TeX, LaTeX and Friends

yo'

5:32 AM

Morning, everyone!

CarLaTeX

6:04 AM

@yo' Morning, ready for other TUG talks!

yo'

6:18 AM

@CarLaTeX yeah, in 6.5h :-) a talk by a colleague from Overleaf, I look forward to finally get to know how we update TeX Live and run the compilations :-)

jokerdino

hi

yo'

I'm off now (church organ duty)

CarLaTeX

@yo' Indeed, too late for this morning talks :)

TeXnician

7:56 AM

@wtsnjp Unfortunately, I missed the q&a session of your talk (too early here). But after you compared llmk to latexmk, I wondered what a comparison to spix and arara (both in TeX Live) would look like because both tools' aims seem more similar to your tool's than latexmk's. Do you have examples of the simple cases neglected by the tools where llmk is more concise than the aforementioned?

Henri Menke

8:40 AM

@TeXnician In my view, the main motivation and major benefit of llmk over all those other tools is that it is implemented entirely in texlua which makes it portable with the TeX Live installation. It can run anywhere where TeX Live runs without installing additional dependencies.

TeXnician

@HenriMenke Ah, okay. That is also the main advantage I see, actually. I just wondered because in the talk one of the main motivational points was making the process of compiling more explicit which seem to be still less explicit than what spix and arara provide. But yes, platform independence is certainly an advantage.

Paulo Cereda

quack

@yo' hi! Could you tell Paul that last time I saw him he had \beard[none]? :)

David Carlisle

9:22 AM

can we see the recordings of the overnight talks, if I look on the youtube live stream I can see previews of them by hovering over the timeline bar but it doesn't actually play that far back (or at least not in reasonable time)

wtsnjp

@TeXnician Thanks for your comments. And yes, that would be one of the most important differences from arara (which is implemented in Java) and spix (Python).

JFYI, my talk is independently uploaded to my channel on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=kzqlNHKmzBo

David Carlisle

@wtsnjp thanks that answers my question above in one case:-)

TeXnician

@wtsnjp Thanks for answering. It's surely an interesting project :)

David Carlisle

ah I see the youtube live stream does show the old files but takes several minutes to re-sync to old talks, one has just started..

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp ooh there's a duck and a snowman

wtsnjp

9:27 AM

@PauloCereda Snowman "Nice to meet you, my fried duck!"

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp ooh

wtsnjp

@TeXnician One more thing that I can add as the difference (I would not say "advantage" because this is a difference in design concept) is that llmk does not allow user configuration so that to make sure a TeX file is processed exactly in the same way in any environment. As far as I know, arara is designed to write user "rules" somewhere independently from each document.

TeXnician

@wtsnjp Well, user rules, yes, but they should be included in the project directory if distributed. That's basically the same requirement your llmk.toml has. Of course, arara allows further customization (user config for interface language for example) but thinking in projects, arara's concept is the same, keeping everything within the project to be fully explicit. Although for most of the common tools, no user has to write a rules, there are many of them already.

wtsnjp

@TeXnician I see. Actually, I do think user configuration is useful, so I will learn from arara how I can take both advantages of "convenience" and "portability".

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp we both can learn from each project, that's the beauty of opensource (and friendship too). :)

3

@wtsnjp also, apologies for my bad Japanese. I had a friend helping me, but it was very challenging!

wtsnjp

9:36 AM

@PauloCereda You are so nice. And you don't have to apologize at all about the Japanese language!

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp also², this friend of mine and myself just learned that www is the equivalent of LOL. :) And the more w's we add, it's equivalent to more OL's in the later, so wwwwwwwwwww \equiv LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL :)

ooh languages :)

@wtsnjp thanks, you too! <3

wtsnjp

Yes, it is!

Paulo Cereda

woooo

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle Frank says that the live stream goes only back 12 hours.

wtsnjp

@DavidCarlisle Of course, I'm sure something should be added to Japanese-specific lessons. I will first look into the common lectures in English, and then will find out what will be needed especially for Japanese. Anyway, I'm thinking to begin the translation. Thanks a lot.

David Carlisle

9:49 AM

@UlrikeFischer it has all last nights talks, I just started Ross's pdf tagging one

@wtsnjp thanks

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I'm hearing just now too. But I heard it was quite long ...

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer yes there I might keep nudging it forwards a bit

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle how to you jump forwards?

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer well You can you can click on the timeline but I'm going to try increasing the playback speed to 1.25 in teh cog menu

@PauloCereda what happened to the spirit of rivalry and vicious competition?

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer MkIV :)

Ulrike Fischer

10:00 AM

@DavidCarlisle increasing the speed makes it better ;-).

@JosephWright the catcode question?

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer Yup

@UlrikeFischer I know where the issue is; also fits with my idea that I'll re-write l3alloc so it sticks to the LATeX2e scheme. (We may never need it, but would be nice to be clear we'll not change anything here ever)

David Carlisle

@JosephWright internet all restored?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle vim

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda emacs won the battle decades ago

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh the fabled editor wars :)

Ulrike Fischer

10:03 AM

@JosephWright sorry I bit distracted, just got explained for a quarter of hour why semantic markup is needed for tagging and how to do (by defining a macro ...)

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer Ah, I'm not on the live stream ATM, got some other stuff to do

I'm also having a chat to a being known to many of us in Another Place (naming no names)

David Carlisle

@JosephWright sounds fun

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Feel free to read ;)

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright hmmmmm

@DavidCarlisle Joseph is having ice cream and he doesn't want to tell us

Ulrike Fischer

there was a tpdfduck.tex in the talk <----- @PauloCereda

Paulo Cereda

10:18 AM

@UlrikeFischer ooh

David Carlisle

10:31 AM

@wtsnjp vim :(

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle WOOOOOO

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda vim and ducks, @wtsnjp is turning in to you. What a terrible fate

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Paulo Cereda

10:51 AM

I wonder if geometry can support these paper dimensions: twitter.com/PDChina/status/1284669286414299136

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda that pesky \maxdimen hits again

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

wtsnjp

@DavidCarlisle Sorry about that, I only know how to exit Emacs :-P

David Carlisle

@wtsnjp nice talk, Just watched it on the youtube live stream. Incidentally the format for learnlatex.org's version of magic comments is davidcarlisle.github.io/latexcgi/… Of course I could support llmk (or arara @PauloCereda) etc directly but I wanted tight control over what commands to allow so currently I have a more restricted system that builds the commandline

Norbert's up next (for me:-)

yo'

11:57 AM

@PauloCereda that's a COVID-19 novelty :-)

wtsnjp

12:08 PM

May I ask really a beginner's question about this chat? How can I easily jump to the original message which a message replying to?

yo'

@wtsnjp there's an arrow at the beginning of the reply

wtsnjp

@yo' Ahh, I see. Thanks a lot!

yo'

samcarter_left_tex.se

12:31 PM

@wtsnjp (another lazy European here who slept during your talk and is only catching up now) Really interesting talk!

wtsnjp

12:41 PM

That is absolutely fine. Thank you for watching it!
Your talk yesterday was also interesting. I enjoyed it and shared a link to the Japanese TeX community.

samcarter_left_tex.se

Oh cool!

David Carlisle

@yo' hello I can see you:-)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@wtsnjp There is one major advantage of llmk over latexmk: one can type it incredible fast with barley moving any fingers over the keyboard :D

yo'

@DavidCarlisle that's possible :-) We had to restart both Zoom and YouTube; Zoom link is the same, YouTube has changed.

David Carlisle

@samcarter_left_tex.se unfortunately you have to move up to the middle row, zzz would be easier

yo'

12:45 PM

New YouTube link for TUG2020: youtube.com/watch?v=-Y_OYhoHOb8

David Carlisle

@yo' yes I just rejoined zoom, and you were on

samcarter_left_tex.se

@DavidCarlisle It's only easier because I have an US keyboard :)

David Carlisle

@samcarter_left_tex.se yes it would be harder for Ulrike, but we need have no sympathy.

samcarter_left_tex.se

@DavidCarlisle I wonder how she survives with the German layout, I would be afraid to break my fingers

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_left_tex.se I have flexible well trained fingers, but I understand it is difficult for ducks.

samcarter_left_tex.se

12:57 PM

@UlrikeFischer yeah, all these feathers get in the way when typing :)

yo'

1:43 PM

@samcarter_left_tex.se OTOH you don't have rubbish in the keyboard as you can use them well to clean it :-)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@yo' :D Good point!

Ulrike Fischer

1:56 PM

@samcarter_left_tex.se there are ducks on the slides ...

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer Yeah!

wtsnjp

I've just got an email from Manfred (of CTAN team) suggesting implementing the --quiet option to llmk. I was also thinking

I also wanted that option. He mentioned that there is the feature in arara, so I will look into the implementation of arara @PauloCereda

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp ooh

wtsnjp

Something I concern is that it is easy to drop stdout only, but I know that dvipdfmx output all information, not only error messages but also normal one, to stderr...

Paulo Cereda

@wtsnjp IIRC our implementation tries to forward stdout and sterr to the same stream...

Ulrike Fischer

2:12 PM

more ducks ;-)

David Carlisle

@samcarter_left_tex.se tikzducks getting everywhere:(

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer Ducks rule!

@DavidCarlisle You're getting hungry?

David Carlisle

@samcarter_left_tex.se probably a menu generating service being demonstated

samcarter_left_tex.se

@DavidCarlisle :D

wtsnjp

@PauloCereda I see. That is a simple solution. If that strategy works for arara, it should work fine for llmk as well. Thank you for the wisdom (I will look into the implementation anyway :))

Paulo Cereda

2:22 PM

@wtsnjp Thanks for the kind words, but it's the typical "been there done that". :) I don't know the exact dynamics of our Kotlin rewrite, but in my original code I had a TeeOutputStream which would combine both out and err. :)

JF soon

TeXnician

@PauloCereda It's still there: gitlab.com/islandoftex/arara/-/blob/master/application/src/main/… ;)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda 2>/dev/null as no one should make errors so there is no need for an error message stream.

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician ooh

@DavidCarlisle :)

TeXnician

@PauloCereda And gitlab.com/islandoftex/arara/-/blob/master/application/src/main/… for usage…

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician ooh efficiency

TeXnician

2:33 PM

@PauloCereda GitLab has that feature called search bar ;)

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician WITCHCRAFT

samcarter_left_tex.se

And another duck!

Paulo Cereda

ooh a duck

@samcarter_left_tex.se ooh

and a cactus

michal.h21

why does the Zoom chat replied, with my name "Off into The Long Dark ..." to my message? :o

yo'

2:56 PM

@michal.h21 that was Norbert saying goodbye

michal.h21

@yo' ah, I was really confused by this

yo'

3:18 PM

I'm off now, I have 2hrs drive waiting on me and I leave to a week of holidays. See you another time!

samcarter_left_tex.se

@yo' Have fun!

David Carlisle

4:15 PM

@manooooh is issue #66 at learnlatex you? If not would you like to answer and collaborate, we'd like a Spanish translation but don't want two:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle si

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda Is your Spanish any better than your Portuguese?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle no :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda OK we'll give you the Italian translation then.

@PauloCereda or following your talk how about learnlatex.org: The Gregorian Chant audio edition

2

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh Solesmes Abbey :)

@DavidCarlisle ooh pizza examples

manooooh

5:29 PM

@DavidCarlisle not me, but we can make a team

@PauloCereda el pato hace quack en cualquier idioma :)

Paulo Cereda

5:44 PM

@manooooh :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Hola don Pato

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL ooh hola señor Pablo, como estás?

Pablo González L

@DavidCarlisle I have completed my idea in the pdfcrop PR (I hope so)

Paulo Cereda

Me gusta las hamburguesas

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Entretenido, jugando con Perl

@PauloCereda Prefiero los completos :)

Paulo Cereda

5:49 PM

@PabloGonzálezL ooh que jugas?

@PabloGonzálezL no lo se o que san completos :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda s/Quak/Duck/g

@PauloCereda A version of "Hot-Dog" very popular in my country

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL ooh

@PabloGonzálezL ooh perrito caliente

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda but stronger :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL ooh a pitbull

pitburger :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda In fact there is a full day in my country, I celebrate it with my students

Paulo Cereda

5:54 PM

@PabloGonzálezL yaaaay

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Here they are all prepared :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL don't do this to me, I cannot even pick something between two choices. :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda I've tried them all :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL ooh really?

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda There are more types, now that I write I realize that there is a kind of fixation with the complete ones...there are even XL size :)

Paulo Cereda

6:00 PM

@PabloGonzálezL ooh :)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@PabloGonzálezL Ohhh, I want to try the japan one. It looks so cute!

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda It is something of natural knowledge, if someone says to you "Do you want an Italian" it is understood that you want "A completo one" (and not an Italian)

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_left_tex.se oh

@PabloGonzálezL hmmm a challenge

Pablo González L

@samcarter_left_tex.se It's a "different" taste :)

@PauloCereda what do they call them in brazil... i don't think it's "completiño" :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL I never saw a sophisticated menu like that!

@samcarter_left_tex.se you got mail (in a couple of seconds)

@samcarter_left_tex.se ooh sent

samcarter_left_tex.se

6:09 PM

@PauloCereda Good thing we found out yesterday how to temporarily mute zoom :)

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_left_tex.se ooh :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Do you have any equipment on hand with a win?

I have a question with lua (l3build) to be more precise

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL oh sorry, no Windows around

But ask anyway, please.

@samcarter_left_tex.se want another jewel? :)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@PauloCereda sure!

Pablo González L

local function make_temp_dir()
local tmpname = os.tmpname()
tempdir = basename(tmpname)
print("** Creating the temporary directory ./"..tempdir)
errorlevel = mkdir(tempdir)
if errorlevel ~= 0 then
error("** Error!!: The ./"..tempdir.." directory could not be created")
return errorlevel
end
print("** See path of temporary directory ./"..tempdir)
run(tempdir, "pwd")
end

Ulrike Fischer

6:17 PM

@samcarter_left_tex.se how did you did it?

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer Used the "leave computer audio" trick

yesterday, by Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer There is a little arrow for extended options next to the mute button. You can use it to access extended options like "Leave computer audio"

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_left_tex.se ah, now it worked. On my first test I failed.

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda In linux it creates ./tmpdir under the current directory (with a temporary name), but, in win it creates a directory in C:\Users\Username>AppData\Local\Temp\tmpdir

samcarter_left_tex.se

@MarcelKrüger Very nice talk!

Pablo González L

6:21 PM

@PauloCereda And when using run (from l3build) this doesn't work :( ...the problem is how I define the function is because it is system dependent?

Marcel Krüger

@samcarter_left_tex.se Thank you

Paulo Cereda

@MarcelKrüger amazing talk, as always!

@PabloGonzálezL hm I will take a look

@MarcelKrüger I think @mickep wants to say hi too :)

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Gracias :)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@PabloGonzálezL Expert diagnosis: the problem is using windows - don't do that :)

Pablo González L

@samcarter_left_tex.se I know :(

mickep

6:25 PM

@MarcelKrüger Nice talks! 👍

@MarcelKrüger I was the one asking if your (harfbuzz) slides would be available...

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_left_tex.se even without ducks?!

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer Yes, as difficult as this is

Marcel Krüger

@mickep @PauloCereda Thank you <3 Don't worry, I will upload the slides now.

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_left_tex.se you should ask him to implement growing ducks ;-)

samcarter_left_tex.se

@UlrikeFischer Great idea! Staring with small ducklings!

David Carlisle

6:41 PM

@UlrikeFischer could use this

samcarter_left_tex.se

@DavidCarlisle Oh no

David Carlisle

@manooooh thanks could you drop a comment there then we can leave you both to organise how you want to work

Pablo González L

@DavidCarlisle ZzTeX package, there are more Zzzz macro fans :)

David Carlisle

Jul 19 at 10:05, by Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

> New on CTAN: ZzTeX (CTAN Announcements)

Pablo González L

@DavidCarlisle It's been several days since I updated :) TeXLive

Marcel Krüger

6:48 PM

@samcarter_left_tex.se As I said, my design skills are limited, but I would have a virtual font based version which would even allow the ducks to be colored if someone writes the MetaPost code...

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger I should check if my duckchess font still work.

samcarter_left_tex.se

@MarcelKrüger Interesting challenge - let me get back to you

David Carlisle

Hopefully Patrick's talk coming up will be duck free

Pablo González L

7:03 PM

@DavidCarlisle I left you a message above (I don't know how to quote in the chat)

David Carlisle

@PabloGonzálezL yes about the pdfcrop thing yes saw it will get back to that, or more likely I'll ignore it and @UlrikeFischer will sort it out(usual mode of ho-tex package maintenance these days:-)

Pablo González L

@DavidCarlisle Thank you :)

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle ;-) But I need some free time for this first. @PabloGonzálezL simply keep poking if I forget it.

David Carlisle

@PabloGonzálezL promise me the PR doesn't insert ducks into every cropped file.

Pablo González L

@DavidCarlisle Not at all, not ducks or Zzz :-)

samcarter_left_tex.se

7:09 PM

The cat is so cute!

David Carlisle

@samcarter_left_tex.se they eat ducks

CarLaTeX

@samcarter_left_tex.se I was thinking the same thing

samcarter_left_tex.se

@DavidCarlisle I'm not sure if the geometry will work

CarLaTeX

and also the "Empire strikes back" poster in the background :)

samcarter_left_tex.se

the biggest thing my cat ever caught was a dove

@CarLaTeX that too!

