Recall the syntax for the history reference:
!event:words:modifiers
In the example,
!la:pthe event was "
la", there was no "words" argument, and the
modifier was "p", which "prints" the command
without executing
( by "prints", here, one means "displays on the terminal").
The effect of running the command is to search the history list
for the most recent command line that started with the
string "la" and simply to display that command.
Recall what the terms mean:
% more some-file-with-a-long-name % emacs !$ & % mail friend < !*Here !$ gives the last argument of the previous command, whereas !* gives all arguments of the previous command. Since there is only one argument, !$ and !* have the same effect. However,
% dvips somefile -o somefile.ps % latex !*is going to generate an error message. To refer to the first argument of the last command you can use !^. To refer to the n-th argument of the most recent command containing enc you can use !?enc?:n. The n is called a "word designator", and is an example of the "words" part of the command syntax.
!event:words:modifiers
On Monday's tips we saw the p example of a modifier. Another is the substitution modifier s. Example:
% long-command | more process something and view the result % mail friend < urgent.txt % !-2:s/more/lpr do same process and print the result long-command | lpr (tcsh prints the command)For modifying part of the previous command there is an abbreviated form: ^old^new. Thus,
% mre somefile.txt misspelled "more" % ^m^mo replace "m" by "mo" more somefile.txt
After you read the following analysis of several ways of posting a LaTeX document on the web, you will construct links, as above to the files corresponding to your LaTeX document on completing the square.
If you choose to post your document by constructing a link to the LaTeX source file there are two main problems to face. First, the recipient has to convert your source file, so must have access to LaTeX. Second, the recipient must have access to the same style packages and fonts that you used in your document. Third, if you wanted your document to feature included graphics, you would need to provide separate PostScript files. You could overcome part of the first objection by building a file that includes all of your personal style files, but the recipient would still need access to LaTeX and would have to be fairly knowledgeable about LaTeX.
Similarly with linking to the DVI file, the recipient would need
a device driver (like dvips) installed on his computer to
be able to "read" the file.
Although the device drivers are freely available, not every
machine has one installed. Moreover, any PostScript graphics
to be included in the document would need to provided by a separate
link unless one were to take advantage of the possibility of producing
a UNIX tape archive file (tar file). The UNIX tape
archive file idea works reasonably well if the recipient is working
in a UNIX environment, but may be a problem for recipients working in
a different environment.
Finally, a link to the PostScript file still requires that the recipient have special software to view the file. Although viewers such as Ghostscript and Ghostview are freely available, not everyone has them. Also, PostScript files tend to be large. The one big advantage to this method is that it takes care of included graphics.
I know of two other ways that are more or less practical for putting a mathematical document on your web page by first converting it.
You can convert the LaTeX source file to an HTML file, or
rather, to a collection of HTML files and graphics files.
To do that you can use the software package latex2html,
which has been installed on our SUN servers. The program can take a
long time to run, but you get html files that are
convenient for posting. Equations
are displayed as in-line images (GIF files), which means that a source
document containing lots of equations will result in lots of image
files. Consequently, the person who wants to view your work may find the
process of loading the files to the browser to be slow.
The latex2html package has not been
installed on our SGI network as of March 1999, but it may be installed
next summer. Meanwhile, we can use the copy on the SUN network.
Here is a link to a very simple HTML file produced by
latex2html. This file has only text, but it should
serve to indicate roughly the nature of the output.
There is an online version of the user's manual for latex2html. available at the following URL:
http://camden-www.rutgers.edu/HELP/Documentation/latex2html/manual.htmlIn addition, there is a file called README.CAMDEN at:
http://camden-www.rutgers.edu/HELP/Documentation/latex2html/README.CAMDENthat contains VERY important information about setting up your Unix shell to work properly with latex2html. The software consists of several programs and support directories all of which expect the directory /usr/local/latex2html to be on your path. If you need help, see the README.CAMDEN file
An alternative to using latex2html would be to modify the
source file and to use
An essentially different idea is to produce a PostScript file and
then convert it to
Adobe's portable document
format, a "PDF" file. Again, there is the problem that the browser
needs help in reading the PDF file. However, Adobe makes their Acrobat Reader
available for download without charge for several different operating
systems, and it can be used as a "helper application" for Netscape's
browsers.
Adobe's Distiller is supposed to produce a fairly
efficient PDF file, but it is a commercial product which we seem not to have
installed on the SUN servers. There is
a free service on the Web that distills PostScript into PDF using
a copy of
Adobe's Distiller software. There is some information at the site
with instructions for preparing a file to be converted.
One can also use the freeware GS converter
According to The LaTeX Companion,
There is also a system called PSNFSS
that provides a working setup of the NFSS2 version
of the new font selection scheme. This system includes a number of
packages: times, newcent, helv,
palatino, etc. The safest choice seems to the times
package, but then the Computer Modern math fonts may not match the text fonts.
To overcome this visual mismatch of fonts, there is a package of fonts called
mathtime and a package called pstimes that
replaces the Computer Modern math fonts with the mathtimes fonts.
Those of you who have access to machines that are running Windows 95 may check
out the Netscape plugin from IBM, which allows Netscape's browser to render
LaTeX files.
Configure your .cshrc file so that you can use LaTeX2HTML.
The instructions are in the README.CAMDEN
file for LaTeX2HTML.
Now use LaTeX2HTML to convert the LaTeX source file of your
essay, which will produce a subdirectory. Then link this material to your
Web page.
Finally, run If you have done all the above activities,
and there is still time left, here are some other activities you can do. You probably will have time to start these during class.
hyperlatex.
Hyperlatex does a good job of
providing both typeset documents and HTML documents from the same file, but it
uses a subset of LaTeX commands augmented by some commands for producing links.
It is available for free to use on UNIX systems. There are also several
commercial programs available for translating LaTeX source files to HTML files.
I don't know how well they work, but you can check out their examples
by starting with
a list from the TeX
Users' Group or the
TeX4ht
home page.
ps2pdf, which is installed on the SUN servers, crab
and clam.
However, you may be surprised at the large size of the files that result from
converting by ps2pdf. It seems that certain fonts are rendered
efficiently and the rest are not. To get efficient PostScript it seems
that we should arrange to use PostScript fonts rather than the standard
bitmapped fonts. This is beyond my current expertise, but I was able to
find some information, which may be useful.
dvips searches the
file psfonts.map, which controls the mapping between font
names used
inside TeX and external names (for example, the Karl Berry names,
which are used in the New Font Selection Scheme, NFSS, or the names of
the original distribution of PostScript fonts by Y & Y). Then you
should be able to edit the
control file psfonts.map to replace the
.pk versions of the Computer Modern font family with corresponding
Type 1 fonts.
In Class Exercise: Post your essay on completing the square
Move the LaTeX source file, DVI file and PostScript file from your essay into
the directory where you have your minimal Web page, and add links to them from
the page, being sure to label the links so that the viewer can tell
what to expect from following the link.
ps2pdf on the PostScript file to get
a PDF version of your typeset file. If, as I suspect, it is uncomfortably
large, you can gzip the file, and make a link to the gzipped
version.
Finished?
Homework for after class
email to:Martin Karel