrets
 
@barbarabeeton don't confuse the ducks with details
 
@DavidCarlisle LOL! Is it correct? I did it but I didn't know what I was doing :):):)
 
@barbarabeeton ooh more secrets
 
@CarLaTeX no idea, never actually used the package:-)
 
We have a conundrum
 
4:41 PM
@DavidCarlisle I was referring to the \vrule :)
 
@CarLaTeX probably I'd have used vrule rather than vline (using vline you are relying on the odd feature that \vrule width 1pt width 2pt isn't an error, it just discards the first width.) (but that is what it does so it's not wrong to rely on it:-)
 
5:05 PM
Quack from inside the shaky bus
 
@PauloCereda stupid system git, have to do everything twice:-)
 
@DavidCarlisle :)
 
@DavidCarlisle and @JosephWright wants the team to use it! Preposterous.
And don't make me start about pull requests...
🇬🇧
 
5:21 PM
error in \maketitle question not really answerable but the log has Paragraph ended before \zz was complete I wonder who's to blame? I suspect @UlrikeFischer
 
WHERE'S THE DUCK IN THIS ANDROID KEYBOARD
 
@DavidCarlisle That's not possible. I'm not in the blame list.
 
@UlrikeFischer nor me, so we're both safe.
 
$ alias git blame='echo "Joseph"'
3
 
7 hours ago, by David Carlisle
I blame @PauloCereda
 
5:29 PM
@DavidCarlisle oh no
 
@barbarabeeton I think in everyday language, 'quotation marks' is perfectly reasonable. I have no idea what they really would be called, but as a description, it seems very clear to me. (I assume you were contemplating changing the question title?)
 
6:21 PM
@AlanMunn -- yes, question could be phrased more precisely, but wasn't thinking about that (yet). meanings in unicode chart are: 030D: combining vertical line above (marshallese), 030E: combining double ... (marshallese); 0329: combining vertical line below (ipa: syllabic; yoruba; german dialectology); 0348: combining double ... (ipa: strong articulation). the example shown may or may not be related to linguistics, but that's where the symbols come from.
 
@barbarabeeton It didn't look very linguisticky to me. (e.g. stops can't be syllabic...)
 
@DavidCarlisle Thank you!
 
@AlanMunn -- that's true. but the important thing (missed by a couple of the people who tried to answer) is that the embellishments should be at the same height. also, granted it hasn't been asked about, nobody seems to have noticed that the cancellations can be either forward or backward. it's missing things like that that can bring down one's test scored. and in this racket, one gets used to seeing symbols stolen from other fields.
 
@barbarabeeton I hadn't looked at the answers very closely, but yes, only @CarLaTeX 's answer actually gets the heights right.
 
6:45 PM
Hi people
I'm trying to use \footnote within \text command. It doesn't work in the sense that the footnote doesn't appear on the page.
So, I have something like that \text{bla bla bla \footnote{bla bla bla}}. It doesn't work. Why? How could I fix that?
I'd highly appreciate any answer.
 
@Waiting I think you need to use \footnotemark inside the \text command, then \footnotetext{your footnote text here} outside the math.
 
@HaraldHanche-Olsen The problem is that I also have some math there. Thanks for the idea.
 
2 hours ago, by CarLaTeX
@DavidCarlisle LOL! Is it correct? I did it but I didn't know what I was doing :):):)
 
Book tip of today: "Sacred Mathematics" by Fukagawa and Rothman. It is a beautiful book about old Japanese geometry problems. Nicely typeset, with nice figures. (Also, the problems are very nice.)
 
7:04 PM
@CarLaTeX I looked at that question and thought "This is a job for Steven Segletes", but like @DavidCarlisle I scrolled down and it turned out to be you.
 
@AlanMunn I like stackengine, it's very convenient :):):)
 
@CarLaTeX Yes it seems very versatile.
 
@AlanMunn -- yes, it is versatile -- for the visual appearance of something. but what does it do to the meaning? what if someone who can't see has to figure that out by deciphering the audio rendition?
 
GuM
@DavidCarlisle (Reply to the \big issue) Fair enough. It was very naive of me not to consider the implications on existing code.
 
@barbarabeeton Well there is that. I guess that's why we need even more unicode characters.
 
7:16 PM
@AlanMunn -- more unicode characters might help, but a lot of the time the meaning is hidden in the relative positioning of characters. unicode is never going to introduce full alphabets of second-order scripts, or complicated fractions -- their answer to that is "markup", and they're right.
 
@barbarabeeton Yes, that's true. Essentially we need something like 'alt-text' for composed characters like that.
@barbarabeeton Ross Moore has been working on that issue for a long time I think.
 
GuM
Hello, @barbarabeeton! I’ve noticed that you didn’t reply to my comment about \textup in
2
A: Hyperref and clickable link-boxes produced using \ref, \cite in \xLeftrightarrow

barbara beetoninstead of using \textup, use the combination \text{\upshape ...}. in a comment, you said that your output is dvi, which is then converted to pdf. this example was produced with dvi output, converted to pdf with acrobat, not the ps2pdf route you took. however, i've reproduced the experiment wi...

Would you mind if I write an answer myself explaining what I meant?
 
@AlanMunn -- all true. there's still a problem -- either the author has to (1) be aware of the problems, and (2) care, or the copyeditor has to be as knowledgeable about the subject as the author. probability of either is not promising.
 
@barbarabeeton Yes, this is definitely a problem. Accessibility is rarely on the minds of those unaffected, and copyeditors can only know so much. But if a framework exists for making something accessible, then instructing authors would be possible.
 
@barbarabeeton you got me in to trouble with Petra:-)
 
7:28 PM
@AlanMunn -- a framework would be really good. and writing instructions for authors can surely be done. but how to persuade authors to read (and follow) the instructions?
@DavidCarlisle -- oh, you'll have to explain how i did that. you can do it offline ...
 