Pablo González L

7:12 PM

@DavidCarlisle I asked @PauloCereda upstairs, but maybe you can give me an idea, this function in `build.lua`

local function make_temp_dir()
local tmpname = os.tmpname()
tempdir = basename(tmpname)
print("** Creating the temporary directory ./"..tempdir)
errorlevel = mkdir(tempdir)
if errorlevel ~= 0 then
error("** Error!!: The ./"..tempdir.." directory could not be created")
return errorlevel
end
print("** See path of temporary directory ./"..tempdir)
run(tempdir, "dir")
end

In linux it creates `./tmpdir` under the current directory (with a temporary name), but, in win it creates a direc…

David Carlisle

@PabloGonzálezL watching patricks talk, will look later

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL What are you trying to do there?

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger Create a temporary directory, run a test, if successful, exit and delete the directory

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL Where do you want to create the directory?

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger under the current directory "."

@MarcelKrüger In linux it works, the problem is in windows :(

Marcel Krüger

7:28 PM

basename assumes ` / ` as directory delimiter, so you have to replace ` \ ` by ` / ` first on Windows. You can also reimplement it directly as

function basename(path) return path:match("^.*[\\/]([^/\\]*)$") end

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger Mmm, that wouldn't rewrite the basename function provided by "l3build"?

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL ? I didn't test it , but that should rewrite the function used by l3build.

Pablo González L

The problem is that `os.tmpname()` returns different things between win and linux
I want to stay with `tmpdir` (only the name) `C:\Users\Username>AppData\Local\Temp\tmpdir` in windows, then mkdir(tmpdir)

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL Right. Use the code you provided above together with the new basename implementation I send. Then that should work.

manooooh

@DavidCarlisle done :) Thanks for cooperation!

Pablo González L

7:43 PM

@MarcelKrüger Great, if the PATH contains spaces, shouldn't that be a problem?

David Carlisle

Jan 21 '14 at 12:33, by David Carlisle

@NicolaTalbot people who put spaces in filenames deserve no sympathy.

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL I don't see why it should lead to issues here, but I agree with David.

manooooh

77

Q: What technical reasons exist for not using space characters in file names?

Somebody I know expressed irritation today regarding those of us who tend not to use spaces in our filenames, e.g. NamingThingsLikeThis.txt -- despite most modern operating systems supporting spaces in filenames. Are there technical reasons that it's still common to see file names without (appro...

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger Not that it takes up files with spaces (I still use 8 characters most of the time :), the point is that win (depending on the version) uses spaces in the system directories, including the path to the temporary directory :(

manooooh

I am wondering how you guys write those files. In lower case? Upper case? Camel case?

Marcel Krüger

7:48 PM

@PabloGonzálezL I do consider that to be a Windows design issue, but I really don't think that it is relevant here. None of the functions handle spaces any differently than other characters. It should "just work".

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger Okay, this reminded me github.com/latex3/l3build/issues/120

Marcel Krüger

I see your issue now: The l3build "mkdir" function doesn't like spaces (or special characters) That shouldn't trigger here though because the spaces in the path are stripped by basename anyway.

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger It would be great to have a direct option in l3build for temporary things, something like mktmpdir(name) and mktmpfile(name) ... the problem of spaces is a headache :(

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL That bug is about escaping things on Windows. I recently had to deal with that as part of luametalatex and it is a horrible mess which sometimes is actually inconsistent between different programs. Especially it needs lots of testing on Windows which involves running Windows...

Pablo González L

8:03 PM

@MarcelKrüger In addition to the problem with some characters, in Spanish it is usual to occupy ü or ñ

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL OK. Do they lead to issues?

Pablo González L

@MarcelKrüger In general I do not use those characters in the files, but, it is already reported (github.com/latex3/l3build/issues/122)

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger l3build don't like non-ascii.

Pablo González L

@UlrikeFischer Neither the spaces :(

Marcel Krüger

@PabloGonzálezL Of, the Windows encoding issues. Recent versions of Windows actually allow you to switch to UTF-8, that should fix such issues.

Phelype Oleinik

8:21 PM

@JosephWright What's the policy on defining \use_... (like \use_i:nnnnn) variants not provided by the kernel? Specifically, this user wants \use_i_i:nnn: tex.stackexchange.com/q/555096/134574 (though here probably a private \__user_dup_first:nnn would be better).

nbro

10:25 PM

what's your usual way to create a "notation explanation" section in your papers?

for example, I want to create a section where I say that lower case letters are used to denote certain objects while other letters... and so on

do you just write this in prose or is there a better way?

do you have a good example of a clear section that summarises the notation?

I've seen a book where the author just wrote a small section in prose that describes the notation

any better alternatives?

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends