TeX, LaTeX and Friends

manooooh

00:41

Ohh I have an (impossible?) idea, @marmot! Is it possible to make a checkbox button, where if we select it we can enable/disable the arrows between subjects? I mean embed a whole list of checkbox'es in a corner of a PDF page; if we select the checkbox'es 1 and 3 then the arrows that starts in subjects 1 and 3 are visible, if we deselect both of them then we make the arrows invisible

marmot

03:05

@manooooh You need to ask @AlexG.

marmot

04:07

@LoopSpace Do I have to do something special to extract the file. So far downloading and unzipping the archive and running (pdf)latex tikzmark.dtx worked but this does not seem to work any more in this case. (It complains ! LaTeX Error: File tikzrefextnodes' not found. `

manooooh

04:59

@marmot ok, I did not know about Alex's skills, thanks!

@AlexG as you might have seen, I will paste the comment: Is it possible to make a checkbox button, where if we select it we can enable/disable the arrows between subjects? I mean embed a whole list of checkbox'es in a corner of a PDF page; if we select the checkbox'es 1 and 3 then the arrows that starts in subjects 1 and 3 are visible, if we deselect both of them then we make the arrows invisible. The MWE you can use marmot's answer. Many thanks!

I want to know if it is possible or not, if it is possible I will ask to the site

samcarter

06:38

@marmot see tex.stackexchange.com/questions/6925/…

Loop Space

@marmot Try just tex tikzmark.dtx. I'll investigate the issue with tikzrefextnodes tonight.

samcarter

06:57

@marmot Please ignore my comment above - it was nonsense.

AlexG

07:58

@manooooh Yes, that is possible, by means of PDF Layers (pkg ocgx2). This could be a starting point: tex.stackexchange.com/a/306977 Or ask a new question.

AlexG

10:58

@manooooh

\documentclass[12pt,margin=3pt]{standalone}

\usepackage[tikz]{ocgx2}  % PDF Layers
\usepackage{amssymb} % \checkmark
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% check box command for layer switching
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\newcommand\layerCheckBox[3]{%
  % #1: layer name (as shown in Layers tab), #2: layer id,
  % #3: initial visibility
  \resizebox{2ex}{!}{\ooalign{%
    \switchocg{#2}{$\square$}\cr%
    \begin{ocg}{#1}{#2}{#3}$\checkmark$\end{ocg}%

daleif

11:16

Anyone know if Marco Daniel is still active? This probably needs to be updated (or my PC is terrible at math)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lengthconvert}
\begin{document}
\Convert{10pt}

\Convert{36pt}

\end{document}

284.52756 cm
1024.29921 cm

egreg

11:48

2

Q: Converting lengths with lengthconvert and l3fp

The package lengthconvert "uses the modul l3fp to convert the length". But its conversions are totally off the charts: \documentclass{article} \usepackage{lengthconvert} \begin{document} \the\textheight \Convert[unit = mm]{\textheight} \Convert[unit = cm]{\textheight} \end{document} Is thi...

Paulo Cereda

12:53

@daleif I can try poking him, it's been a whie.

daleif

@PauloCereda @egreg I already sent him an email. But if it has been known since 2015, he might not be available anymore.

Ulrike Fischer

13:14

@PauloCereda just hearing a talk which will also say something about arara.

Anush

14:18

hi

I am using tikz-cd for the first time. It all works fine except I would now like to draw some horizontal and vertical lines on the picture. Syntactically I don't know how to do that. Here is my non working example bpaste.net/show/5dd983b942b3

what's the right way to do the foreach...\draw parts?

Paulo Cereda

14:30

@UlrikeFischer ooh who gave the talk?

Uwe?

@daleif He's not too active anymore, but he's around, I guess.

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda dante.de/events/dante2019/Programm/vortraege.html#partosch (He liked arara ...)

2

@PauloCereda ^^^ the next talk had ducks, @samcarter

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh

Anush

sorry for my tikz-cd ignorance

it does all work if I used tikz-picture but I was trying to use tikz-cd as it looked more elegant

David Carlisle

@Anush it's best to ask questions on the question and answer site then people familiar with tikz-cd far more likley to see it

Anush

14:46

@DavidCarlisle understood. The only reason I didn't is because I feel the answer is "look at page 23 you idiot"

or something similar

it's really just a syntax question I think. That is how do I separate the matrix part from the line drawing part as you would when using tikzpicture

David Carlisle

@Anush yes but if you give @egreg the chance to say that and you accept the answer then he gets the 15points and is happy :-) (I have not used the package so can't really help:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Anush

@DavidCarlisle :-D

Anush

15:06

@DavidCarlisle gave in and posted it...

samcarter

15:20

@UlrikeFischer Oh, ducks :) How did the audience like your IFT poster?

