Questions tagged [knuth]
Donald E. Knuth, creator of TeX, Metafont and the Computer Modern fonts
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What is the picmac package useful for?
I recently found this package on CTAN by Don: https://ctan.org/pkg/picmac
But there does not seem to be any documentation online about it, could someone provide some minimal examples of it?
Apparently ...
user285558
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2
answers
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How to create a bibliography in plain TeX?
I know that you can use BibTeX using eplain and btxmac.tex but I am looking for a minimalist solution with at little code as possible.
I am almost tempted to do everything by hand (see Appendix B of ...
user272049
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Why did Donald Knuth create TeX?
I am aware of the basic history of TeX and LaTeX and Dr. Knuth's motivation for creating TeX. Mainly, he was disappointed with the quality of the galley proofs of the second edition of his book after ...
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Are Donald Knuth's music sheets written in TeX? [closed]
Donald Knuth composed a work for pipe organ “Fantasia Apocalyptica”
He has published the sheets on his website but I was wondering if they were typesetted using TEX or some other software (lilypond or ...
user227615
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1
answer
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Texlive's TeX vs Knuth's TeX
From texmf.cnf:
% But don't parse the first line if invoked as"tex", since we want that
% to remain Knuth-compatible. The src_specials and
% file_line_error_style settings, as well as the ...
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The hash function used by new_trie_op
In §944 of TeX, The Program (Volume B of Computers & Typesetting) DEK describes the hash function used by new_trie_op in order to store hyphenation tables efficiently.
Quoting him:
The hash ...
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What's new in TeX, version 3.141592653?
A new version of TeX has been released by Donald Knuth earlier this year (January/February 2021), and its version number is 3.141592653 now. What has changed since the previous release, version 3....
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Which significance does 100000000 have as overflow boundary in Pascal?
A recent conversation about bug-free software at work has lead to a discussion about TeX (which is considered virtually bug-free, while it might technically be false). Since TeX's source code is ...
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Is the DOC version of PTEX available anywhere?
At the beginning of TeX: The Program we find that
Preliminary plans to convert the SAIL code into a form
somewhat like the present "web" were developed by Luis Trabb-Pardo and
the author at the ...
- 950
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3
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Bo Derek in texbook.tex?
texbook.tex contains a double-dangerous-bend exercise which starts at line 18198 :
\ddangerexercise ^{Powers of ten}: The whole \TeX\ language has now been
summarized completely. To~demonstrate how ...
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Knuth's 5 volume TeXbook A,B,C,D and E
Can I freely download the Knuth's 5 volume set books COMPUTERS and TYPESETTING in pdf and the source of TeX and {\sf METAFONT} that these book contain and a compiler for the sources that would ...
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\indent and \noindent: details from Knuth's The TeXbook
On page 286 in Knuth's book he writes:
\noindent has no effect in horizontal mode.
On the contrary on the page 283 he writes :
This is exactly like \indent except that TeX starts out in ...
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Can TeX files from 1978 still be compiled today?
I recently happened to be looking at the history of TeX and notice that Knuth originally released it in 1978 (according to Wikipedia).
Are there TeX files around from this time? Can they still be ...
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Are Knuth's fonts searchable in pdf yet?
Donald Knuth at the Desktop Publishing Pioneers meeting laments that converting to pdf using his fonts yields pdf files without searchable text. Is this fixed yet?
https://youtu.be/WVRMPihnZZM?t=4363
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How can I replicate the style of the quotes in Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming"?
How can I replicate the style of the quotes in Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming"?
I mean the quotes found at the beginning and at the end of each chapter, for example see the following one ...
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Installation procedures of early TeX installations
First some background information.
The old distributions of TeX included two programs, initex and virtex.
Initex could create format files, and virtex could load them.
These older versions of TeX (...
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1
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What is the purpose of CM Funny?
I have never really seen any detailed discussion by TeX users on the subject of Computer Modern Funny, despite how strange it is. Personally, I find that even with its eccentricities, CM Funny and CM ...
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How does Donald Knuth tests new version of tex? [closed]
Donald Knuth mentions in the TeX: the program that he has used the pascal programming language described in the user manual of pascal by jensen and wirth in 1975 to implement TeX. My question is when ...
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original Tex book [duplicate]
Is there original TexBook by Knuth? Everything I've found surfing the Internet does not seem complete book, I want to learn pure plain-Tex, try it,compare its advantages and disadvantages with LaTex ...
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Where's an example of the bad typesetting that inspired TeX?
Where online can I see a side-by-side comparison of the "good" typesetting of a page of TAOCP that Knuth liked in 1968 versus the equivalent "bad" second edition from 1976 that Knuth hated and caused ...
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To what extent is the TeX typesetting/layout engine coupled to the macro system?
This is perhaps a soft question, and I realise it has a chance of being closed, but here we go...
I am currently getting to grips with the internals of Tex/Latex and have found the learning curve to ...
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Which language would Knuth use to (re-)write TeX today? [closed]
[ yes, this is "primarily opinion based;" VTC if you must ]
In Literate Programming Knuth wrote:
... I chose PASCAL as the programming language ... ; it is not my favorite language for system ...
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Translation of typefaces into METAFONT (in the case of AMS Euler and others)
TL;DR: Let me ask my questions first:
How was AMS Euler translated from Hermann Zapf's hand-drawn shapes into METAFONT? Has there been one into METAFONT's pen-strokes approach?
What are other ...
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3
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The "^'' glyph in the TeXBook
TeX, plain TeX, within the source of the Texbook of Don Knuth, there is use of ^ in different command sequences, and in text bites.
Is there a special meaning to ^ in TeX primitives, in plain TeX, ...