@barbarabeeton Well that's a universal problem. But "you don't do, we don't publish" seems pretty plain. :)
 
@AlanMunn -- i like that, but management says we have to be accommodating to authors.
 
 
2 hours later…
9:40 PM
@GuM -- sorry to have ignored that. (i was otherwise occupied at the time, and don't have a tex system available from home.) i've updated the answer to incorporate your suggestion -- after testing to make sure it really works, which it does.
 
@barbarabeeton I have earthshaking news. :)
 
@PauloCereda -- oh? shakier than the shaky bus? (i still haven't answered your email. i'm thinking.)
 
@barbarabeeton Way shakier! It almost makes instant butter!
 
@PauloCereda -- unless you want it to be public, you'd better send it in mail.
 
@barbarabeeton ooh a secret :)
 
9:48 PM
@PauloCereda should we ask @egreg about football? (anyone from Sweden around?)
 
@DavidCarlisle ooh
@barbarabeeton secret mail sent. :)
 
10:03 PM
@DavidCarlisle National tragedy today!
 
@CarLaTeX time to take up cricket (@PauloCereda can give training)
 
@DavidCarlisle People who are out try to make people who are in to be out too so they can be in. This goes on during some iterations and suddenly it stops.
 
this table looks weird doesn't it?
the way that it's right aligned like that
 
@DavidCarlisle We'll talk about cricket for the next 4 years :)
 
@baxx Yes, it would be nicer centred, I think.
 
10:12 PM
@CarLaTeX @PauloCereda might have the rules right by then
 
@AlanMunn yeah... i just wrapped it in begin centering, seems better
 
@PauloCereda Ah, but sometimes someone who's out can be not out.
 
@baxx \begin{center} or \centering not \begin{centering}
 
@AlanMunn ooh that's true
 
what's wrong with \begin{centering} , ?
 
10:13 PM
@baxx \centering is a switch, not an environment. (As @DavidCarlisle has just told you too.)
 
@AlanMunn: see Skype :)
 
it just worked like that though :S
 
@baxx compare \begin{center}hello\end{center} with \begin{centering}hello\end{centering}
 
@baxx If the table is inside a {table} environment it's better just to use \centering.
 
it's a minipage
 
10:14 PM
@baxx you can edit previous comments (for two minutes)
 
@DavidCarlisle Brazil qualified several weeks ago.
 
How is an \itemize list anchored differently to regular text for the purposes of a tikzpicture \node ?
(I am 'filling in' a PDF form and tried a grid of 3x3 nodes to fill in some information to compare to a table (\tabular), but if I use \begin{itemize} the anchor location of the text seems to jump around based on the number of \items)
This is probably definitely a case of 'bertieb doesn't understand the basics', so I thought I would try some different ways of lining up the entries to the underlying PDF pages to see how they all worked out
 
@bertieb can't guess what you mean
@egreg and how about Italy?
 
@DavidCarlisle @bertieb I'm with David. It's not clear what you mean.
 
@DavidCarlisle I can provide images (with freehand circles!) and MWE but it was more of a curiosity
 
10:28 PM
@DavidCarlisle Your message should be flagged as offensive. :-P
 
@bertieb most likely you are just seeing vertical centering (which is the default minipage alignment and a fixed width tikz node is a minipage, more or less) but a tikz node doesn't "know" what is in its content and the itemize doesn't "know" it is in a tkiz node, so hard to understand your question.
 
@DavidCarlisle That makes sense (to my limited understanding); I just wondered why it changed the visible alignment; 2 ticks
(only difference is use of itemize)
 
@bertieb I can't guess your input, but it looks like the first line of your itemize is vertically centred in the first image
 
I have output I am happy with as above (via doublespace, but there are other ways to do it no doubt); but I thought asking might improve my understanding of what's going on so I'm not 'cargo cult debugging' so much :)
 
@bertieb what are you using to make the outer table?
 
10:37 PM
@DavidCarlisle Fair enough! (is there a way to draw a box around nodes (etc) for the purposes of visualising placement of these things?)
@DavidCarlisle The 9 bits of text in the 3x3 grid are just plain nodes in this case (the table looking stuff is a 'background' page from the PDF)
 
@bertieb probably:-) (I know nothing about tikz, don't be fooled by the gold badge:-)
 
> The German city of Munich, which received much popularity back in the day when it first ditched Microsoft's services in favor of open-source software, has now agreed to stop using Linux and switch back to Windows. If the decision is ratified by the full council in two weeks, Windows 10 will start rolling out across the city in 2020.
@DavidCarlisle ^^
 
@bertieb as I say if you take a minipage or parbox with its default vertical alignment of center, and place it on the same vertical coordinater as a line of text then the first image is what you expect, you want to top align that node
 
Oh, hey... that's a lotta gold badges!
 
@bertieb not as many as @egreg, but mine are more deserved!
@PauloCereda that's probably so they can run emacs in the ubuntu subsyetm
 
10:42 PM
@DavidCarlisle That's a whole ton of combined experience
 
@DavidCarlisle Still haven't got the tabularx badge I see. :)
 
@DavidCarlisle I think (in my case) figuring out how to top-align that would take longer than I have budgeted for this exercise :D
 
@bertieb probably adding something like valign=t to whatever node has the itemize
 
@DavidCarlisle Probably, but it's escaping for the moment! (and really not critical)
A time-sensitive ish assignment based on a 12-page paper form probably wasn't the best choice of environment for experimentation ;-)
 
11:20 PM
@DavidCarlisle All animals are equal, but…
 
@egreg ... Swedish Animals play better football
 
yo'
11:53 PM
Oh no! @PauloCereda vv
 

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