JouleV

@samcarter Just out of curiousity: why don't tikzlings or tikzducks require semicolons after commands?

samcarter

@JouleV The semincolons are already added in the definition of the \duck and \tikzlings macros.

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter I think they like it. I made it just public: (I hope the link works) gitlab.com/UlrikeFischer/dante19-poster/blob/master/…

3

Alan Munn

3

It's that time of the year again.

JouleV

15:48

@samcarter So how could I compile the ducky pi in this question? Or the semicolons are added in the dev version?

samcarter

@JouleV The duck pi compiles without problems for me. Which problem do you face? (the semincolons are unnecessary since the very first version of the package)

JouleV

16:09

@samcarter Oh, I don't have any problem - all files are still compiling fine of course ;) I am just so familiar with the semicolons that I add semicolons even when I use tikzlings or tikzducks :)

Paulo Cereda

16:38

@AlanMunn ooh

Sigur

17:23

hello friends.

I always said to my students to use \det for determinants. But now I discovered that if I use it inside a norm, the space before it is not the same. For example, compare \[ |\det(A)| \] \[ |\mathrm{det}(A)| \] \[ |\operatorname{det}(A)| \]

Any advice?

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Sigur Have you tried \[\lvert\det(A)\rvert\]

marmot

@JouleV Macros do never require semicolons. Only the TikZ \path construction and its relatives do. But excess ; are harmless since they get gobbled in the tikzpicture environment.

Sigur

@HaraldHanche-Olsen, it works like \mathrm

So, \lvert removes the space in front of the operator!

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Sigur Here's the thing: A plain | produces an ordinary (mathord) atom. \lvert uses the same glyph, but as a left delimiter. And \det produces an operator. TeX's spacing rules do the rest. For actual norms (double lines), use \lVert and \rVert.

@Sigur The spacing rules are summarised nicely in Eijhout's TeX by Topic, section 23.6.1 (chapter on Mathematical Typesetting).

David Carlisle

@Sigur | is a mathord so never really gives the right spacing for norms, except by accident, better to always use \lvert and \rvert which are teh same character but \mathopen and \mathclose

Sigur

17:39

@HaraldHanche-Olsen, @DavidCarlisle, many thanks for explanation. I'm going to find /replace |

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@DavidCarlisle The problem is that this accident appears frequently enough that people often don't notice until bitten by something like the above example.

Alan Munn

@Sigur Let's hope you have no tables with vertical lines... :)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Sigur Use the mathtools package, \DecalrePairedDelimiters{\abs}{\lvert}{\rvert} and write \abs{\det(A)}.

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn ask him about ABNT :)

Sigur

@AlanMunn, lol, yes... but I'm going to find for |\det and replace one by one....

@PauloCereda, nooooooo

don't ask me, please.

Alan Munn

17:42

@Sigur It's ok, I know enough about ABNT not to ask. :)

egreg

18:13

@Sigur By the way, |\det A| has an unwanted space between | and d. It should be \lvert\det A\rvert anyway.

Faheem Mitha

I'm looking for a simple way to write \includefile{1}, \includefile{2}...\includefile{n}, for some n. I'm sure there are similar examples on the site, so just looking for pointers.

pgffor is one possible way to go, I suppose.

Paulo Cereda

38

Q: Repeat command n times?

Is it possible to define a command, which repeats the following command n-times? Call it for example \Repeat, then \Repeat[4] \command{...} should be equivalent to \command{...} \command{...} \command{...} \command{...}

macros programming

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda Thank you.

I think I'll probably go with pgffor.

Faheem Mitha

18:36

I'm trying:

\foreach \n in {1,...,10}
{\includefile[\n]}

but am getting an error, which I could post if nobody cares. I suppose I should go and read the manual now.

CarLaTeX

Overleaf now has over 4 million users worldwide! Here's a thank you note from our team, and a little look ahead at what's to come :) https://www.overleaf.com/blog/wow-four-million-people-now-use-overleaf

Tweeted by overleaf on March 27, 2019 at 1:04 PM

yo'

@FaheemMitha aren't you mismathing [] and {}?