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1
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Reproducing formatting of MIX words/Text across multiple cells of a table
I'd like to reproduce the formatting of MIX words in Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming. There is good example of what is giving me problems on the 3rd image on this page:
https://stackoverflow....
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TeX: reasons to start tokens using backslash
I was wondering over the TeX programming language syntax. Is there a known reason why Knuth chose the backslash notation we all love and fear? It seams to me that most other contemporary languages (C, ...
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1
answer
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Differences of each version of TeXbook
I'm going to buy The TeXbook, and I have two alternatives for that:
buy an old version one in a discounted price
buy the newest version one in the fixed price
To be honest, I would like to save ...
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Is there a complete modern book which explains how a TeX parser works?
Hi I am reading 'The TEXbook' by Donald E. Knuth. But in my point of view is very didactic for people who want to learn TeX. Most of the pages contain exercises. But many things of how a TeX ...
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Escaping the escape character
In the TeXbook, Knuth asks:
Exercise 7.2
Can you imagine why the designer of plain TeX decided not to make \\ the control sequence for reverse slashes?
Is it something to do with the fact ...
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Was the Knuth-Plass line breaking output ever subjected to a blind experiment?
Have any blind trials been organized to test to which extent "the average reader" prefers paragraphs typeset by the Knuth-Plass algorithm (or more advanced variants) over those typeset using the ...
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Did Knuth actually design the Computer Modern font?
It seems from all the articles I read on the topic that Knuth actually designed the font from ground up. He's a celebrated computer scientist, but was he also a digital calligraphy genius? That's a ...
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How to follow the "Knuth license"
I want to use some of the code from manfnt.mf. Perhaps my situation is best summarized by this (draft) commit message (slightly edited to look okay when processed as markdown):
New file dbend.mf
...
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1
answer
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Is Knuth's *The TeXBook* complete?
Suppose I want to learn TeX. Then, is The TeXBook a complete source? Does it cover all relevant aspects of TeX? Or is there something worth learning about TeX which is not present there?
Does "TeX ...
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What's new in TeX, version 3.14159265?
The new Knuth TeX has been released in early this month, and its version number is 3.14159265 now. It can be downloaded here.
What's new in this release?
And a further-more question, where can one ...
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(La)TeX Logo - Where does it come from? [duplicate]
Being a big fan of "logo design" I was wondering where the (La)TeX logo comes
from.
I found Custom LaTeX logo explaining how to make my own (La)TeX like logo.
Since everything within (La)TeX seems ...
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2013, year of the TeX bugs report. Will pdfTeX, XeTeX, etc. be changed accordingly?
Barbara Beeton said (TUGboat vol. 34, pag. 4):
As noted on Don Knuth's TeX web pages,
www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/abcde.html,
he "intend[s] to check on purported bugs again
in the ...
- 1,958
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votes
3
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Electronic version of Knuth's "TeXbook"?
I have a printed copy of the TeXbook (from D.E. Knuth) at home. Now that I travel a lot, I don't want to take my library with me every time. Question:
Is there a legal way to obtain (=purchase) a PDF ...
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3
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$327.68 Knuth reward check
I know something about $327.68 Knuth reward check. However, I cannot find a comprehensive list of people rewarded for finding errors in TeX. I do know, that among them is Bogusław Jackowski (Twice, ...
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Layout of Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" in LaTeX [duplicate]
Just for fun, I want to write something in the same layout as The Art of Computer Programming by D.E. Knuth. Does anybody know how to get this layout with LaTeX?
[EDIT] I am interested in the full ...
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An old italian translation of The TeXbook
DEK once said (TUGboat Volume 13 (1992), No. 4, page 423):
The TeXbook has been translated not only into Japanese, but also into Italian (though not yet published in Italian).
The people who did the ...
- 1,958
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The TeXbook: Spiral or hard-cover binding?
I would like to purchase Donald Knuth's TeXbook, and I have noticed that there are two versions available. One is a spiral-bound edition, usually sold by itself. The other is a hard-cover edition, ...
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What is the meaning of moved letters on LaTeX logo?
I read many years ago about the meaning of TeX, coming from Greek letters, etc... Also I found many posts here related to the right way to write TeX, LaTeX and so on when it is not possible to use the ...
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Style used for Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Typesetting algorithms in LaTeX like Knuth
Does anyone know if there is a style that mimics Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming? Baring that, would anyone know how to ...
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A famous TeX error message [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed - what exactly does this mean?
This question was inspired by this thread.
D. Knuth list this error message in TB:
If you have ...
- 1,958
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0
answers
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New Edition of TeXBook [closed]
Here I asked a question about moving from LaTeX to plain TeX and one of the recommendations was to look Knuth's TeXBook.
I was looking into this when I came across this update on Knuth's website, ...
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answer
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TeXbook headers
\documentclass[10pt,% % corpo del font principale
a4paper,% % carta A4
twoside,% % fronte-retro
%openright, %...
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1
answer
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Learning TeX via the TeXbook
As I most often am not able even to ask the right question, much lesser to understand answers, I have decided to read thoroughly Knuth's TeXbook. But on Appendix B--Control Sequences--I find ...
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What is the latest edition of Knuth's "Computers & Typesetting" Series? [closed]
I would like to buy Knuth's "millenium boxed set" of Computers & Typesetting, but I can't figure out if there is more than one edition. The "Computers & Typesetting" books were originally ...
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answer
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Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed - what exactly does this mean?
I admit that this post is purely idle curiosity. But I recently stumbled upon a little factoid saying that the TeX error "Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed" has the following explanation ...
- 181
47
votes
3
answers
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How on earth did Knuth do it?
Donald Knuth has written what are arguably the most beautiful books with the TeX system.
Now I understand that Knuth wrote them in plain TeX, and still uses plain TeX for his current projects. Which, ...
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