Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!diamond!jdm5548
From: jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu (James Darrell McCauley)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: fonts? && testing args && changing case
Keywords: drop.sty, slanted, small caps, ifx #1
Message-ID: <11087@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 28 Dec 90 08:08:03 GMT
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Reply-To: jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu (James Darrell McCauley)
Organization: Texas A&M University Agricultural Engineering Dept
Lines: 68

Howdy,

I'm writing a LaTeX style and I've run across a few problems.
A few beginner questions for those benevolent TeX, LaTeX and 
METAFONT gurus:

   1.  I need a slanted, small-caps font. Does such
MF     a font exist? I'm not a METAFONT user, so if someone could e-mail 
       me some instructions, I'd really appreciate it.

   2.  | | sing drop.sty by David G. Cantor and Dominik Wujastyk (from
MF     |_| Clarkson), I drop and enlarge the first letter of a paragraph, 
       sort of like at the beginning of this sentence.  It covers about
       2\baselineskip's when I use cmr10 scaled \magstep5.  I need
       a font that will cover 3 lines, or maybe instructions on how
       to build one.

   3.  Floating things use something called makecaption for the captions. 
TeX    I need a dash after figure numbers but a colon after table 
       numbers, e.g.
             Figure 1 -- A picture of a fish.
             Table 1: Fishy numbers.
       More succinctly, I want to test the argument to a macro.
       How do I do this? My humble beginning is below:

       \long\def\@makecaption#1#2{             % !! note - buggy code
         \vskip 10pt 
         \def\tmpcs{Figure \arabic{thefigure}} % trouble starting...
         \ifx{\csname#1\endcsname}\tmpcs       % here's the trouble.
           \def\separator{ -- }                % problem is I don't know 
         \else \def\separator{: }              % how to test argument
         \fi
         \setbox\@tempboxa\hbox{#1\separator #2}
         \ifdim \wd\@tempboxa >\hsize #1\separator #2\par \else \hbox
         to\hsize{\hfil\box\@tempboxa\hfil} 
       \fi} 

   4.  I need to make sure that the first word of a caption is capitalized
TeX    and the rest are lowercase, as in the above examples.  I thought
       that I had seen this before, but I've been unable to reproduce it.
       Maybe a few \if's, a few \catcode's, \uppercase, and \lowercase?
       It must be semi-smart - that is, having this as the input:
       \caption{A Resum\'{e} Of A FISH who Watches {MASH}.}, 
       the result must be 
       "A resum\'{e} of a fish who watches MASH."

   5.  Similar to #4 and with regard to #2, I wish to take the first token
TeX    after the first \section*{} and make it a larger font.  For the style
       that I am writing, the first letter in the first section after
       the abstract is dropped and enlarged.  I've read Ch. 7 of the 
       TeXbook, but I'm still a little confused. Perhaps
       \ifnum\value{section}=1
         <drop next token>
       \fi

Sorry if I overwhelm you with questions.  I've been saving these as
my style file progresses. I really appreciate the willingness of you
folks out in USENET land to answer questions. I've learned a lot of
*neat* things while trying to solve these (#3,4,&5)... just not their
solutions. I've ran out of gas and have thrown my hands up...

Thanks,
Darrell
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James Darrell McCauley                 jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu
Dept of Ag. Engineering                          (409) 845-6484
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2117, USA
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