Faheem Mitha

@yo' So I am. One sec.

CarLaTeX

It means there are at least 4.000.002 LaTeX users! ^^^

yo'

@CarLaTeX lol

Faheem Mitha

18:39

@yo' Thanks, that fixed it. Though I realised that this won't work if I need to introduce blank pages. Hmm.

Sigur

@egreg, thanks for attention. I already fixed based on earlier comments. Greetings

CarLaTeX

@yo' According to the article, at least 4,047,649 LaTeX users :)

Sigur

@marmot, how to obtain the projection of a coordinate in tikz? I mean, for \coordinate (P8) at (20,10); how to get the point (20,0)?

yo'

@Sigur Something like ($(P8)|-(0,0)$), check the calc tikzlibrary

Sigur

@marmot, oh, yes, thanks. I forget the calc. Thanks.

@marmot, so to connect them: \draw (P\p) -- ($(P\p) |- (0,0)$); (here \p is the counter)

does not work

marmot

18:50

@Sigur Just (P8|-0,0) without any library.

\draw (P\p) -- (P\p |-0,0);

Sigur

@marmot, the second solution worked. Thanks again

marmot

@Sigur I assume of course \p is not a true counter but some macro in a \foreach loop. If it is a counter, do \draw (P\number\value{p}) -- (P\number\value{p} |-0,0);

Sigur

@mar, yes, you are right, it is in foreach

marmot

@Sigur Generally I recommend avoiding to use \x, \y, \n` and \p for such things if you consider using calc, too, because there these things have their separate meaning. (This is why I usually call the loop variables \X, \Y and so on.)

Sigur

@marmot, oh, I agree.

@marmot, sorry asking too much, but I want to draw ticks around those points

\draw (P\p |- 0,0)--(P\p |- 0,0); so I need to shif them up 3mm and down 3mm

I tried to use [yshift=3mm] but not work

marmot

19:00

@Sigur \draw (P\p |- 0,-0.2)--(P\p |- 0,0.2);

Sigur

@marmot, lol

what an elegant solution..... !!!!!

very nice

@marmot, there is a gap with two ticks

@marmot, sorry, wait

I'm confused.

@marmot, it worked. Thanks a lot.

Faheem Mitha

19:16

Does anyone know how to create a PDF file from inside a TeX file, with a view to using it later in that TeX file? TeX == LaTeX for me, at least.

A quick search demonstrates that it's hard to distinguish between what I'm asking and the standard pdflatex generation of PDFs.

yo'

@FaheemMitha well, you can do \immediate\write18{pdflatex otherfile.tex} from within LaTeX at any time, and then later do \inludegraphics{otherfile.pdf} and it should work. Actually, TikZ-externalize does exactly this, for instance.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha you would need to use --shell-escape and then basically \immediate\write18{pdflatex something}

@yo' oh you were quicker:-)

yo'

@DavidCarlisle of course :-)

Faheem Mitha

@yo', @DavidCarlisle So, no other option, then?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha what other options would you hope for?

Faheem Mitha

19:20

@DavidCarlisle Dunno.

yo'

@FaheemMitha what other option would you like? Well, there's shellesc.sty if you wished, but that's just a wrapper around \write18

David Carlisle

well no is the answer anyway

Skillmon

Does someone know whether there is a policy who can publish a package containing pgf in its name and whether there are any license fidelities?

Faheem Mitha

@yo' ok

David Carlisle

@yo' brilliantly written wrapper though

yo'

19:21

@DavidCarlisle bugless, that's for sure.

David Carlisle

@yo' not originally:-)

2

@Skillmon I don't think that there is (or can be) any policy

yo'

anyway. it's 8:20 pm, I'm still at work and I need to do some shopping on my way home. Time to say goodbye!

Skillmon

@yo' good bye!

David Carlisle

@yo' duck for tea?

yo'

@DavidCarlisle ?

