Re: WRB - More Observations

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Steve Litt wrote:


I think the above list costs a couple hundred bucks.


  Used from Amazon: about $125.00 plus shipping/handling.


For someone like you or me, whose career depends on LaTeX, that's no big
deal, but the person just getting his or her feet wet might not want to
take such a big plunge.


  If you're going to be using the software extensively, then it's an
investment, not a cost. In William's case, VP has been dead for about 6
years, so it's time to move on. Besides, the rational thing to do is buy
the books one at a time: GTL4 first, then TCL2, and finally (if at all),
TLGC2. Makes it much more affordable.

  My career doesn't depend on LaTeX; I could get by with AbiWord or OO.o's
Writer.


A few free Ebook classics like LaTeX2E by Lamport, "The Not So Short
Introduction to LaTeX2E" by Oetiker, Partl, Hyna and Schlegl (especially
good), can get one started until the committment to purchase books can be
raised.


  As Richard pointed out with his extensive Web-based bibliography, there
are abundant resources available for the price of a 'Net connection.


Once again, my experience is that learning TeX before learning LaTeX is a
*must*. TeX is easy to learn, and once the learner knows TeX, LaTeX will
*make much more sense.


  My experience is different. When I get the time I'll read Knuth's "The
TeXbook," but I've been learning LaTeX (to supplement what LyX doesn't
automatically include and to produce documents that LyX cannot) for a
half-dozen years or so. Finally getting serious about it.

  And what can't LyX do, but LaTeX does exceptionally well, you ask? One
thing is precision forms. With Herbert's always-patient help, I created an
OMR (Optical Mark Reader) form in LaTeX. The timing marks, data blocks, and
overall placement on the page must be precise to the nearest millimeter in
order to be correctly read by the OMR scanner. Gotta' know LaTeX for this.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - More Observations

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 27 March 2008 09:26, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:
> > Looking for all such information. Can't really afford to buy the book by
> > Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I guess
> > I have to find alternative means to acquire the *knowledge of minutia*
> > that seems concomitant with TeXspeak and TeXpublishing.
>
>I just bought a copy of the TeXbook via amazon. Very low price.
>
>Regardless, a functional desk holds: "Guide to LaTeX, 4th Ed." by Kopka
> and Daly, "The LaTeX Companion, 2nd Ed." by Mittlebach and Goosens, and
> "The LaTeX Grahics Companion, 2nd Ed." by Goosens, Mittlebach, Rahtz,
> Rogel, and Voss.

Hi Rich,

I think the above list costs a couple hundred bucks. For someone like you or 
me, whose career depends on LaTeX, that's no big deal, but the person just 
getting his or her feet wet might not want to take such a big plunge.

A few free Ebook classics like LaTeX2E by Lamport, "The Not So Short 
Introduction to LaTeX2E" by Oetiker, Partl, Hyna and Schlegl (especially 
good), can get one started until the committment to purchase books can be 
raised.

Once again, my experience is that learning TeX before learning LaTeX is a 
*must*. TeX is easy to learn, and once the learner knows TeX, LaTeX will make 
much more sense.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Books written in LyX:
Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting: Just the Facts

Re: WRB - More Observations

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 27 March 2008 05:00, William R. Buckley wrote:
> > -Original Message-
> > From: James Sutherland [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

> > A good LaTeX resource is helpful for a serious LyX user.  For
> > an under-bar, use \underline in math mode.  \overline gives
> > an over-bar.
>
> Looking for all such information.  Can't really afford to buy the book by
> Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I

Knuth wrote about TeX, not LaTeX. If you want excellent free information on 
TeX, read "TeX for the Impatient". It's an excellent free Ebook. It changed 
my life.

To learn the relationships and distinctions between TeX, LaTeX and LyX, go 
here:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Books written in LyX:
Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting: Just the Facts

Re: WRB - More Observations

[Uwe Stöhr]

I do not seem to be able to find means to cause a single
overscore bar to span more than one character.  For
instance, I would like to represent the regular expression
1(01)*  in the form reminiscent of the mathematical mark
of repetition.


How this can be done is explained in the math manual that comes with LyX 1.5.4.


It is possible for me to select a stretch of text, and to
assign some kind of special character, such as italic,
bold, etc.  Why can I not also add the character of
underline, overscore, strike-through?


I don't want to be impolits, but William, please read the Tutorial and have a look at the User's 
Guide before proceeding. Most of your qestions are answered there.


regards Uwe

Re: WRB - More Observations

[rgheck]

William R. Buckley wrote:
A good LaTeX resource is helpful for a serious LyX user.  For 
an under-bar, use \underline in math mode.  \overline gives 
an over-bar.



Looking for all such information.  Can't really afford to buy the book by
Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I
guess I have to find alternative means to acquire the *knowledge of
minutia* that seems concomitant with TeXspeak and TeXpublishing.

  

You don't really need to read the TeX book, though there is this:
ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/info/impatient/book.pdf
and
http://www.eijkhout.net/tbt/
and
http://www.ctan.org/get/info/gentle/gentle.pdf
and
http://makingtexwork.sourceforge.net/mtw/
LaTeX is really what you want, and there you have:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/latex/ltx-tar.html
and all of this:
http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/
including:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf
and maybe especially this:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/info/latex4wp/latex4wp.pdf
and, if you do what I do,
http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/teaching_staff/Smith/LaTeX/
And at least on my system, /usr/share/texmf/doc/ is just FILLED with 
information, all of it indexed at

/usr/share/texmf/doc/helpindex.html
on my system, again. You probably have something similar. But if you get 
serious about LaTeX, then you really will want to find a way to get 
ahold of the /Guide to LaTeX/ and /The LaTeX Companion/.


rh

RE: WRB - More Observations

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:


Looking for all such information. Can't really afford to buy the book by
Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I guess
I have to find alternative means to acquire the *knowledge of minutia*
that seems concomitant with TeXspeak and TeXpublishing.


  I just bought a copy of the TeXbook via amazon. Very low price.

  Regardless, a functional desk holds: "Guide to LaTeX, 4th Ed." by Kopka
and Daly, "The LaTeX Companion, 2nd Ed." by Mittlebach and Goosens, and "The
LaTeX Grahics Companion, 2nd Ed." by Goosens, Mittlebach, Rahtz, Rogel, and
Voss.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - More Observations

[James Sutherland]

>> A good LaTeX resource is helpful for a serious LyX user.  For
>> an under-bar, use \underline in math mode.  \overline gives
>> an over-bar.
> 
> Looking for all such information.  Can't really afford to buy the book by
> Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I
> guess I have to find alternative means to acquire the *knowledge of
> minutia* that seems concomitant with TeXspeak and TeXpublishing.
> 
> I appreciate receiving these gems.
> 

There are many web resources as well.  For example, if you type "latex math
tips" into google, you will get many resources that may be helpful.

>>> It is possible for me to select a stretch of text, and to
>> assign some 
>>> kind of special character, such as italic, bold, etc.  Why
>> can I not 
>>> also add the character of underline, overscore, strike-through?
>>  
>> See the "ab" button or "Edit->Text Style"
> 
> Thanks but, no cigar.  No overscore or strike-through by this method.
> At least, not on the Windows version of LyX.
> 

You can get underline from this method.  If you want underscore, try math
mode.  Within math mode you can insert plain text via \textrm or \mathrm
(which will automatically escape when you insert a space).  You can get
superscript/subscript easily this way.  I am not sure if this is what you
are looking for or not...

James

RE: WRB - More Observations

[William R. Buckley]

> -Original Message-
> From: James Sutherland [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 7:35 PM
> To: LyX User
> Subject: Re: WRB - More Observations
> 
> > I do not seem to be able to find means to cause a single 
> overscore bar 
> > to span more than one character.  For instance, I would like to 
> > represent the regular expression
> > 1(01)*  in the form reminiscent of the mathematical mark of 
> > repetition.  When I use 1\bar{01} the mark has width of one 
> character, 
> > and spans the space between zero and one, not the space from outer 
> > edges of both characters.
> 
> A good LaTeX resource is helpful for a serious LyX user.  For 
> an under-bar, use \underline in math mode.  \overline gives 
> an over-bar.

Looking for all such information.  Can't really afford to buy the book by
Knuth, and since he won't allow one to process the public source, I
guess I have to find alternative means to acquire the *knowledge of
minutia* that seems concomitant with TeXspeak and TeXpublishing.

I appreciate receiving these gems.

> > It is possible for me to select a stretch of text, and to 
> assign some 
> > kind of special character, such as italic, bold, etc.  Why 
> can I not 
> > also add the character of underline, overscore, strike-through?
>  
> See the "ab" button or "Edit->Text Style"

Thanks but, no cigar.  No overscore or strike-through by this method.
At least, not on the Windows version of LyX.

> > It is not always clear from the user interface when I 
> should use ERT, 
> > insert math directly, use TeX commands, and the like.  
> Experience will 
> > likely ease this uncertainty but, I wonder about finding 
> means to ease 
> > the utility of TeX and LaTeX knowledge, such as to zero.  
> Some things 
> > are already handled in this fashion, like emboldening text, or 
> > centering it.  My suspicion is that many more such knobs 
> can be added.  
> > The one knob of ERT, as desirable as it may be to forever 
> retain it, 
> > should be a mechanism of last resort; is this not a goal of 
> the team, 
> > that ERT be a last resort?
> 
> ERT is the nuclear option.  Use LyX constructs where possible 
> for more readable documents.  LyX's math mode is particularly 
> nice, and supports most any LaTeX math construct.
> 
> Also, see Document->Settings "Latex Preamble" for a spot 
> where you can include more LaTeX packages...
> 
> James
> 
> 

Re: WRB - More Observations

[James Sutherland]

> I do not seem to be able to find means to cause a single
> overscore bar to span more than one character.  For
> instance, I would like to represent the regular expression
> 1(01)*  in the form reminiscent of the mathematical mark
> of repetition.  When I use 1\bar{01} the mark has width of
> one character, and spans the space between zero and
> one, not the space from outer edges of both characters.

A good LaTeX resource is helpful for a serious LyX user.  For an under-bar,
use \underline in math mode.  \overline gives an over-bar.
> 
> It is possible for me to select a stretch of text, and to
> assign some kind of special character, such as italic,
> bold, etc.  Why can I not also add the character of
> underline, overscore, strike-through?
 
See the "ab" button or "Edit->Text Style"

> It is not always clear from the user interface when I should
> use ERT, insert math directly, use TeX commands, and
> the like.  Experience will likely ease this uncertainty but,
> I wonder about finding means to ease the utility of TeX and
> LaTeX knowledge, such as to zero.  Some things are
> already handled in this fashion, like emboldening text, or
> centering it.  My suspicion is that many more such knobs
> can be added.  The one knob of ERT, as desirable as it
> may be to forever retain it, should be a mechanism of last
> resort; is this not a goal of the team, that ERT be a last
> resort?

ERT is the nuclear option.  Use LyX constructs where possible for more
readable documents.  LyX's math mode is particularly nice, and supports most
any LaTeX math construct.

Also, see Document->Settings "Latex Preamble" for a spot where you can
include more LaTeX packages...

James