Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!grunwald
From: grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: TeX previewing on a DecStation.
Message-ID: <21955@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 6 Jun 90 17:05:12 GMT
References: <139600003@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
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Reply-To: grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder
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In-reply-to: gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu's message of 5 Jun 90 21:59:00 GMT


>>>>> On 5 Jun 90 21:59:00 GMT, gsg0384@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu said:
g> Hi,
g> I would like to know what kind of software that helps technical writing
g> is available for DecStation 2100 or 3100?   For example, for TeX previewing,
g> whose program do you use?  "xdvi" or "texx"?   How fast is it?  
g> Especially compared to TeX previewing on NeXT.   Does the previewer show
g> Postscript graphics automatically as NeXT does?   Is a thesaurus program
g> available?  What type of drawing package do they use?
--

'xtex', which is a completely different version of 'texx' is
	(a) very fast

	(b) displays certain Postscript figures for DECstations using
	    the UWS 2.2 X server, the one that uses Display Postscript.
	    Currently, only figures included with \psfig are recognized,
	    but that's only a problem with understanding the \special
	    used to specify postscript files.

A complete binary distribution is available for DECstations via anonymous FTP
from foobar.colorado.edu, in ~ftp/pub/xtex-dec-3100-uws2.2.tar.Z.

This distribution includes the pre-converted fonts that let xtex run
quickly, and can be easily installed on any DECstation system using
the provided Makefile. Display PostScript is, of course, only
available if your X server supports the Display Postscript extensions
(i.e UWS 2.2).

I use 'idraw' to draw figures, but I've also used e.g. Mathematica
output.  All of these have worked fine when displayed under 'xtex'.
Some things that will not work are e.g., Rokicki's \rotate macros;
for this, you should convert your .dvi file to postscript & use
dxpsview.

Source is also available on foobar. The entire package, including
'mftobdf' (the program to convert Metafont-format fonts to BDF fonts
for X servers), texsun, xtex, texx, iptex and dviselect, is in
'SeeTeX-2.15.1.tar.Z'. The subdirectory containing just 'xtex', for
people who have previously installed SeeTeX is in xtex-2.15.2.tar.Z.
You need the X11R4 toolkit to build xtex.

Dirk Grunwald -- Univ. of Colorado at Boulder	(grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu)
						(grunwald@boulder.colorado.edu)