TeX, LaTeX and Friends

8:04 AM

"One of the world's foremost mathematicians, Prof Sir Michael Atiyah, has died at the age of 89," reports the BBC. "He has been described to me by more than one professor of mathematics as the best mathematician in this country since Sir Isaac Newton," his brother tells the BBC. Slashdot reader OneHundredAndTen shared their report: Sir Michael was best known for his co-development of a branch of mathematics called topological K-theory and the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. His research also involved deep insights relating to mathematical concepts known as "vector bundles". His work in these a…

@PauloCereda RIP, but if he actually proved the Riemann hypothesis, did the proof die with him?

@CarLaTeX I don't know. One for the resident mathematicians...

@PauloCereda Let's see if someone knows it

8:22 AM

> In American usage, 84,672 is said EIGHTY FOUR THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY TWO. Count the letters in each of those words, multiply the counts, and you get 6 × 4 × 8 × 3 × 7 × 7 × 3 = 84,672.

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Yesterday I had chocolate.

But today there's no chocolate available. THE HORROR.

8:45 AM

ooh people are sleeping

9:14 AM

@PauloCereda It's Sunday morning, when do you sleep else?

@CarLaTeX hm?

@PauloCereda You have to go to work the other days

@CarLaTeX But it's Sunday!

We need to wake up early in the morning

@PauloCereda The day people can sleep!

@CarLaTeX bah you sleep every day!

9:21 AM

@CarLaTeX I was awake, but not at my PC.

ooh rabbits wake up early

@PauloCereda Sleeping is good for health

@PauloCereda well, not really early. Woke up between 8am and 9am. (was awake earlier but fall asleep again)

@Skillmon Indeed, there are better things to do on Sundays :)

@Skillmon ah timezones. :)

9:24 AM

@CarLaTeX just went to church, only to see that it's closed today and there is a service with another one at theirs, but they don't have a children's room, so we went back home.

I woke up a bit late today, 5:40AM. :)

@Skillmon oh

@PauloCereda you get up really early. When do you go to bed usually?

@Skillmon around 10, 11PM at most.

@Skillmon I'm going to the church in an hour's time :)

Sometimes way earlier.

I have mass in two hours. :)

9:26 AM

@PauloCereda until then you're weightless? :)

2

@Skillmon LOL

@Skillmon the best joke of the month, lol

@CarLaTeX don't think it was that good..

@Skillmon I like it :)

9:45 AM

@PauloCereda my mathematical grandfather actually (I'm not listed but my supervisor is on here so I should be a leaf:-) maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/atiyahd.pdf

@DavidCarlisle awesome! :)

@PauloCereda awesome that I am pruned from the tree?

@DavidCarlisle that you are linked to the math bloke. :)

@PauloCereda I don't really know him, he came up to Manchester and gave a couple of lectures while I was a postgrad student but that was a long tine ago:-)

@DavidCarlisle ooh so you actually finished your thesis? :)

9:53 AM

@DavidCarlisle so we should call you Dr David?

@Skillmon no one except the AA calls me Dr

@DavidCarlisle what's AA?

@PauloCereda theaa.com

@DavidCarlisle oh my

@PauloCereda your car won't start so you give them a ring but for me instead of the usual "we are busy it will be an hour before we get there" I usually get "is it a medical emergency" i have never yet dared say "yes" to jump the queue

9:57 AM

@DavidCarlisle oh

@DavidCarlisle The day I defended, an old lady approached my mum and said, I am sure he will be a good physician. I think they believe I was the other type of doctor...

@Skillmon: Many of the chat inhabitants (they seem to live in here) have a PhD, I think.

@ChristianHupfer I was going to mention something along those lines in an answer to a question in meta: TeX.sx has a high number of researchers and people with academic titles.

@PauloCereda And Ex - researchers ;-)

@ChristianHupfer Indeed. :) They are ex-parrots? :)

@PauloCereda which translates as "no one bothers to learn tex unless they have a thesis to write"

10:08 AM

@DavidCarlisle to some extent, yes. :)

@ChristianHupfer I don't, I don't even have my M.Sc. yet.

@CarLaTeX Unfortunately, the consensus of all the people I know who had a look or heard him talk about it say no, not even close.

@PauloCereda Well, but they are not "no more" and have not gone yet to see its maker ;-)

The vast majority of people from my academic circles that use TeX do not know anything about it except they want to use it to write theses and dissertations.

@ChristianHupfer ooh pining for the fjords

@DavidCarlisle I used TeX before I wrote my first thesis.

10:10 AM

@Skillmon I finished my thesis before I used tex, so the average of the two means my statement is still true.

@Skillmon Well, I wish you good look on your long journey ~~to cast the ring into Mount Doom~~ to M.SC and PhD. perhaps... ;-)

@Skillmon And I read a good portion of the TeXbook before I even had access to a tex implementation.

@PauloCereda No, pining for an Extra-University life ;-)

@ChristianHupfer ooh

@ChristianHupfer just fly with the eagles, you fools!

10:12 AM

@Skillmon You shall not pass ;-)

@Skillmon: After Diplom, Doktorarbeit and 2. Staatsexamen I have enough of obtaining any further degree

@ChristianHupfer You're a teacher? Or why the 2. Staatsexamen?

@Skillmon Yes, I left science after PhD and a short intermediate position as a programmer for telescope camera software at my former institute in order to enter the Referendariat and became teacher after two years, for Physics, Mathematics and ... and now I am teaching Bioinformatik as well

@ChristianHupfer where can one teach Bioinformatik? Berufsschule?

(removed)

@PauloCereda fake news (you have a few seconds left to make it real:-)

10:19 AM

@Skillmon Bioterroristisches Gymnasium (BTG) in Baden-Württemberg ... Well, biotechnologisches Gymnasium is the correct name ;-)

@DavidCarlisle Indeed. (I had missed the fact that an answer was in fact modified two hours ago, so my question was fake news, too.)

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@PauloCereda Well, the stackexchange engine makes it clear what is fake and what is not, the real news being light gray. Good to know.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen ooh

ooh

Two hours later...

@PauloCereda but you left it too long to fix the one above

10:22 AM

@DavidCarlisle indeed

The last message was posted 1 hour ago.

@PauloCereda the fact that I can reply means that you sir are a fake.

@DavidCarlisle oh no

/quacks in despair

@PauloCereda "the truth hurts" so the saying goes

@DavidCarlisle you are mean

Jun 29 '17 at 16:15, by Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle you are not mean :)

10:24 AM

@DavidCarlisle oh

Nov 23 '17 at 20:02, by CarLaTeX

Oct 29 at 9:26, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen huum

AlexG

10:54 AM

@AndréC dvisvgm is not defined in standalone. Any option you pass to the document class is treated as a global option. Global options are forwarded to all packages loaded by the document. If a particular package happens to define such an option, it takes this option as "enabled" and will act accordingly.

AndréC

@AlexG Thank you very much. This is an answer that would deserve to be included on the main site (in my humble opinion). I feel less and less stupid. :-)

daleif

11:14 AM

This just showed up on my Twitter, Knuths lectures playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL94E35692EB9D36F3, including introduction to tex. Not if others have shared it already

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11:53 AM

@HaraldHanche-Olsen So we have to wait more

12:43 PM

@CarLaTeX @HaraldHanche-Olsen I have a very cool proof but the margins are too narrow, and there's a package conflict with geometry. :)

@PauloCereda :)

Happy Rubber Duckie Day!

3

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/rubber-duckie-day/

@samcarter OMG

@samcarter Why Ride of the Valkyries started playing inside my head?!?!

12:57 PM

@PauloCereda :) no idea what might have caused your sudden flash of Valkyries :)

@samcarter I posted on Twitter. :)

@PauloCereda Oh, cool! (twitter seem the correct place to celebrate a duck related holiday)

1:16 PM

@samcarter hey, hey, Wickie, hey Wickie hey.... NANANA

@DavidCarlisle has more votes for his creepy non-shadow than I have :(

@Skillmon as it should be

1:49 PM

@samcarter Happy Rubber Duckie Day to you, too, and to all the other duck fans in chat!

barbara beeton

2:33 PM

@DavidCarlisle -- but i don't have a ph.d., never planned on getting one, and wrote a master's thesis long before there was anything but a typewriter. (fortunately, photocopying had been invented so i didn't have to use carbon paper.) my employer (soon to be ex-employer) sent me off to learn tex. i guess i'm an outlier.

@barbarabeeton I don't have a Ph.D., too! And I'm still writing my master thesis, you know :)

barbara beeton

@CarLaTeX -- well, keep writing! you'll be very happy when you get handed that piece of paper.

@barbarabeeton Of course :):):)

2:49 PM

@barbarabeeton but did you ever get round to learning TeX? (sorry, I had to ask:-)

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Jun 29 '17 at 16:15, by Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle you are not mean :)

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- i think i did. anyhow, well enough to answer questions from authors who are trying to use it.

@barbarabeeton ooh

@barbarabeeton :-)

4:28 PM

4

@samcarter ^^ the silhouettes of graduate nights and ducks match very well ... ;-)

@samcarter @JouleV I wanted to say "graduate knights"

Stefan Kottwitz

4:47 PM

@marmot messages can be edited

JouleV

@marmot Maybe Nils Fleischhacker is a duck too, and he wants the "avatar" of his package to be a hidden duck ;-)

@StefanKottwitz Thanks! (I thought this is only possible for a short while.)

@JouleV Yes, this might be it. (However, I did not know the name of the author. Now I am slightly concerned that the animation may go in the wrong direction, "Fleischhacker" means "meat chopper" ...)

6:08 PM

@marmot, but when er are writing: In the meantime I know a lot of your great answers. If you are willing to help improve TikZ and/or PGFPlots, we would appreciate this. What do you think?

@StefanPinnow Sure, if I can do something I will be happy to help.

@StefanPinnow I removed all comments under Jake's fix, hoping you can mention that this has been fixed for good.

@marmot, that would be awesome. Do you want to go through the bug lists yourself or shall I make some proposals?

@StefanPinnow There are at least 38 posts linked to Jake's answer I am responsible for several of these links and am really happy to no longer have to add some \makeatletter stuff.

@StefanPinnow If you share the link with me I will be happy to go through it. (I am not very experienced with these repositories, just to warn you, but I guess I can learn.)

@marmot, can I find your email address somewhere for further communication on this topic?

@StefanPinnow No, it is not public. However, if you send tell me yours, I'll send you mine. Or we could ask @CarLaTeX or @samcarter or @UlrikeFischer to share them, if any of them has yours.

6:15 PM

@marmot, Ulrike has ;)

@UlrikeFischer Könntest Du bitte eine Email an @StefanPinnow und mich schicken damit wir unsere Emails austauschen können?

@marmot done.

@UlrikeFischer, danke schön!!

@UlrikeFischer Danke!

5

6:22 PM

@StefanPinnow One of the things that I wish most to be added to the TikZ libraries the 3-point perspective coordinate system of this great answer. So perhaps you could ask Max if he is willing to contribute such a library, or to make his great routines part of the 3d library.

Faheem Mitha

6:34 PM

@marmot Is that answer using the new animation library in TikZ?

@FaheemMitha No. The answer is much older. (And I am not even sure if the new animation features help to produce the animated gifs that are added to many answers. I guess they could, but I am not sure if they drastically simplify things.)

Faheem Mitha

@marmot Thank you for the clarification.

Yes, I see the answer is dated August 2018.

@UlrikeFischer I guess you need a polar Bär. ;-)

4

@marmot ^^^^ he is with us too.

@UlrikeFischer He must be very happy now. (I'll stay away because of my penguin pullover.)

7:06 PM

@CarLaTeX There is only one problem with the Rubber Duckie Day: now the TikZlings want their own holiday :)

@marmot This visualisation totally convinced my, there must be a secret connection between the tikzpeople and the tikzducks!

@UlrikeFischer How did you convince the Bär to leave is Santa Clause hat behind? Are you distracting him with this getaway?

@samcarter Yes. it just means every knight with a PhD is secretly a duck. Some exceptions may exist.

@UlrikeFischer ooh das Polarbär

@marmot ooh coordinates

@samcarter Every occasion is good to have a party!

@PauloCereda Yes. (If you are referring to the question about the default units, I really do not understand what's going on there. Seems like several users feel that a radius is not a length. I do not share this feeling.)

Faheem Mitha

7:30 PM

If I'm looking for better solutions with an already existing approach, would it be reasonable to ask a question about it?

Some years ago I was trying to do automated labelling , and the approach suggested works. But I was wondering if some existing machinery like something related to bibtex would work.

Rather than a from-scratch implementation.

I guess this is a bit vague without context.

8:08 PM

@samcarter Gert took it away by brute force.

9:09 PM

@JosephWright: quack

9:33 PM

@HenriMenke thanks for the edit:-)

@PauloCereda der Eisbär …

@HaraldHanche-Olsen ooh

10:43 PM

Hello guys!!

Joseph Wright

@manooooh Hi

A: Lengths and when to use them

I was learning about this excellent question:

332

The first thing is to know that there are spacing parameters and spacing commands; \parskip and \parindent belong to the former category, \enskip, \quad and \smallskip to the latter. A complete list of the spacing parameters would be quite long, so let's concentrate on spacing commands. Vertica...

@manooooh I wonder who wrote that answer. ;-)

But I have one: What is the exact space that a paragraph of a single line uses? That is, instead of doing this:

p1

reproduce this space

p3

do this:

p1

some command

p3

I use \documentclass{article} so I think the font is 10pt

but if I do:

p1
\vspace{10pt}

p3

it is NOT the same vspace as the first example :(

@manooooh \vspace{\baselineskip}

10:49 PM

@egreg YES! Thank you!!

@manooooh The normal distance between consecutive lines is \baselineskip; when 10pt is in force, the default value is 12pt.

@egreg why \vspace{10pt} is not working? Because there is a spacing before and after each paragraph?

@manooooh Because it's not the right length.

@egreg why not? 10pt is the length of my document font

@manooooh TeX works hard to keep baselines at a constant distance from each other. 10pt is a loose measure of the font size; but the baseline skip is 12pt, in that case.

10:53 PM

@egreg oh, does vspace follow rule <natural width> plus <stretching> minus <shrinking>?

@manooooh I'm not sure to understand. It does, of course, if you add a plus or `minus component.

@egreg what about if the document font is 11pt? It should be \vspace{13pt}?

@manooooh No, it's 13.6pt. The class decides it.

@egreg forget that, I did not remember that we give a particular value e.g. 10pt, so all the calculations are done

@egreg ok, thank you. I supposed... the larger the letter the more spaced there will be and therefore the relationship will not be linear

Anyway \vspace{\baselineskip} works perfect :)

@manooooh Yes. For instance, 12pt sets it at 14.5pt.

10:59 PM

@egreg what if the size is now 13pt? Is a pattern followed (linearity) or is there a formula that given the size we can know the value?

@manooooh it is set to a value in the document class (or document) for cm fonts it's usually roughly 1.2 times the design size, but if you go \fontsize{12pt}{3cm}\selectfont then baselineskip is 3cm with a 12pt font, if that's what you need.

A: Is \baselineskip automatically defined?

@DavidCarlisle thanks!! 1.2 is not a good aproximation. In another words, I will be happy to know how \baselineskip works

27

\baselineskip is a tex primitive, so it is always defined to be something (well unless someone goes \let\baselineskip\@undefined but even then the underlying register still has a value even if it is not accessible. It is set in various places in LaTeX, most notably all font size commands end up ...

Lol

@manooooh oh an excellent answer you found:-)

@DavidCarlisle :):)

There is another good answer below yours :)

@manooooh untrustworthy source

11:08 PM

@DavidCarlisle :P

The baseline skip is defined on a font size base; the standard classes have
tiny: 5/6
scriptsize: 7/8
footnotesize: 8/9.5
small: 9/11
normalsize: 10/12
large: 12/14
Large: 14.4/18
LARGE: 17.28/22
huge: 20.74/25
Huge: 24.88/30

The first number is the font size, the second the relative baselineskip

@manooooh Anyway, \baselineskip always refers to the correct length for the current font size

@egreg the maximum font size admitted by article is 12pt, why are there larger sizes? P.S. I already know that you can modify the code to accept larger values

@manooooh You can say \Large to get a larger font for a part of the document.

@egreg yes yes

@manooooh no article has three class options 10pt 11pt and 12pt but they are just names of options not directly related to font size

11:15 PM

@egreg oh really? That is awesome!! Now I am in Overleaf but when using \documentclass[\Large]{article} it produces Undefined control sequence.

@manooooh 10pt and 12pt options do set \normalsize to 10pt and 12pt respectively (but they set a lot of other lengths as well) 11pt option sets \normalsize to 10.95pt

@manooooh you can't use a font size command as a document class option

@manooooh You can use \Large in the document (which is what \section does, for instance)

:48484170 as he just said, you can use hello {\Large don't do this}

@egreg ohh right!

:48484170 You can get a larger base fontsize with extarticle, but that's good for children's books or visually impaired people.

11:19 PM

@egreg I never hear about that document class, wow! Yes yes, I was not going to exceed the size predetermined by article, I just wanted to know if there was a formula that determines the value of \baselineskip

@manooooh Once a user asked how to get their thesis typeset with 14pt font size, 20 lines per page, wide margins and one sided. I asked back if their institution evaluates theses by weight.

3

@manooooh No, there's no formula: it depends on the publisher's tastes, on the used font and other aspects. For instance, a very wide line length asks for slightly larger baseline skip. The standard classes apply a default, but it's up to the user fine tuning it.

@egreg haha, good question! Actually the conventions are conventions, and if the boy liked to use that source considering all the problems that he supposed it must be understood

@egreg yes

Thanks to both of you, I always learn something new with you!

@manooooh as you can see by @egreg's table above the predefined font sizes are in magstep values (multiples of sqrt(1.2) from base sizes of 5,7,10) and the matching baselineskips are roughly 1.2 times that rounded to whole number of pts except 9.5, but there is no logic or formula to it, just whatever Leslie thought looked good at the time.

@DavidCarlisle Leslie did not care about mathematics, and that made him great

@manooooh he's probably be offended by that comment:-)