hi don & dirk (& everyone else too), thanks for the warm welcome and for the help, all of which was very useful. actually, I've noticed the non-ascii problem before, when I tried to structure the preamble and the body using tabs. it might well have been that there was one left in the body (maybe after a % ... does PMX mind?). also, I've noticed that removing basically all files except the .pmx file prior to compiling seems to be essential, at least if some change in the preamble has been made ... which is strange as I assumed, the .mx# files are reregenerated by musixflx each time ... apparently not.
anyway, asciifying and file-purging help with some problems, some questions remain. like for instance: one of the beautiful things about TeX is that you don't have to bother with the layout. it's done and usually, it's perfect, too. so I guess that MusiXTeX/PMX works the same way. still, being a jazz bassist, I worry about controlling the number of bars per system (we can only count to 4, you know). and in the simple piece I'm using to teach myself PMX, it, too, would make a lot of sense to have 4 bars per system since the music is structured that way. Now I've expanded the piece to 32 bars, and as far as I see there are only the parameters npages and nsystems given to control the layout. with 32 bars, the parameters 2 4 should give me 4 systems per page with 4 bars each, right? but if I use them, I get 2 pages with 2 systems of 8 bars at the top of each page, and a half empty page below that. on the other hand, if I use the parameters 0 4, I get exactly what I want: 4 systems of 4 bars nicely placed on 2 pages. ... I guess, for now I should just accept the mystery, but at some point I'd rather know why this happens. I'm working on it ... Ok, now I'm looking forward to typesetting! Thanks again, best, Rob On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:49 +0200, "Dirk Laurie" <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 10:39:53PM +0200, Don Simons wrote: > > > > I wonder if there are some stray non-ascii characters embedded in your > > original source. That could confuse PMX. > > > I've encountered this. It's usually a null character or tab, or some > relic from a different system's end-of-line mechanism. Zipping the file > and unzipping it in acommand shell with unzip's -a option often > fixes the problem. And/or requesting one's editor to expand all tabs > into spaces. > > Dirk On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:39 -0700, "Don Simons" <[email protected]> wrote: > Rob, welcome to the PMX/MusiXTeX club! > > Your description doesn't match anything I've ever seen or heard of. > > The only problem I had with your source was caused by the last two lines > having unfolded into a single line (which I've also never seen happen > before). When I folded it back so there was just one "/" on each line, it > compiled just fine. Since you only entered 6 bars, it came out with 2 > systems of 3 bars each. > > I wonder if there are some stray non-ascii characters embedded in your > original source. That could confuse PMX. > > Did you run > > pmx > tex > musixflx > tex > dvips > > in sequence? Did you delete *.mx? before each new compilation attempt? > The > most common beginner's error is not to run musixflx and the second tex > pass, > but with your source this would have led to two systems only, with > everything on each system squeezed together to the left. > > --Don > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: [email protected] > >[mailto:[email protected]] > >On Behalf Of Robert Schmaus > >Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 1:08 PM > >To: [email protected] > >Subject: [TeX-Music] problem with bar spacing > > > >hi everyone, > > > >I'm just starting to use MusiXTeX & PMX, so my question might appear > >rather silly to the pros. but it drives me nuts. > >anyway, here it is: I'm typesetting some sample bars in pmx, and after > >compiling it (pmxab, tex, musixflx, tex) the spacing looks just > >horrible. each first bar in a line stretches the whole width of the > >page, and there are still 3 bars to the right of that. > >this doesn't happen with the example given in the PMX documentation, so > >it's not a software problem. but I don't see what I'm missing here ... > > > >who can help me? my intention was to have 4 bars per line. the PMX code > >is pasted below. > > > >thanks a lot! > >rob > > > > > > > >% Arvo P‰rt, "Spiegel im Spiegel" > >% > >% PREAMBLE: > >% nstaves ninstr > > 3 -2 2 1 > >% mtrnuml mtrdenl mtrnump mtrdenp > > 6 8 6 8 > >% npickup nkeys > > 0 -1 > >% npages nsystems musicsize fracindent > > 0 4 16 .08 > >Piano > >Bass > >btb > >.\ > >Tc > >Arvo P\"art > >Tt > >Spiegel im Spiegel > >% > >% Bar 1 > >% > >r2d / > >c85 f a c85 f a / > >r2d / > >% > >% Bar 2 > >% > >f22d / > >c85 f a c85 f a / > >r2d / > >% > >% Bar 3 > >% > >f22d / > >c85 f a c85 f a / > >r2d / > >% > >% Bar 4-6 > >% > >r2d f22d f22d / > >c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a / > >r2d r2d r2d / > > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >[email protected] mailing list > >If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to > >http://mailman.nfit.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/icking-music-archive.org-tex- > >music > > _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to http://mailman.nfit.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/icking-music-archive.org-tex-music