David Carlisle

19:23

@yo' your shopping: I thought you might be buying something for an evening meal

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle perhaps policy is the wrong term. Let's just say I don't want to step on someones toes.

yo'

@DavidCarlisle I had dinner here near-by

Faheem Mitha

So shellesc is a portability wrapper?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha yes mostly as luatex doesn't support \write18

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Ok.

yo'

19:24

but I need to get something for breakfast, especially milk (which I constantly run out of)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha but also \ShellEscape{ls *.tex} is just more sensible markup than \immediate\write18{ls *.tex}

@Skillmon you mean we could have called l3draw something with pgf in like not-pgf-and-definititely-not-tikz.sty

Skillmon

@JouleV the rabbits of the LaTeX world are close to uproar because of this denial of their contributions. We wrote some packages for our friends the ducks, ducksay and duckuments (to lure them to come over for dinner), also we wrote grabbox and clrstrip

@DavidCarlisle yes, but no :)

Paulo Cereda

19:38

@Skillmon: Hi mr. rabbit!

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Is that a recommendation, then?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Or use arara to compile the intermediate file from within the compilation of the main file. :)

Skillmon

@PauloCereda Hi, my tasty friend!

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon oh no

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda what's arara? is it like emacs lisp?

Paulo Cereda

19:48

@DavidCarlisle ooh I can give a talk about it in our meeting. :)

Skillmon

I just told my wife that I want to publish a package and that I don't know how to call it. She said, I should call it "aenni-ist-schoen", but I think this name might be misleading, as it only is my code of an improved pgfmoduleparser.code.tex...

Ulrike Fischer

21:03

4

@PauloCereda @marmot: sent from home^^^

marmot

@UlrikeFischer Did anyone complain that you used a marmot to produce an overfull hbox?

Ulrike Fischer

@marmot someone commented, but I explained that it was a design decision as the talk was about "wachstum" ... Regarding "wachstum", here the proof that the marmot is well cared of:

3

marmot

@UlrikeFischer So she did not ask for Zartbitter? I am surprised.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer best bit of the poster obscured:(

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle oh you are right, I will complain asap.

2

@DavidCarlisle ^^^^

David Carlisle

21:16

@UlrikeFischer better:-)

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I saw you got modern and used \lastnodetype ;-)

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer impressive isn't it:-)

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle Very much -- I even didn't know that the command exists.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer well it is a new addition, it takes time for these things to get widely known.

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I was a bit in a hurry when I made the title page for the presentation and this was the result:

David Carlisle

21:26

just in time for the LaTeX3 release

6

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle ;-)

manooooh

21:44

@AlexG YOU ARE GOD, thank you!!

@AlexG what is the meaning of "Layers tab" (first parameter)?

manooooh

21:57

@AlexG do you know a site where the compatibility of the checkbox for PDFs are mentioned? Because in my PC it works wonders, but in the PDF verion of Google Drive has not worked (I can not click the checkbox)

egreg

6

A: Centering contents after \unvbox

First method This code is Plain TeX, but can be used also in LaTeX; the macro \centervbox takes as argument a box register number and outputs the same box, but centered with respect to the margins. \catcode`\@=11 \def\centervbox#1{\begingroup\global\setbox\@ne=\box\voidb@x \setbox\z@=\copy#1\...

manooooh

@UlrikeFischer do you know how can we make TextField be compatible with most PDF viewers? Because in my PC works great, but in Google Drive it does not work anymore. I would like to see a list of PDF viewers that can support that command. Thanks!

Ulrike Fischer

@manooooh sorry but that is not something that can be done on the latex side. If a pdfviewer doesn't support such annotations you are simply out of look.

@egreg I see I'm late ;-)

user49915

As of today, the MWE in tex.stackexchange.com/questions/107507/… doesn't compile for me with latex (though I think it should), so, I think that that particular question is in its current state only of historical interest. To improve the overall site quality, the community might consider double-checking it and doing something about it, such as removing the question altogether, improving it, or closing it with a sutiable close reason.

manooooh

22:23

@UlrikeFischer I agree. The reality here is that there are always incompatibilities. This is one of them. The only thing I want to know is where to find the necessary information to be able to know from which version of the viewer you can use the commands at maximum efficiency

@UlrikeFischer do you know any place where we can know more or less the versions that the hyperref package can have its maximum splendor? Because those packages should act based on the viewers, and not the other way around

Ulrike Fischer

@manooooh Sorry but how should hyperref be able to keep track of all the viewers? And what should it do if say evince doesn't support forms but adobe reader does? Put only every second form field in the pdf to have something for everyone?

user49915

@manooooh @UlrikeFischer ... on average. I suggest putting a field into the pdf iff 1 == rand()%2. :-)

manooooh

@UlrikeFischer what I argue is that LaTeX packages should be at the service of PDF viewer functionalities, and not the other way around

Faheem Mitha

22:38

I just ran into this. Isn't this a bug? I see no reason for it.

7

Q: Includepdf causes an error message from pgfplots externalization

I have a file test.pdf which I include in a document containing also an externalized pgfplots picture. When I compile the following code, I get the error message Sorry, the system call pdflatex ... did NOT result in a usable file. In order to make my code work, I first need to remove the includ...

pgfplots pdf pdfpages tikz-external

manooooh

@user49915 1 == rand()%2 should be the number of problems between any version of PDF viewer and the LaTeX packages :P

Faheem Mitha

(I really get tired of constantly running into bugs all the time. It's like they follow me around.)

Ulrike Fischer

@manooooh if you tell me how to do it. How should hyperref know when you compile know that the pdf will be opened later in a viewer which isn't able to handle all pdf features? We could naturally simply remove all form related code from hyperref. Then there would no longer be a problem.

Skillmon

@FaheemMitha just don't use strange things :) For example I don't use externalize but write my own Makefiles and just put the stuff that would be externalized into standalone documents, so the overhead is much smaller and I never run into bugs like these. (I know this is in no way a satisfying answer and it isn't meant as such)

Faheem Mitha

@Skillmon Yes, I'm a weirdo.

Ulrike Fischer

22:48

@FaheemMitha you only need to look in XX-figure0.log to see the reason:

The command '\includegraphics []{\AM@currentdocname }' has been optimized away.
 Use '/tikz/external/optimize=false' to disable this.
! Undefined control sequence.
\AM@getpagecount ...ource {\AM@currentdocname@fix

This means that the externalization code has disabled \includegraphics, a command needed by \includepdf. You can do as suggested by the message \tikzset{/tikz/external/optimize=false} but imho optimize command away=\includepdf is better.

Faheem Mitha

@UlrikeFischer I tried that example code. It didn't work.

With 3.0.1a, that is.

I tested this with PGF v3.0.1a, and it does not compile. — Faheem Mitha 1 min ago

Of course, I could have messed that up somehow, but it's just cut and paste.

manooooh

@UlrikeFischer hyperref is useful, and that's why one should have interests in it if one wants to add some new functionality. The problem begins when that document is shared; nobody would expect that we all have all the same, and this is what some LaTeX packages do not know how to handle

Ulrike Fischer

@manooooh this is not hyperref's problem. you added functionality to a pdf that doesn't work in the viewers in which the pdf is viewed. And you are the only one who can know this and remove the textfields.

@FaheemMitha works fine for me with 3.1.1 - I naturally replaced the \includepdf by \includepdf{example-image}.

manooooh

@UlrikeFischer do you want to force all of us to use the same version of PDF viewer? That is called dictatorship, and it does not go with me. We would be removing one of the legs that all of you have agreed upon: accessibility, and what happens when deleting the other alternatives is to make a document less accessible to the general public

Faheem Mitha

@UlrikeFischer Oh, let me retry.

David Carlisle

23:03

@manooooh but what you ask is impossible, if you want to support for example pdf viewers that do not support javascript then the only possibility is not to include javascript, that has to be your choice, nothing the package can do,

Ulrike Fischer

@manooooh no but you will have to make the choice. You can either use textfields or evince. If you want to have fancy arrows on layers don't complain later that evince doesn't show them.

user49915

@manooooh There is no strict, fully formal, mathematical specification of hyperref. So, in the utmostly strict sense of the word, it may do whatever it wishes, including making the viewer sing Rammstein's "Du hast" and crashing your PC upon termination. Most viewers would resist, though. You don't like it? Too bad! :-)

manooooh

@DavidCarlisle @UlrikeFischer @user49915 thanks for your comments!

Faheem Mitha

@UlrikeFischer Ok, works for me as well. But I'm confused why example-image works.

David Carlisle

@manooooh of course it would be better if pdf viewers were more standard but adobe allowed pdf to be ISO standardised but implemented acrobat including all sorts of extra things, so other pdf viwers have to try to implement what they can with no clear path. perhaps pdf 2 will be better, but will take some years to be supported well..

Faheem Mitha

23:14

And does this mean that the call to \includepdf is simply a no-op?

David Carlisle

23:30

@UlrikeFischer a question for you to answer:-) tex.stackexchange.com/questions/481808/…

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends