Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!super!mfb
From: mfb@super.ORG (Michael F. Bridgland)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Really GENERIC questions on TeX
Summary: More documentation is needed
Message-ID: <29692@super.ORG>
Date: 19 Jul 90 14:13:38 GMT
References: <7854@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Sender: news@super.ORG
Reply-To: mfb@super.org (Michael F. Bridgland)
Organization: Supercomputing Research Center, Bowie, Md.
Lines: 107

In article <7854@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu writes:
>In article <1048100001@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu writes...
>
>>I have never used TeX before, but now I have occaision to need to USE it
>>from the point of view of simply getting a .tex file printed so I can read
>>it.  I assume that's the point of sending files in .tex, so that they can
>>be printed and read.  It is a document file for a program I received.
>
>>I read the TeX man page.  It told me how to run TeX to create a DVI file.
>>Clearly more needed to be done, but there were no references to anything
>>else to do.  It's as if all that people ever care to do is have DVI files.
>
>Well, the reason for this is that there are jillions of
>DVI-to-whatever converters available. Not all of them work the
>same (for example, on our VMS system, to print pages 3-5 of
>foo.dvi, I would type dviout foo/pages=3:5 while on our Unix
>system, the command is dvialw -o3:5 foo) and certainly they all
>have different names. Plus, different sites might configure
>things differently. Here at HMC, the DVI processors create a file
>to be printed in a separate step. At UIC where I worked once upon
>a time, all DVI processing was bundled into a program "PRINTTEX"
>which would select the printer driver and handle converting
>options to the format the driver wanted and print the output when
>it was done). The reason most of the documentation doesn't
>mention these things is that it is usually quite different
>between sites.

Nonetheless, the point made in the original posting is a valid one.
The man page for tex should at the very least refer the reader to
other man pages describing the commands used at the site to preview
dvi files and to produce hardcopy. Of course, the absence of such
documentation is not a problem with tex per se, but with the
ignorance, laziness, arrogance, etc., of the local installer.

>
>>One thing I notice is that there are usually lots of vast macros written
>>for many text formatting languages.  Apparently it is a practice to ASSUME
>>that everyone has every macro.  Is this a valid assumption with TeX?  If it
>>is, then the macros are public domain.  I suspect not, but I could be wrong.
>>What are the various macro libraries available?  How do I use them (from the
>>point of view of getting the .tex document printed, no in writing in TeX)?
>>It seems modularity has its disadvantages as well.  I program in macro
>>assembler language a lot, and find that when I send someone a program, I
>>frequently have to send them dozens of macros to go with it (most of which
>>I wrote, the rest of which are still not common anyway).  Is this (sending
>>macros with .tex) common in exchanging documents in TeX?
>
>Yep. LaTeX users (at least intelligent ones) can generally avoid
>this problem.
>
>>I simply ran the tex command giving it the name of one of the files I need
>>printed, and it said:
>
>>! undefined control sequence.
>>l.5 \documentstyle
>>                  [makeidx]{article}
>>?
>
>Any document which begins with \documentstyle is a LaTeX file.

That is not true. For example, a document beginning with

     \documentstyle{amsppt}

is virtually certain to be an AmS-TeX file.

>Rather than saying "tex filename" you need to say "latex
>filename". Just one of life's inconveniences.
>

Again, the point made in the original posting is valid. The person
sending the file should have told the recipient the nature of the
file. Every tex file distributed for use by unknown others should
include some introductory comments about how the file is intended to
be used.

It isn't as if this were any great burden on the creator of the file.
Recently, I have been sending a fair amount of e-mail devoted to
mathematical discussions. Rather than fight with the notational
inadequacies of ascii text, I use AmS-TeX. Since the people with whom
I correspond have some familiarity with AmS-TeX, they may simply read
the tex source I send. Nonetheless, I begin each message with the
following header:

%% For an easier-to-read version,
%% save this note, less the mailer header, as (e.g.) note.tex
%% Then embed it in an amstex file as follows.
%% Then tex it. I always try to write mathematical e-mail so that
%% it will TeX successfully if treated this way.
%%
%% \input amstex %if necessary
%% \documentstyle{amsppt}
%% \topmatter
%% \endtopmatter
%% \document
%% \input note
%% \enddocument
%%

Now the cognoscenti will know that they can safely leave out the line

     \input amstex

and invoke the command amstex instead of tex. But my header does not
demand that the reader be among the cognoscenti.

--Mike Bridgland