What is the most comprehensive electronic documentation on LaTeX ?
Timothy Madden
The electronic manuals in HTML that I could find on a number of
sites are missing a lot of information in my opinion. I mean I
have trouble writteing a complete technical book useing only
that list of LaTeX commands and envirionments.
Where is the real electronic documentation ?
Matej Cepl
> Where is the real electronic documentation ?
Not so short introduction to LaTeX2e (lshort*.dvi) and latex info/.hlp
should be part of every TeX distribution.
Matej
--
Matej Cepl,
GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB 25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC
138 Highland Ave. #10, Somerville, Ma 02143, (617) 623-1488
Walter Schmidt
>
> It seems the best two LaTeX manuals exist only in print.
This is correct. There is no comprehensive electronic
manual. For instance, there is no really comprehensive
on-line counterpart to Lamport's LaTeX book.
--
Walter
Timothy Madden
Does this means the people really using LaTeX have the books ?
Lars Madsen
Timothy Madden wrote:
> Thank you Walter.
> Does this means the people really using LaTeX have the books ?
some have some don't. I personally don't own the books but have access
to them at work.
As a starter look at the urls below. And when one get started using
LaTeX it's always a godd idea to have a look in the documention/manual
for the package one just recently started using.
--
/daleif (remove RTFSIGNATURE from email address)
LaTeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
AMSMATH Intro: http://www.ams.org/tex/short-math-guide.html
LaTeX Intro: http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/lshort/lshort.pdf
Graphics Intro: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/epslatex.pdf
Remember to post minimal examples.
Ron Bean
Timothy Madden <tou...@boxfrog.com> writes:
>It seems the best two LaTeX manuals exist only in print.
>The electronic manuals in HTML that I could find on a number of
>sites are missing a lot of information in my opinion.
I bought several books, but the only one I'd call indespensible
is the LaTeX Companion. I'd be very confused if I didn't have it.
Even that book glosses over a few things, but I was able to piece
together what I needed.
There is some information in chapter 2 of the Latex Web Companion
that IMHO should be added to the documentation that comes with
hyperref. The rest of the book seems to be about XML, but I was
glad to have that one chapter.
I would recommend to anyone who wants to install fonts that they
should read fontinst.pdf *before* reading anything else on the
subject (unfortunately I found all the *other* documentation
first). The notes from the talk at EuroTeX99 were also helpful.
In the TeXLive distribution these are in:
...\texmf\doc\fontinst\base\fontinst.pdf
and:
...\texmf\doc\fontinst\talks\et99-font-tutorial.pdf
(sorry about the backslashes, I'm running it on a Windows box).
Overall the documentation for LaTex reminds me of the
documentation for Linux-- a lot of it leaves out some bit of
information that you have to track down somewhere else, because
the author just assumed that you already knew it. Eventually you
find the missing bit, and the puzzle starts to fall into place.
Roodw...@core.com
Here are the three I've found the best:
--The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e. (This is probably the best to
start with.)
--A Simplified Introduction to LaTeX. (This one is slightly old and some
things don't work, but most do. Covers a few things better than Not So
Short.)
--Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX2e. (Again slightly old but an exhaustive
description of various things that LaTeX can do with the graphicx package.
The average user can skip a good share of the sections.)
But I'm far from the expert level of many of the people in this group. If
you want to become an expert, you'll need the printed books. Real books are
always better anyway.
--Rod
--
Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answers for Practical Consumers"
and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." Both are available at
http://www.rodwriterpublishing.com/index.html
To reply by e-mail, take the extra "o" out of my e-mail address. It's to
confuse spambots, of course.
Matthew Low
> Does this means the people really using LaTeX have the books ?
Nope, but they do come in handy when you are writing LaTeX input on a
computer without electronic documentation. In other words, you'll have the
reference wherever you go (instead of having to rely on your
computer/workstation having pdf/dvi support).
Timothy Madden
I'm very sorry to find out that a really good program like
LaTeX is missing serious electronic documentation.
I understand now why it is not as popular as it should be
Not everyone trying to learn a new programme is willing to
by a book, not to mention I don't think there is one translated
and printed in my country (which is Romania).
I thnk if the books would also exist in .pdf LaTeX would be
a well-known program like Java, Oracle, AutoCAD or C Builder
:(
Timothy Madden
Timothy Madden <tou...@boxfrog.com> wrote in
news:Xns939FCBC0...@130.133.1.4:
David Kastrup
> I'm very sorry to find out that a really good program like
> LaTeX is missing serious electronic documentation.
>
> I understand now why it is not as popular as it should be
> Not everyone trying to learn a new programme is willing to
> by a book, not to mention I don't think there is one translated
> and printed in my country (which is Romania).
>
> I thnk if the books would also exist in .pdf LaTeX would be
> a well-known program like Java, Oracle, AutoCAD or C Builder
If you manage to buy a licence of Oracle or AutoCAD for less money
than a LaTeX book, you have my admiration.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
UKTUG FAQ: <URL:http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html>
William F. Adams
>I'm very sorry to find out that a really good program like
>LaTeX is missing serious electronic documentation.
You've not stated specifically what you've found thus far---there're literally
_reams_ of printable files documenting (La)TeX, and it's hard to believe that
one could expect something more serious than the typeset LaTeX sourcecode
itself. (source2e.dvi/pdf --- should be able to find it w/ Google, or compile
it yourself)
>I understand now why it is not as popular as it should be
>Not everyone trying to learn a new programme is willing to
>by a book, not to mention I don't think there is one translated
>and printed in my country (which is Romania).
If there isn't one, I'm sure that the CTAN folks would welcome a Romanian
translation of Oetiker's _Not So Short..._
>I thnk if the books would also exist in .pdf LaTeX would be
>a well-known program like Java, Oracle, AutoCAD or C Builder
Of these, I think only Java has available source?
I've begun working on a list of typography-related documents, my initial (and
thus far only :( page lists a number of TeX documents:
http://members.aol.com/willadams/books-free-type.html
www.tug.org list a number of others as well, and of course there's a lot of
CTAN, as well as some quite useful documents at www.latex-project.org (esp.
Latex2e for Authors,
http://www.latex-project.org/guides/usrguide/usrguide.html).
A more recent document which you may've missed is Peter Flynn's, _Beginner's
Latex_, http://silmaril.ie/downloads/documents/beginlatex.pdf --- I'm not that
thrilled w/ the aesthetics of it, but the information in it is quite good.
Although I mention it in my web page above, Peter Wilson's Memoir documentation
is quite good, and one can typeset its source as well....
Of all the docs which're available, there is one sort which I've been surprised
not to've found, and've recently been wondering if there mightn't be some way
to automagically generate it as a part of the docstrip functionality, to wit, a
comprehensive documented latex document template. Ideally it'd cover all
possible options, w/ comments, and w/ a URL / citation for further
documentation, also all possible parameters / formatting macros / lengths....
Imagine something which begins something like:
%(isn't there some sort of default initial comment line
%to help certain TeX scripts determine which format to use? that should go
here, no?)
%
%Latex2e
%see http://www.latex-project.org for more information on Latex2e and its
successor
%
%Normal Latex documents begin with a declaratin of their ``documentclass''
%which sets up basic formatting and macros and templates
%
\documentclass{memoir}
%Peter Wilson's Memoir class is for flexible, configurable typesetting
%of books and book-like documents
%complete documentation and source available from www.ctan.org
%(additional options for memoir should be listed here...)
%
%The default font for typical Latex documents and most documentclasses is
%Donald Knuth's Computer Modern
%(see the appropriate volume of Computers & Typesetting or the CM sample
document)
%To use a different font, one loads a package (if available)
%or installs it using fontinst and related tools (see the fontinst directory
and Philipp Lehman's tutorial both on CTAN)
%Latex has four basic font sets which are used in documents:
%roman (used for most text and many headings)
%sans serif (used for captions and special purposes)
%typewriter (used for computer code &c.)
%formulas / math (used for equations)
%
%For example, to load Times, and set up a variety of math fonts which match it
use the line:
\usepackage{mathptmx}
%Other such packages include:
%mathpazo - loads Palatino, and Palatino-like math fonts
%helvet - sets up Helvetica as the sans serif font
%avant - sets up Avant Garde as the sans serif font
%avantgar - sets up Avant Garde as the roman font (from the dept. of
inconsistency dept.)
%courier - sets up Courier as the typewriter font
%chancery - sets up Zapf Chancery as the roman font
%bookman - sets up Bookman for roman, Avant Garde for sans and Courier for
typewriter
%newcent - like above, but uses New Century Schoolbook for roman
%utopia - sets up Utopia for roman
%charter - sets up Matthew Carter's Charter font for roman
%see Walter Schmidt's _Using common PostScript fonts with LaTeX_
%
%pslatex - sets up Adobe Type 1 fonts for everything (Times for roman,
Helvetica for sans, Courier for typewriter, Symbol for math?!?)
%is that correct? Where's it documented? Is it out-of-date?
%euler - sets up Hermann Zapf's Euler font for mathematics --- wants a heavier
font for text though, consider Charter (described above)
%described in _The euler package_ by Frank Jensen, also David Siegel's report
on the Euler project
%concrete - sets up a slab serif variant of Computer Modern for roman (is this
available in Type 1?)
%where's a good doc for it?
%
%input encoding should definitely get a mention
%
%as should font encoding, babel, &c.
%
%To access especial characters see Scott Pakin's
%_The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List_
%available from CTAN
%
%(lots of other options / packages discussed here, also things like all the
lengths for formatting (e.g., \mathindent) default macro defs...)
&c. &c. but that's as far as I can get off the top of my head w/o going
upstairs for more caffeine ;)
William
--
William Adams
http://members.aol.com/willadams
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Rowland McDonnell
> Thank you Walter.
> Does this means the people really using LaTeX have the books ?
Quite a lot do (me for one), although I suspect that some of the LaTeX
magicians out there get by simply reading the source (or maybe even the
format file direcly in some of the more eldritch cases).
It's free software after all - buying a book or two is no great
hardship, especially since it seems that even fully priced commercial
software tends to need a third party manual these days.
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
PGP pub key 0x62DCCA78 Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org
UK biker? Join MAG and help keep bureaucracy at bay
Ying-Chieh Liao
> A more recent document which you may've missed is Peter Flynn's, _Beginner's
> Latex_, http://silmaril.ie/downloads/documents/beginlatex.pdf --- I'm not that
> thrilled w/ the aesthetics of it, but the information in it is quite good.
JFYI, it moved to
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf
--
Pi seconds is a nanocentury.
--- Tom Duff
Lucian Wischik
>Does this means the people really using LaTeX have the books ?
I bought the "Latex Companion" and it didn't help me at all. I also
think it's a poorly-presented book. I learnt everything from (1) the
HTML latex guide which everyone here disparages, (2) asking questions
on this newsgroup.
--
Lucian
Donald Arseneau
> I bought the "Latex Companion" and it didn't help me at all.
It wouldn't. It is the *companion* to your primary LaTeX manual.
It is *not* the manual itself.
Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca
Ben Crowell
> I've begun working on a list of typography-related documents, my initial
> (and thus far only :( page lists a number of TeX documents:
> http://members.aol.com/willadams/books-free-type.html
I run a web site called The Assayer that catalogs free books and accepts
user-submitted book reviews. Quite a few free TeX and LaTeX books are
listed in the science, math, and computing section:
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbrowsesubject.cgi?class=Q
I'd be very glad to get reviews of any of the following TeX-related books:
Formatting Information
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=534
Making TeX Work
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=526
METAFONTbook, The
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=283
Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, The
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=155
TeX by Topic, A TeXnician's Reference
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=311
TeXBook, The
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=282
Thinking in PostScript
http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=454
To submit a review, you just need to become a member of The Assayer, and
then fill in your review in a form on the site.
BTW, William Adams's site says "may not be processed without permission" in
the METAFONTbook and the TeXBook. Can anyone explain what this really
means? What use is it if you can't typeset it in order to read it?
Lee Rudolph
>BTW, William Adams's site says "may not be processed without permission" in
>the METAFONTbook and the TeXBook. Can anyone explain what this really
>means? What use is it if you can't typeset it in order to read it?
It really means you are expected to buy copies of the printed books
(which are kept in print, and readily availably) in order to read
them. The *use* of having the source code for the books available
is to let you see how TeX (and, I suppose, METAFONT) is used (or
was used, by Knuth) to accomplish specific ends (instantiated in
those books).
At least, that's my understanding of the situation, and it doesn't
seem outlandish to me, so I'll stick to it unless someone with
actual knowledge corrects me.
Lee Rudolph
Ben Crowell
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/knuth/tex/ ,
here's what it says:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The files in this directory are master files maintained personally by
Donald E. Knuth. Nobody else is authorized to make any changes whatever
to them! If you modify the files for any purpose, you must give your
files a different name, so that installations of TeX throughout the world
will be 100% compatible when they use the official source files.
Please help preserve the integrity of TeX by reporting any violations of
these rules to the TeX User Group.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I wonder where the "may not be processed without permission" thing even
comes from? Is it just an urban folktale?
> It really means you are expected to buy copies of the printed books
> (which are kept in print, and readily availably) in order to read
> them.
Well, "may not be processed without permission" would be even more strict
than that. It would mean that, for example, you couldn't learn about how
the code worked by tinkering with it yourself and seeing the effects of the
changes -- even if the result wasn't going to be something you'd actually
sit down and read. It would also seem to prohibit, say, Han The Thanh from
using the TeXBook sources as a test suite for pdftex.
If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder if
it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a printed
copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile them, and
make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL), this is
exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that I own,
which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use. Copyright law
isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are various
exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the doctrine
of first sale.
Frank Mittelbach
no it is not. the top of texbook.tex goes like this:
% This manual is copyright (C) 1984 by the American Mathematical Society.
% All rights are reserved!
% The file is distributed only for people to see its examples of TeX input,
% not for use in the preparation of books like The TeXbook.
% Permission for any other use of this file must be obtained in writing
% from the copyright holder and also from the publisher (Addison-Wesley).
\loop\iftrue
\errmessage{This manual is copyrighted and should not be TeXed}\repeat
>> It really means you are expected to buy copies of the printed books
>> (which are kept in print, and readily availably) in order to read
>> them.
> Well, "may not be processed without permission" would be even more strict
> than that. It would mean that, for example, you couldn't learn about how
> the code worked by tinkering with it yourself and seeing the effects of
> the changes -- even if the result wasn't going to be something you'd
> actually sit down and read. It would also seem to prohibit, say, Han The
> Thanh from using the TeXBook sources as a test suite for pdftex.
it would and he had the permission as far as i know.
>
> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder
> if it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a
> printed copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile
> them, and make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL),
> this is exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that I
> own, which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use. Copyright
> law isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are various
> exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the doctrine
> of first sale.
i'm sure that if you pay enough to a laywer he might suggest way but it is
not intended and if there would be pdf files starting to circulate I think
it would just mean that honnesty within the TeX world isn't worth a dime
either.
frank
Ben Crowell
>> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder
>> if it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a
>> printed copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile
>> them, and make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL),
>> this is exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that
>> I own, which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use.
>> Copyright law isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are
>> various exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the
>> doctrine of first sale.
>
> i'm sure that if you pay enough to a laywer he might suggest way but it is
> not intended and if there would be pdf files starting to circulate I think
> it would just mean that honnesty within the TeX world isn't worth a dime
> either.
nothing dishonest about exercising one's personal use, fair use, and
first-sale rights.
There is a broader issue here. Software, book, and music publishers want to
put an end to the whole idea of having control over your own
general-purpose computer. They want to make a world where the information
on your own computer is not yours to control, even for perfectly legal
personal use.
It's also silly and not legal to bury this restriction inside the source
code. That's what's known as a contract of adhesion. If someone gives me a
copy of a printed book, it's not legal to have a notice buried on page 137
saying, "By opening this book, you have agreed to let me come to your
house, drink your liquor, and have sex with your daughters."
Ben Crowell
>> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder
>> if it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a
>> printed copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile
>> them, and make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL),
>> this is exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that
>> I own, which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use.
>> Copyright law isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are
>> various exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the
>> doctrine of first sale.
>
> not intended and if there would be pdf files starting to circulate I think
> it would just mean that honnesty within the TeX world isn't worth a dime
> either.
Distributing PDF files of the books isn't what I was discussing. There's
first-sale rights --- if there were, then the world would be full of
criminal librarians, criminal teachers, and criminal journalists.
William F. Adams
>It's also silly and not legal to bury this restriction inside the source
>code.
It's stated fairly prominently and up-front in most (if not all) links to it
which I'm aware of, and it also pops up quite prominently as soon as one
attempts to process it, so what's the huhu?
>That's what's known as a contract of adhesion. If someone gives me a
>copy of a printed book, it's not legal to have a notice buried on page 137
>saying, <snip> lurid example
But it's not on pg. 137, it's right at the beginning of the file---this is more
like a book w/ a bound in CD-ROM or floppy w/ copyrighted material. I actually
have a couple of books where the license on the CD was irritating enough I
never bothered to pry it out...
For my part, I can't see why anyone would be interested in processing
texbook.tex beyond the intended purpose of timing a TeX implementation---you
don't get any of the figures, and the book's formatting isn't suited for
reading on-screen, and the paperback version is available inexpensively enough
it'd compete quite easily w/ the expense / time / effort of printing and
binding the text.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> For my part, I can't see why anyone would be interested in processing
> texbook.tex beyond the intended purpose of timing a TeX implementation---you
> don't get any of the figures, and the book's formatting isn't suited for
> reading on-screen, and the paperback version is available inexpensively enough
> it'd compete quite easily w/ the expense / time / effort of printing and
> binding the text.
If you're an impoverished, amoral, and contrary student (aren't they
all?) with access to (effectively) free printing and a library copy of
The TeXbook, it's dead handy as a reference work. I bought my copy I'll
have you know, but I do know one chap who found a printed copy of
texbook.tex very useful indeed.
Rowland McDonnell
> Lucian Wischik <lu...@wischik.com> writes:
>
> > I bought the "Latex Companion" and it didn't help me at all.
>
> It wouldn't. It is the *companion* to your primary LaTeX manual.
> It is *not* the manual itself.
I've got Lamport's LaTeX book and the TeXbook. I got the LaTeX
Companion out of the library - and it didn't help me much.
Rowland McDonnell
> Frank Mittelbach wrote:
> >> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder
> >> if it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a
> >> printed copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile
> >> them, and make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL),
> >> this is exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that
> >> I own, which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use.
> >> Copyright law isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are
> >> various exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the
> >> doctrine of first sale.
Yes, but when you buy a copy of the book you do not buy any rights at
all over the material used to produce that book - and in the case of The
TeXbook, this includes the TeX source code. Would you expect free
access to printing plates? Imagesetter film? Quark Xpress files for a
`normal' book? Of course not - you have no *right* to access such
material when you buy printed matter. And you are only permitted to
access Knuth's copyright material under terms *he* sets (within the
wider legal framework, of course).
[snip]
> There is a broader issue here. Software, book, and music publishers want to
> put an end to the whole idea of having control over your own
> general-purpose computer. They want to make a world where the information
> on your own computer is not yours to control, even for perfectly legal
> personal use.
Umm. No, Knuth was being extraordinarily generous in allowing us
entirely cost free access to the *source* for the book, which contains
information (the TeX code to create the book) which you do *NOT* buy
access to when you buy a printed copy of The TeXbook.
> It's also silly and not legal to bury this restriction inside the source
> code. That's what's known as a contract of adhesion. If someone gives me a
> copy of a printed book, it's not legal to have a notice buried on page 137
> saying, "By opening this book, you have agreed to let me come to your
> house, drink your liquor, and have sex with your daughters."
It's nothing like that at all. It's the standard practice of a
copyright owner stating the terms under which you are allowed to use his
work, within the wider legal framework. It only applies to your use of
his copyright property.
Now then, contracts must be entered into before handing over any money
or otherwise exchanging considerations or whatever it is. Are you
handing over any money or anything like that when you download The
TeXbook source? Nope. What you're doing is *making a copy of copyright
material without asking the copyright holder if it's okay for you to do
so first*. Oooh! *You* are doing something which is in general
illegal! - it's your responsibility to check if it's okay in this
special case. And in practice, that means reading the contents of the
file when you've got it. You'll probably find that there's a notice on
the server somewhere saying that you're only allowed to download stuff
if you agree to stick to the law too - which means you've been *told*
you need to check copyright matters so you've no excuse at all.
You might not like it, but there it is. My personal main objection to
copyright is that it lasts *far* too long - it's supposed to be there to
encourage the authors and suchlike, not provide 70 years of revenue
protection beyond the author's death purely for the benefit large firms.
Rowland McDonnell
> I'm very sorry to find out that a really good program like
> LaTeX is missing serious electronic documentation.
>
> I understand now why it is not as popular as it should be
> Not everyone trying to learn a new programme is willing to
> by a book,
Fair enough. You don't have to - free documenation exists in many
languages, and help via the 'net is readily available. If that combined
with any local support isn't enough and you want to learn more about
LaTeX - well, you'll buy a book then. And why not? The price of a
manual is low compared to that of commercial software.
And don't forget, of course, that pretty much everyone in Europe at
least has access to a library - and libraries are cunning inventions
which will often lend you books without you having to buy them.
> not to mention I don't think there is one translated
> and printed in my country (which is Romania).
lshort has been translated into quite a lot of languages. Multilingual
support in the LaTeX world is astonishingly good, especially since it's
all provided free.
But if you don't like the situation - well, why not change it? If
there's a market for a Romanian LaTeX manual, why don't you approach
(say) Addison-Wesley with some evidence of this market and see if they
think it's economical to do a translation of Lamport's LaTeX book. If
they think not, you might consider approaching a translator yourself and
see how much they'd charge for the job - if that's significantly less
than Addison-Wesley thought they could get the job done for and doing
things that way fits in with Addison-Wesley's way of doing business,
that might make the job economically viable. You never know. Are you
capable of doing the translation yourself, perhaps?
(btw, Timothy Madden? Romanian? Have I missed something?)
> I thnk if the books would also exist in .pdf LaTeX would be
> a well-known program like Java, Oracle, AutoCAD or C Builder
[snip]
<baffled> Whatever makes you think that LaTeX *isn't* that well-known?
Raymond Wan
On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, Ben Crowell wrote:
...
> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder if
> it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a printed
> copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile them, and
> make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL), this is
> exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that I own,
> which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use. Copyright law
> isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are various
> exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the doctrine
> of first sale.
From reading this, it looks like you've been somewhat misinformed
about copyright. When you buy a book, that's all you've purchased...you
haven't bought the rights to make copies. It's illegal to make copies,
even if it's "for my own use". While copyright laws do have exceptions
and restrictions, once you read them, you'll note that they're quite
explicit (though may vary from country to country). For example, in
Australia, you can copy an article out of a journal, but for an entire
book, you may copy at most 10% of the pages or a chapter -- and these two
circumstances only for study purposes. For Australia anyway, the 447
pages of the Copyright Act are at:
http://www.copyright.com.au/CopyrightAct.pdf
The existence of a photocopying machine in the library does not
give you a blank cheque to photocopy anything there. It's no different
from the MP3 technology, which is perfectly legal, but using it to copy
commerical CDs is illegal. And most people are surprised that recording
that tv show that you're going to miss tonight is technically illegal,
too. If you don't believe me, try reading the last paragraphs at the end
of the credits. :-)
Ray
oups
<bcrowell...@yahoo.com> a écrit :
>It's also silly and not legal to bury this restriction inside the source
>code. That's what's known as a contract of adhesion. If someone gives me a
>copy of a printed book, it's not legal to have a notice buried on page 137
>saying, "By opening this book, you have agreed to let me come to your
>house, drink your liquor, and have sex with your daughters."
depends,
how looks ur daughters like ;)
just kidding ;p
--
oups
William F Hammond
> William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote:
> > A more recent document which you may've missed is Peter Flynn's,
> > _Beginner's Latex_,
> > http://silmaril.ie/downloads/documents/beginlatex.pdf --- I'm not
> > that thrilled w/ the aesthetics of it, but the information in it
> > is quite good.
>
> JFYI, it moved to
> http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf
Aha -- with the source!
An excellent example of how to produce both first rate PDF and first
rate HTML from a single XML (customized DocBook) source document.
-- Bill
Ron Bean
Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> writes:
> From reading this, it looks like you've been somewhat misinformed
>about copyright. When you buy a book, that's all you've purchased...you
>haven't bought the rights to make copies. It's illegal to make copies,
>even if it's "for my own use". While copyright laws do have exceptions
Traditionally, it has been acceptable for a student to *hand copy*
any amount of material, up to and including entire books, for
educational purposes (people have actually done this with rare
books). Some people want to extrapolate this to photocopying, but
legally that's probably cheating...
In any case, that's what used bookstores are for (www.abebooks.com).
Timothy Madden
news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
>
> Fair enough. You don't have to - free documenation exists in many
> languages, and help via the 'net is readily available. If that combined
> with any local support isn't enough and you want to learn more about
> LaTeX - well, you'll buy a book then. And why not? The price of a
> manual is low compared to that of commercial software.
From my experience "the real stuff" is allways found within electronic
documents. I understand that since a book is intended to be accessible to
as many people as possible. The advanced stuff is allways within a file,
since electronic documents are not necesarily meant to be read by as many
people as posible, but are meant to include the necessary information.
> And don't forget, of course, that pretty much everyone in Europe at
> least has access to a library - and libraries are cunning inventions
> which will often lend you books without you having to buy them.
Searching a library is a very good idea, but I still expect to find much
more info on the net.
>
> lshort has been translated into quite a lot of languages. Multilingual
> support in the LaTeX world is astonishingly good, especially since it's
> all provided free.
Yes it is. I was pleasently surprised to notice this by myself.
>
> But if you don't like the situation - well, why not change it? If
> there's a market for a Romanian LaTeX manual, why don't you approach
> (say) Addison-Wesley with some evidence of this market and see if they
> think it's economical to do a translation of Lamport's LaTeX book. If
> they think not, you might consider approaching a translator yourself and
> see how much they'd charge for the job - if that's significantly less
> than Addison-Wesley thought they could get the job done for and doing
> things that way fits in with Addison-Wesley's way of doing business,
> that might make the job economically viable. You never know. Are you
> capable of doing the translation yourself, perhaps?
I am capable of doing the translation, but I don't think there is a market
in Romania for a LaTeX manual, and I don't have the book.
>
> (btw, Timothy Madden? Romanian? Have I missed something?)
No, it's not my real name. Using powerfull computers and the internet it's
very easy to record information about all people from the planet
automaticaly (spyware applications already exist). And in this world there
*are* people willing to do so and which have access to the necessary
financial resourses. Btw Microsoft has invented the Microsoft passport wich
I heard they plan to ask each of their clients (and more) to have one.
> <baffled> Whatever makes you think that LaTeX *isn't* that well-known?
I use to type hand-written papers for students in my University (in
exchange of money) so that they can print them and prezent them to
professors. When I try to tell them I use LaTeX and will submit them .pdf
files they often don't know what LaTeX is or they ask me why and why I
don't use Microsot Word (it seems I can not get rid of this word Microsoft.
It's everywhere.)
Timothy Madden
Roodw...@core.com
> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
> news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
>
I didn't hear about it until about the seventh year I was on Windows. And
then only by accident. Of all the people I've talked to about it, and
that's a lot, only one had heard of it. He's a network guy.
The problem is there are no big corporations taking out glossy magazine
advertisements. They have nothing to sell.
It's too bad. I think if word processors had adopted LaTeX as a file format
way back when that we'd be much better off today. Consumers would have more
choices--word processors would be competing on features, not by holding
your data hostage--and the source files would be readable forever.
Brooks Moses
> From reading this, it looks like you've been somewhat misinformed
> about copyright. When you buy a book, that's all you've purchased...you
> haven't bought the rights to make copies. It's illegal to make copies,
> even if it's "for my own use". While copyright laws do have exceptions
> and restrictions, once you read them, you'll note that they're quite
> explicit (though may vary from country to country). For example, in
> Australia, you can copy an article out of a journal, but for an entire
> book, you may copy at most 10% of the pages or a chapter -- and these two
> circumstances only for study purposes. For Australia anyway, the 447
> pages of the Copyright Act are at:
>
> http://www.copyright.com.au/CopyrightAct.pdf
You might find it interesting to preruse this particular discussion of
the harms of the DMCA; about halfway down the page, the author (who
happens to be my congressman) discusses U.S. copyright law.
http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/fairusespeech.htm
Specifically, he refers to the "fair use right of space-shifting", which
he claims allows one to make a copy of a CD in order to make a copy so
as to have one for the house and one for the car CD player. I would
think that this would also apply to making a copy of a book, but this
may depend on a specific exemption for recorded music; I am not a
lawyer, so I can't speak with any certainty.
There is also the important point that, in U.S. law, there is really no
clear definition of "fair use"; the code itself avoids saying (it only
mentions "factors which should be considered"), and court cases on the
matter generally manage to speak only to a very limited example rather
than making sweeping proclamations. Here, there certainly is _not_ the
"quite explicit" list of exceptions that you allude to having in
Australian law.
> The existence of a photocopying machine in the library does not
> give you a blank cheque to photocopy anything there. It's no different
> from the MP3 technology, which is perfectly legal, but using it to copy
> commerical CDs is illegal. And most people are surprised that recording
> that tv show that you're going to miss tonight is technically illegal,
> too. If you don't believe me, try reading the last paragraphs at the end
> of the credits. :-)
This, again, does not appear to be wholly true under U.S. law. As per
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=464&invol=417,
the right of consumers to record a TV show for later viewing seems to
have been fairly explicitly upheld in the "Universal City Studios v.
Sony Corporation of America" Supreme Court case of 1984 -- this being
one of the rare cases where there is an applicable court case. The
primary finding was that sale of VCRs was legal because they have
substantial non-infringing uses, but it is worth noting that this
time-shifting was an example of a non-infringing use that this argument
was based on.
- Brooks
Raymond Wan
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brooks Moses wrote:
> You might find it interesting to preruse this particular discussion of
> the harms of the DMCA; about halfway down the page, the author (who
> happens to be my congressman) discusses U.S. copyright law.
True. And probably where copyright fails is how it varies
from country to country.
> Specifically, he refers to the "fair use right of space-shifting", which
> he claims allows one to make a copy of a CD in order to make a copy so
> as to have one for the house and one for the car CD player. I would
> think that this would also apply to making a copy of a book, but this
> may depend on a specific exemption for recorded music; I am not a
> lawyer, so I can't speak with any certainty.
That's interesting. If I remember software copyright properly,
you can make backups of the software, but at any one time, only one piece
of software can be installed. Extending this to a CD, I would think it's
maybe "ok" to copy a CD, but the moment you're listening to it at home and
your spouse is listening to it in the car, you're technically in breach of
copyright. It makes sense for the case of the library book. If you
copied the whole book, you can argue it's a "backup"; but the moment
someone else is reading the book while you're reading the "backup", it
really is no longer a backup -- it's distribution.
> than making sweeping proclamations. Here, there certainly is _not_ the
> "quite explicit" list of exceptions that you allude to having in
> Australian law.
Well, I haven't actually gone through the 477 page document.
However, for university students and staff (which I am the former), the
relevant portions have been summarised on to a page and posted around the
photocopiers. Granted, that a one page document won't stop someone who
really wants to photocopy a book; but at least no one can claim
ignorance, which is what many people do.
> have been fairly explicitly upheld in the "Universal City Studios v.
> Sony Corporation of America" Supreme Court case of 1984 -- this being
> one of the rare cases where there is an applicable court case. The
> primary finding was that sale of VCRs was legal because they have
> substantial non-infringing uses, but it is worth noting that this
Yes, I remember hearing about this court case. Sony was releasing
its Betacams, which ended up losing out in the market to VCR's (a standard
from JVC??) and Universal was suing them. However, the court case refers
to the sale of VCRs and the *implication* that it could be used for
recording off a television. I haven't heard of a case where we ignore the
absence or presence of a VCR and look only at the legality of recording a
tv show without permission.
Anyway, I'm not sure how much meaning one could attach to a tv
show if it said "copyright 2003" and then a whole paragraph afterwards.
It would seem both apply and if the paragraph afterwards says you can't
record the show, then the meaning of "copyright 2003" is irrelevant.
Copyright is semi-clear and where it isn't (US or Australia), you
have to settle it in the judicial system for interpretation of the law.
But, I think, to make claims that one can copy various things without
going through judge and jury is wrong; without taking that path, the law
actually prevents many things.
Ray
Brooks Moses
> On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brooks Moses wrote:
>>Specifically, he refers to the "fair use right of space-shifting", which
>>he claims allows one to make a copy of a CD in order to make a copy so
>>as to have one for the house and one for the car CD player. I would
>>think that this would also apply to making a copy of a book, but this
>>may depend on a specific exemption for recorded music; I am not a
>>lawyer, so I can't speak with any certainty.
>
> That's interesting. If I remember software copyright properly,
> you can make backups of the software, but at any one time, only one piece
> of software can be installed. Extending this to a CD, I would think it's
> maybe "ok" to copy a CD, but the moment you're listening to it at home and
> your spouse is listening to it in the car, you're technically in breach of
> copyright. It makes sense for the case of the library book. If you
> copied the whole book, you can argue it's a "backup"; but the moment
> someone else is reading the book while you're reading the "backup", it
> really is no longer a backup -- it's distribution.
It's one reasonable interpretation, yes. :)
>>than making sweeping proclamations. Here, there certainly is _not_ the
>>"quite explicit" list of exceptions that you allude to having in
>>Australian law.
>
> Well, I haven't actually gone through the 477 page document.
> However, for university students and staff (which I am the former), the
> relevant portions have been summarised on to a page and posted around the
> photocopiers. Granted, that a one page document won't stop someone who
> really wants to photocopy a book; but at least no one can claim
> ignorance, which is what many people do.
Yup. The problem is that there are a lot of similar single-page
summaries floating around in the U.S. as well, but in at least this case
they're not really summaries of the law so much as summaries of various
people's interpretations of the law.
>>have been fairly explicitly upheld in the "Universal City Studios v.
>>Sony Corporation of America" Supreme Court case of 1984 -- this being
>>one of the rare cases where there is an applicable court case. The
>>primary finding was that sale of VCRs was legal because they have
>>substantial non-infringing uses, but it is worth noting that this
>
> Yes, I remember hearing about this court case. Sony was releasing
> its Betacams, which ended up losing out in the market to VCR's (a standard
> from JVC??) and Universal was suing them. However, the court case refers
> to the sale of VCRs and the *implication* that it could be used for
> recording off a television. I haven't heard of a case where we ignore the
> absence or presence of a VCR and look only at the legality of recording a
> tv show without permission.
Actually, I read through most of the Court's final statement on that
case before posting -- they do, in fact, spend a fair bit of space on
addressing the legality of recording a TV show without permission (in
the "time-shifting" case, wherein they assume that it is watched once
and then deleted), and conclude that this is not an infringement
irrespective of whether permission has been granted by the copyright
holder on the TV show. The overall decision is related to the legality
of Sony's selling of the recorders, yes, but there are parts within it
that ignore the presence of the machine and address the legality of the
recording itself.
> Anyway, I'm not sure how much meaning one could attach to a tv
> show if it said "copyright 2003" and then a whole paragraph afterwards.
> It would seem both apply and if the paragraph afterwards says you can't
> record the show, then the meaning of "copyright 2003" is irrelevant.
No, the meaning of "copyright 2003" is still completely and
fundamentally relevant. The paragraph afterwards can say whatever the
people who write it want it to, but that doesn't make it legally binding.
In fact, since it's (as far as I can see) not a contract in any sense of
the word, it's not legally binding on you at all. What's legally
binding on you is copyright law; the legal purpose of the paragraph
afterwards can be either to make some of the copyright restrictions come
into effect, and/or to give you extra rights that you normally wouldn't
have.
"Fair use" rights under copyright law are intended to be something that
cannot be taken away unless you explicitly agree to give them up.
> Copyright is semi-clear and where it isn't (US or Australia), you
> have to settle it in the judicial system for interpretation of the law.
> But, I think, to make claims that one can copy various things without
> going through judge and jury is wrong; without taking that path, the law
> actually prevents many things.
I would mostly agree with that, but I would note that there _isn't_ a
proceedure (AFAIK) for going through judge and jury in order to get
permission to copy things. Questions of that sort get settled only in
cases where someone gets accused of violating them and both parties are
willing to contest the issue.
- Brooks
(Insert usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; the above does not
constitute legal advice; use at your own risk.)
Rowland McDonnell
> > real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
> > news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
> >
> >> <baffled> Whatever makes you think that LaTeX *isn't* that well-known?
>
> I didn't hear about it until about the seventh year I was on Windows. And
> then only by accident. Of all the people I've talked to about it, and
> that's a lot, only one had heard of it. He's a network guy.
So what? I started fiddling with computers back in the late 1970s. I
first heard of C Builder a couple of days ago. I first heard of LaTeX
in about 1988. Clearly, *I* think that LaTeX is a lot more well-known
than C Builder (but what do I know?). I first heard of Oracle about a
decade back but I'm not sure what it is. But so what? That's just me -
one unrepresentative person.
For sure LaTeX's not as well-known as MS Word - but I think it's more
well known than stuff like C Builder and Oracle. I mean, why would any
`normal' person have heard of Oracle or C Builder?
> The problem is there are no big corporations taking out glossy magazine
> advertisements. They have nothing to sell.
No? Textures? From Blue Sky Research? Not selling anything? Y&Y TeX?
Not selling anything? Why does Mathematica integrate with TeX? For
sure these aren't megacorp type firms - but so what? LaTeX will never
be a popular office application.
> It's too bad. I think if word processors had adopted LaTeX as a file format
> way back when that we'd be much better off today.
They can't and it's not a sensible idea.
> Consumers would have more
> choices--word processors would be competing on features, not by holding
> your data hostage--and the source files would be readable forever.
And pigs might fly. Big commercial *micro*computer firms (software and
hardware) have no interest in working like that and never have had from
what I've seen. They *want* to sell substandard products to hold you
hostage and force you to upgrade regularly so they can make more money
in the short term, take over a larger market share, thus making even
more money in the short term to take over a larger market share and so
on until we're all marching in step with Bill Gates or whoever wants to
take over the world this week (thankfully, there are enough people
fighting it out for world domination in various fields that I don't
think anyone's likely to win as such, but still...)
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, these substandard products were certainly
overhyped to a ridiculous extent - anyone remember the ZX81 advert
claiming you could use a ZX81 to control a power station? A ZX81 (Timex
Sinclair TS1000 in the USA, IIRC) is a 1K RAM 4MHz Z80 box with no
interfaces beyond a video modulator for TV display and cassette recorder
port (the Z80's bus is accessible in the raw at the back so you *can*
plug other stuff in - if you care to build the interfaces yourself. I
couldn't back in 1981 when I first got hold of one). However, nobody
believed the adverts, the documentation was generally excellent for most
of the UK micros and Apple's kit (don't ask me about Commodore or Atari
- I tend to snarl and gibber), and the UK firms selling the kit actually
supported their UK customers (Sinclair being particularly good at
support, despite being bloody awful at actually making and selling
things). (I don't know about elsewhere in the world)
But... There are signs that XML might be used as a WP file format in
some case (I think I heard that MS is going down that route, but I
don't pay much attention to WPs so I don't know) - that'd give you all
the advantages of file format stability you think we'd get if WPs used
the LaTeX file format.
Rowland McDonnell
> On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, Ben Crowell wrote:
> ...
> > If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to wonder if
> > it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen to own a printed
> > copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the sources, compile them, and
> > make a pdf file that I keep on my laptop. To my mind (IANAL), this is
> > exactly the same as scanning or photocopying a printed book that I own,
> > which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use. Copyright law
> > isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there are various
> > exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use, and the doctrine
> > of first sale.
>
> From reading this, it looks like you've been somewhat misinformed
> about copyright. When you buy a book, that's all you've purchased...you
> haven't bought the rights to make copies. It's illegal to make copies,
> even if it's "for my own use".
Quite wrong. In my country, it's perfectly legal for me to make a
reasonable number of copies of any copyright work I own for my own
personal use (`reasonable number' and `personal use' are decided by case
law and don't ask me about that 'cos I'm no lawyer).
There are other holes in copyright which allow a limited amount of
copying under certain circumstances - educational establishments usually
pay an annual fee to allow a certain amount of limited copying of
certain copyright material under certain circumstances for class use
(you pay a fee because there's a big difference between one copy for me
and 25 copies for the class, right?), and I understand that most
countries have a clause allowing a certain amount of limited copying of
copyright material for personal study.
> While copyright laws do have exceptions
> and restrictions, once you read them, you'll note that they're quite
> explicit (though may vary from country to country).
Yes - and they almost always allow you to make a reasonable number of
copies for your own personal study of any copyright material you own.
> For example, in
> Australia, you can copy an article out of a journal, but for an entire
> book, you may copy at most 10% of the pages or a chapter -- and these two
> circumstances only for study purposes.
True - but those restrictions only apply to copyright material you don't
own yourself.
> For Australia anyway, the 447
> pages of the Copyright Act are at:
>
> http://www.copyright.com.au/CopyrightAct.pdf
>
> The existence of a photocopying machine in the library does not
> give you a blank cheque to photocopy anything there.
True, but there's usually a sign next to that photocopier explaining
what you're allowed to copy and what you're not. From memory, UK
libraries tend to say `10% of a book or one article from a mag or
journal but no sheet music or OS maps'.
> It's no different
> from the MP3 technology, which is perfectly legal, but using it to copy
> commerical CDs is illegal.
Quite wrong. If you happen to own the CD, it's perfectly legal if you
only keep a *small* number of copies for *your own personal use only* -
in the UK at least. So it's legal to buy a CD, rip it, and listen to it
yourself on your computer *provided you still own the original CD*.
I am making backups of all my CDs - proper copies, not mp3 mind. This
is 100% legal because I own all the CDs and I'm not getting rid of them.
Music firms don't like the idea because they want us to keep replacing
music media as it wears out - however, the law does not support them in
this.
(I'm not suggesting I don't also do illegal things - but *those* acts
are legal. The music biz says that ripping CDs is wiping it out. Well,
the music biz said exactly the same thing about home taping back in the
1970s and 1980s and they were lying then too.)
> And most people are surprised that recording
> that tv show that you're going to miss tonight is technically illegal,
> too. If you don't believe me, try reading the last paragraphs at the end
> of the credits. :-)
And then try reading UK law, which states that it is in fact legal to
video a publically broadcast TV programme if you keep the tape for
(IIRC) less than one month,. This was one of those anomalies which was
spotted some years ago in the UK and dealt with - whatever it might say
at the end of the credits on imported programmes. Which reminds me:
*.au, eh? Can you burn down the Neighbours set and blow up the
production company's offices, *please*.
Personally, I don't believe any of the legal jargon that firms put on
their products. To take one example: software licences are, for the
most part, completely unenforeable in the UK from my reading of contract
law (most software firms want to apply the licence conditions after
purchase, which isn't legal in the UK or anywhere else I know of - but
as I say, I know llareggub about law in general).
Rowland Thomas.
Rowland McDonnell
> Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> writes:
>
> > From reading this, it looks like you've been somewhat misinformed
> >about copyright. When you buy a book, that's all you've purchased...you
> >haven't bought the rights to make copies. It's illegal to make copies,
> >even if it's "for my own use". While copyright laws do have exceptions
>
> Traditionally, it has been acceptable for a student to *hand copy*
> any amount of material, up to and including entire books, for
> educational purposes
Maybe so, but it's illegal.
> (people have actually done this with rare
> books).
Patrick Moore reports in his recent book on Mars that he learnt to
touch-type by copying a book he couldn't have afforded when he was
young.
> Some people want to extrapolate this to photocopying, but
> legally that's probably cheating...
It's also probably more expensive that buying the printed book.
[snip]
Rowland.
Rowland McDonnell
> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
> news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
>
> >
> > Fair enough. You don't have to - free documenation exists in many
> > languages, and help via the 'net is readily available. If that combined
> > with any local support isn't enough and you want to learn more about
> > LaTeX - well, you'll buy a book then. And why not? The price of a
> > manual is low compared to that of commercial software.
>
> From my experience "the real stuff" is allways found within electronic
> documents.
Things are different in the TeX world. For sure the *real* real stuff
in contained in the source code - the only way to *fully* understand
LaTeX is to read the source. But in my experience in the LaTeX world,
proper printed manuals are essential.
I have rarely found high quality technical documentation in electronic
format. In fact, I've found very little new high quality technical
documentation *anywhere* in the last 15 years or so.
>I understand that since a book is intended to be accessible to
> as many people as possible. The advanced stuff is allways within a file,
> since electronic documents are not necesarily meant to be read by as many
> people as posible, but are meant to include the necessary information.
I don't follow this reasoning at all. Modern consumer software is
written assuming that no-one will read the documentation. No useful
documentation is provided with modern consumer apps. Software firms
gave up on proper documentation years ago when they found that people
would buy the stuff even if the firm didn't bother documenting it - so
software firms typically do not bother with documentation any more.
Apple is a fine example of this and no longer provides software manuals
at all as far as I can see. Apple on-line help tends to boil down to
`It's really easy to use and you can figure it out for yourself' - when
the on-line help is available at all, that is.
(I have *some* excellent Apple manuals - from the 1970s...)
> > And don't forget, of course, that pretty much everyone in Europe at
> > least has access to a library - and libraries are cunning inventions
> > which will often lend you books without you having to buy them.
>
> Searching a library is a very good idea, but I still expect to find much
> more info on the net.
More info, yes. But higher quality? More accessible?
> > lshort has been translated into quite a lot of languages. Multilingual
> > support in the LaTeX world is astonishingly good, especially since it's
> > all provided free.
>
> Yes it is. I was pleasently surprised to notice this by myself.
btw, as I understand it, lshort started life in German - the *English*
version of that doc is a translation.
> > But if you don't like the situation - well, why not change it? If
> > there's a market for a Romanian LaTeX manual, why don't you approach
> > (say) Addison-Wesley with some evidence of this market and see if they
> > think it's economical to do a translation of Lamport's LaTeX book. If
> > they think not, you might consider approaching a translator yourself and
> > see how much they'd charge for the job - if that's significantly less
> > than Addison-Wesley thought they could get the job done for and doing
> > things that way fits in with Addison-Wesley's way of doing business,
> > that might make the job economically viable. You never know. Are you
> > capable of doing the translation yourself, perhaps?
>
> I am capable of doing the translation, but I don't think there is a market
> in Romania for a LaTeX manual, and I don't have the book.
Well. Umm. Look at it like this: the cost of preparing material for
press publication these days is not great (ever wondered why there are
so many free magazines these days? Modern computerised film setting
(typeset on a computer, print the output onto high resolution
transparent film sheets, and use *those* to prepare printing plates)
and printing are dirt cheap), once the material is written. This is
maybe a bit over the top as a suggestion - but... Well. If you could
do the translation yourself and Addison-Wesley showed an interest in a
Romanian edition - why not do it? (time etc allowing, of course) If you
were willing to take a small translation fee (I've no idea how this sort
of thing is arranged) it might well turn out to be economical for
Addison-Wesley to publish a Romanian LaTeX book - you never know. If
you were going to translate the book on that basis, I can't help feeling
Addison-Wesley would supply you with a copy.
For sure you'd probably make very little money on the deal - but how do
you feel about having your name as the translator of a properly
published bit of high quality technical writing? That is unlikely to
hurt your future prospects even if you've not the slightest intention of
being a professional translator.
Back in the 1960s, a chap called P.J. O'Rourke wrote for an
`underground' magazine called `Harry'. A friend of his worked for a
similar underground magazine called `The Chesapeake review of the
literature and arts'. As this friend pointed out, it might have been a
square name for a hip magazine, but in 20 years time P.J.'s C.V. would
say he'd been a `Writer on "Harry"' during that period while his friend
was going to be equally truthful and say he was the editor of `The
Chesapeake review of the literature and arts' while he was at
university. Which looks more impressive?
> > (btw, Timothy Madden? Romanian? Have I missed something?)
>
> No, it's not my real name.
Fair enough (I'm not prying as such, just curious).
> Using powerfull computers and the internet it's
> very easy to record information about all people from the planet
> automaticaly (spyware applications already exist).
There is that.
> And in this world there
> *are* people willing to do so and which have access to the necessary
> financial resourses.
Well, yes - but does it matter that much? What are they going to do
with all that information? I'm not bothered about people knowing that
my news posts were made by *me* - who cares? I'm worried about (for
example) serious government proposals in my country (the UK) to fit
every road vehicle number plate with a radio transponder so that all
road traffic can be tracked all the time, everywhere in the country
(although initially only where they've got the logging equipment mounted
by the roadside which would probably only be in some parts of some towns
and some trunk roads initially - it'd take a long time to fit them to
everywhere) - constant monitoring of exactly where everyone's car, van,
and bike is, what speed they're doing (yes, so all speeding is always
penalised), and so on. It *could* be done, but it almost certainly
*won't* be done. That sort of thing's chilling - people tracking my
name on Usenet? Pfft. If MS thinks it can make money out of *me* that
way, it has another thing coming. And why would MS want my details if
not to make money from me?
> Btw Microsoft has invented the Microsoft passport wich
> I heard they plan to ask each of their clients (and more) to have one.
Oh aye - I use Macs (and will probably move to straight Unix one of
these days due to Apple's decision to stop making reliable, easy to use
computers) in part to avoid that sort of problem. It's my email
addresses I like to keep away from `people I don't like' if you see what
I mean.
> > <baffled> Whatever makes you think that LaTeX *isn't* that well-known?
>
> I use to type hand-written papers for students in my University (in
> exchange of money) so that they can print them and prezent them to
> professors.
Okay. So you have information about the use of LaTeX at a Romanian (I
assume) university. Well, I've noticed at other universities that
plenty of people haven't heard of LaTeX. Then again, they haven't heard
of Oracle or C Builder either - so how does this tell us anything about
how well-known LaTeX is compared to other moderately obscure bits of
software?
> When I try to tell them I use LaTeX and will submit them .pdf
> files they often don't know what LaTeX is or they ask me why and why I
> don't use Microsot Word (it seems I can not get rid of this word Microsoft.
> It's everywhere.)
Well, yes. But have you asked those people what they know about Oracle
and C Builder and the other less well known bits of software you
mentioned before (MS Word wasn't one of them)? For sure LaTeX's less
well-known than MS Word, but - well, LaTeX turns up with most free
Unixes from what I've heard - that makes it more well-known than Oracle,
at a guess.
Yes, LaTeX's obscure compared to MS Word. But it's pretty damned
widespread compared to Oracle and C Builder, isn't it? It's older than
both of 'em, isn't it?
Brooks Moses
> For sure LaTeX's not as well-known as MS Word - but I think it's more
> well known than stuff like C Builder and Oracle. I mean, why would any
> `normal' person have heard of Oracle or C Builder?
Well, around here, Oracle puts up billboards. :)
- Brooks, currently living in Silicon Valley.
Raymond Wan
On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> Quite wrong. In my country, it's perfectly legal for me to make a
> reasonable number of copies of any copyright work I own for my own
Yes, and as I said in a later post, the fact that copyright law
differs from country to country is also one part of the confusion.
> Quite wrong. If you happen to own the CD, it's perfectly legal if you
> only keep a *small* number of copies for *your own personal use only* -
> in the UK at least. So it's legal to buy a CD, rip it, and listen to it
> yourself on your computer *provided you still own the original CD*.
Yes and I could probably argue that if I live in a city with a lot
of natural disasters, I should be allowed to make 100 copies of a song for
personal backup. But the moment one CD and its backup is played
simultaneously, I would consider that distribution and not backup (that
is, if you and your spouse play it at home and in the car simultaneously).
But, if we argue that it is legal for us to make backups of what
we purchase, then publishers that put copyprotection on software, CDs, and
DVDs are doing something illegal. That's funny...
> I am making backups of all my CDs - proper copies, not mp3 mind. This
> is 100% legal because I own all the CDs and I'm not getting rid of them.
> Music firms don't like the idea because they want us to keep replacing
> music media as it wears out - however, the law does not support them in
> this.
Also, CDs, when treated properly, do last a while. By the time
your CD is not playable, I don't think you can go out and buy it anymore
-- it'll be out of print. But even so, copyright still holds and in this
case, not in our favour.
> at the end of the credits on imported programmes. Which reminds me:
> *.au, eh? Can you burn down the Neighbours set and blow up the
> production company's offices, *please*.
hahahha... I'm sick of it and Home and Away (I hope you don't get
*this* too!). I should probably apologise for it being exported to the
UK. Hopefully there aren't any Neighbours fans reading comp.text.tex that
will defend it.
Ray
Rowland McDonnell
> On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brooks Moses wrote:
> > You might find it interesting to preruse this particular discussion of
> > the harms of the DMCA; about halfway down the page, the author (who
> > happens to be my congressman) discusses U.S. copyright law.
>
> True. And probably where copyright fails is how it varies
> from country to country.
There's a lot of international agreement on that kind if thing, mind.
> > Specifically, he refers to the "fair use right of space-shifting", which
> > he claims allows one to make a copy of a CD in order to make a copy so
> > as to have one for the house and one for the car CD player. I would
> > think that this would also apply to making a copy of a book, but this
> > may depend on a specific exemption for recorded music; I am not a
> > lawyer, so I can't speak with any certainty.
>
> That's interesting. If I remember software copyright properly,
> you can make backups of the software, but at any one time, only one piece
> of software can be installed. Extending this to a CD, I would think it's
> maybe "ok" to copy a CD, but the moment you're listening to it at home and
> your spouse is listening to it in the car, you're technically in breach of
> copyright. It makes sense for the case of the library book. If you
> copied the whole book, you can argue it's a "backup"; but the moment
> someone else is reading the book while you're reading the "backup", it
> really is no longer a backup -- it's distribution.
What if the owner of the copyright material is the partnership of
husband and wife? I think you'd have to ask a lawyer in every country
you want the issue decided in.
> > than making sweeping proclamations. Here, there certainly is _not_ the
> > "quite explicit" list of exceptions that you allude to having in
> > Australian law.
>
> Well, I haven't actually gone through the 477 page document.
> However, for university students and staff (which I am the former), the
> relevant portions have been summarised on to a page and posted around the
> photocopiers. Granted, that a one page document won't stop someone who
> really wants to photocopy a book; but at least no one can claim
> ignorance, which is what many people do.
>
> > have been fairly explicitly upheld in the "Universal City Studios v.
> > Sony Corporation of America" Supreme Court case of 1984 -- this being
> > one of the rare cases where there is an applicable court case. The
> > primary finding was that sale of VCRs was legal because they have
> > substantial non-infringing uses, but it is worth noting that this
>
> Yes, I remember hearing about this court case. Sony was releasing
> its Betacams, which ended up losing out in the market to VCR's (a standard
> from JVC??)
Not exactly. JVC's VHS standard for video cassette recording (VCR)
wiped out the consumer market for Philips's V2000(?) and the Betamax
standard for VCRs (Brits call 'em `video recorders') - but I gather that
a development of Betamax is what the pros use near universally because
it's always been higher quality.
The basic problem as I understand it was that early Betamax tapes could
not hold a 90 minute feature film while VHS tapes could - it turned out
that home viewers preferred the convenience of a film on a single
cassette than highest quality. The huge size of early Betamax recorders
didn't help either - I only met one in real life (in the late 1980s,
IIRC), and I was staggered at its bulk.
> and Universal was suing them. However, the court case refers
> to the sale of VCRs and the *implication* that it could be used for
> recording off a television. I haven't heard of a case where we ignore the
> absence or presence of a VCR and look only at the legality of recording a
> tv show without permission.
I have - in the UK, some years back. The central point about the whole
business is the fact of making a copy: *how* you make the copy doesn't
matter. What does matter is that you're making a copy of copyright
material - and the point discovered in the UK was that it was illegal
for someone to record a TV programme while they were out so they could
watch it when they came home. This is clearly absurd, so the law was
changed so that you *could* do so legally - without any mention being
made of the means of copying. Sensible, really - otherwise they'd have
to re-work the law now it's perfectly practical to record a TV programme
at home onto a computer disc of some sort.
> Anyway, I'm not sure how much meaning one could attach to a tv
> show if it said "copyright 2003" and then a whole paragraph afterwards.
> It would seem both apply and if the paragraph afterwards says you can't
> record the show, then the meaning of "copyright 2003" is irrelevant.
The statement that you can't record the show might be false. I don't
know one way or the other.
> Copyright is semi-clear and where it isn't (US or Australia), you
> have to settle it in the judicial system for interpretation of the law.
How else is a legal system supposed to work?
> But, I think, to make claims that one can copy various things without
> going through judge and jury is wrong; without taking that path, the law
> actually prevents many things.
True, but the law also explicitly allows all sorts of copying of
copyright material for personal use under various circumstances - for
example, the law explicitly states that you can make temporary copies of
public (by which I mean `meant to be viewed by the general public' as
opposed to `BBC' rather than `commercial TV') TV and radio broadcasts in
the UK for home viewing and listening. That's been considered (dunno if
it was the courts or parliament or both - I recall questions in the
Commons on the subject but I don't know where the decision was made) and
been settled formally - and there are a lot of very clearly stated
exceptions to the basic idea of `you can't make copies of copyright
material'.
Raymond Wan
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brooks Moses wrote:
> Yup. The problem is that there are a lot of similar single-page
> summaries floating around in the U.S. as well, but in at least this case
> they're not really summaries of the law so much as summaries of various
> people's interpretations of the law.
Yes, it would be better if law makers aren't paid per-page they
write. I'm sure most laws could be summarised in point form on a couple
of pages! :-)
> holder on the TV show. The overall decision is related to the legality
> of Sony's selling of the recorders, yes, but there are parts within it
> that ignore the presence of the machine and address the legality of the
> recording itself.
Interesting...I'll have to re-read it sometime, but tying both
issues in one case doesn't seem right. They're two separate issues: one
dealing with the sale of VCRs and another dealing with its use. VCR
doesn't imply copyright infringement.
> In fact, since it's (as far as I can see) not a contract in any sense of
> the word, it's not legally binding on you at all. What's legally
> binding on you is copyright law; the legal purpose of the paragraph
> afterwards can be either to make some of the copyright restrictions come
> into effect, and/or to give you extra rights that you normally wouldn't
> have.
And this extra paragraph should equally be applicable to software?
For example, when I install software and click "yes" to agree to the terms
or when I open the seal on a software package with the paragraph written
on it. While yes, you don't sign anything with a ball-point pen, if
you're given the choice to not install or return the software package for
a full refund, doesn't that have the effect of a contract? You can choose
to accept or reject the terms.
> I would mostly agree with that, but I would note that there _isn't_ a
> proceedure (AFAIK) for going through judge and jury in order to get
> permission to copy things.
Public showing of DVDs, even for free admission, is prohibited
depending on your interpretation of the law. In my mind, it's prohibited
by that last paragraph after "copyright 2003". In any case, I did arrange
such a free function and contacted the legal dept of a distribution
company for permission and they gave me a typed letter in a relatively
short time. There are reasonable people on the other end -- not all of
them are mega-corporations that only want to see customers at the cashier
line or in court. Judge and jury is only required if you (already) did
something without asking and a company contests that. The problem is that
many people do things without asking because they're too lazy to...
> (Insert usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; the above does not
> constitute legal advice; use at your own risk.)
Same here; and I can imagine how funny it would be to be sued by a
company and in court, your only defense is a newsgroup posting... ^_^
Ray
Rowland McDonnell
> On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > Quite wrong. In my country, it's perfectly legal for me to make a
> > reasonable number of copies of any copyright work I own for my own
>
> Yes, and as I said in a later post, the fact that copyright law
> differs from country to country is also one part of the confusion.
I think you'll find that particular point of copyright law is reasonable
consistent throughout the world.
> > Quite wrong. If you happen to own the CD, it's perfectly legal if you
> > only keep a *small* number of copies for *your own personal use only* -
> > in the UK at least. So it's legal to buy a CD, rip it, and listen to it
> > yourself on your computer *provided you still own the original CD*.
>
> Yes and I could probably argue that if I live in a city with a lot
> of natural disasters, I should be allowed to make 100 copies of a song for
> personal backup.
I can't see why one shouldn't be permitted any number of *backup* copies
- provided that's all they are used for. Of course, if you *had* made
100 backups, it'd probably be reasonable to expect to have to convince a
court that they really were backups.
> But the moment one CD and its backup is played
> simultaneously, I would consider that distribution and not backup (that
> is, if you and your spouse play it at home and in the car simultaneously).
What if you and your spouse are the joint owners of the original? It
can't be distribution then. And you are allowed to make copies not just
for backup but for personal study if you own the original. Nothing
wrong with (for example) photocopying a book you own if you're going to
take that copy somewhere and use it and have it destroyed - so why not
the same with music? But I think that yes, if two copies are in use
simultaneously, you're probably right that *that's* illegal.
(on an irrelevant practical note, me and my spouse ride motorcycles of
the sensible sort without stereos fitted, so we can't run in to that
sort of problem)
> But, if we argue that it is legal for us to make backups of what
> we purchase, then publishers that put copyprotection on software, CDs, and
> DVDs are doing something illegal. That's funny...
Oh no! It's not illegal for them to do that - they're not required to
provide copyright material in a form that you *can* make a backup of.
It's perfectly legal. You don't have to buy such material. And unless
you agree to a contract not to break the copy protection before buying a
copy of such material, it's also legal for you to break the copy
protection and make a backup or copy for personal study *if* you own a
copy of the copyright material.
btw, most forms of protection for music discs do work out illegal if the
firm selling them calls them CDs - something to do with the conditions
surrounding the official CD standard, but I gather it boils down to
`Unless it meets that standard, it ain't a CD, you can't call it a CD,
and if you want a CD with copy protection, you've got to do it within
the standard' - and I gather that Philips, which owns the standard, does
enforce this with lawyers.
> > I am making backups of all my CDs - proper copies, not mp3 mind. This
> > is 100% legal because I own all the CDs and I'm not getting rid of them.
> > Music firms don't like the idea because they want us to keep replacing
> > music media as it wears out - however, the law does not support them in
> > this.
>
> Also, CDs, when treated properly, do last a while. By the time
> your CD is not playable, I don't think you can go out and buy it anymore
> -- it'll be out of print.
I lost a CD through accidental damage only last year and bought a better
(remastered) brand new replacement. Accidental damage is always a risk,
and that's what I mostly want to guard against (and at 20p for a blank
CD, it's certainly affordable in money terms but oh God the time and the
storage space...)
> But even so, copyright still holds and in this
> case, not in our favour.
There is that. I'll be putting my vinyl on to CD as soon as I can work
out a high quality way of doing it - get the music in digital form, and
I should be able to make it last indefinitely. I've got one Jimi
Hendrix album no-one else seems to have heard of - it's a bit worn, but
from the tail end of his career and very different and I certainly don't
want to lose it. But even if I don't ever play it, the vinyl will melt
down one day.
> > at the end of the credits on imported programmes. Which reminds me:
> > *.au, eh? Can you burn down the Neighbours set and blow up the
> > production company's offices, *please*.
>
> hahahha... I'm sick of it and Home and Away (I hope you don't get
> *this* too!).
Guess? Look at it like this: I tend to react violently to television
these days and won't have one of the bloody things in the house. Home
and Away is a minor reason (telly these days seems to be crappy soaps
and idiotic game shows and ill-informed news and junk music and all this
low-budget `reality TV' junk and and and oh god it's depressing - Home
and Away on its own I could cope with, but it's that and Neighbours and
3,000,000 similar examples of mindless crap. <sigh> At least the
Aussie soaps are fairly cheerful *and Kylie left Neighbours well over a
decade ago!* (shame she's still not eaten a decent meal). I tend to
keep the radio tuned to the BBC - at least Radio 4 does *some*
intelligent broadcasting and Radio 3 still plays decent music with
knowledgable presenters on the odd occasion)
> I should probably apologise for it being exported to the
> UK.
<chuckle> And what about Rolf Harris, eh?
> Hopefully there aren't any Neighbours fans reading comp.text.tex that
> will defend it.
Hopefully - I don't mean to upset anyone. It's harmless enough on its
own and if you like it, why ever not?
Rowland.
Rowland McDonnell
> On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Brooks Moses wrote:
[snip]
> > In fact, since it's (as far as I can see) not a contract in any sense of
> > the word, it's not legally binding on you at all. What's legally
> > binding on you is copyright law; the legal purpose of the paragraph
> > afterwards can be either to make some of the copyright restrictions come
> > into effect, and/or to give you extra rights that you normally wouldn't
> > have.
>
> And this extra paragraph should equally be applicable to software?
> For example, when I install software and click "yes" to agree to the terms
> or when I open the seal on a software package with the paragraph written
> on it. While yes, you don't sign anything with a ball-point pen, if
> you're given the choice to not install or return the software package for
> a full refund, doesn't that have the effect of a contract? You can choose
> to accept or reject the terms.
But unless you are given that choice before the exchange of
considerations, it's not legally binding virtually everywhere that has a
proper rule of law as far as I know. Basically, you've got to agree to
the contract *before buying the software*. And in UK law, that means
(either explicitly or implicitly, somehow - and that's one area where
the lawyers get rich and I get confused) the two contractors saying to
each other `This is a statement of the contract and I agree to it' (the
conventional business of `signing the document which is the contract
terms before handing over the cash'). If you can't even *read* the
contract before buying, it can't possibly be legally binding. And I
don't see how it can be legally binding at all unless you say to the
person you got the software from (not necessarily the software
publisher) that you were agreeing to the contract - I personally always
state out loud that I don't agree with the contract. Well, that's got
to be enough legally to counteract the message of the `yes' button I
press when running the installer, hasn't it? The firm I got the
software from doesn't receive either message so I can't see how it is
that either message can have any legal relevance.
> > I would mostly agree with that, but I would note that there _isn't_ a
> > proceedure (AFAIK) for going through judge and jury in order to get
> > permission to copy things.
>
> Public showing of DVDs, even for free admission, is prohibited
> depending on your interpretation of the law.
Not in the UK, it's not (AFAIK). The law has been interpreted: the
normal conditions of use attached to copyright movies sold or hired for
domestic use in the UK prohibts showing to any sort of public audience,
including use on oil rigs, hospitals, schools, and suchlike.
This sort of restriction is entirely unrelated to the restrictions which
software firms attempt to apply via invalid software licences: in the
case of copyright material, you only have the rights to use it
explicitly given to you by law and the copyright owner. Buying a copy
of a copyright work means you can use it within the law any way you like
- but the law *is* restrictive in the case of copyright.
> In my mind, it's prohibited
> by that last paragraph after "copyright 2003". In any case, I did arrange
> such a free function and contacted the legal dept of a distribution
> company for permission and they gave me a typed letter in a relatively
> short time. There are reasonable people on the other end -- not all of
> them are mega-corporations that only want to see customers at the cashier
> line or in court. Judge and jury is only required if you (already) did
> something without asking and a company contests that. The problem is that
> many people do things without asking because they're too lazy to...
There is that. And having worked in professional publishing, I can say
that a lot of people are perfectly happy to let their copyright work be
reproduced almost anywhere without any bother at all if it's clear you
aren't in the business of either doing them down in some way or making
pots of cash. But you have got to ask first - if you don't, they *will*
get snotty even if they'd've been perfectly happy to say `Fine, go
ahead' if only you'd asked.
And then there is the `disclaimer' at the end of every editor's column
in the UK motorcycling newspaper `Streetbiker', which says that the
editor's column can be reproduced anywhere because he loves seeing his
name in print. Then again, he rides a Harley, so what can you expect?
[snip]
David Cameron Staples
> Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
>>
>>>Quite wrong. In my country, it's perfectly legal for me to make a
>>>reasonable number of copies of any copyright work I own for my own
>>
>> Yes, and as I said in a later post, the fact that copyright law
>>differs from country to country is also one part of the confusion.
>
>
> I think you'll find that particular point of copyright law is reasonable
> consistent throughout the world.
>
*illegal* in Australia to make an unauthorised copy of any copyrighted
work, for *any reason except those in a very small list*.
This list includes quotation for review, criticism or study. It
explicitely excludes 'backups'. For an Australian to make a copy
of a music CD, or to burn MP3s from it is illegal without express,
preferably written, consent of the copyright holder. This consent
is rarely given, and almost never asked for in the first place.
Partially, this is because people see that 'It's OK to copy if you
say it's for your own personal use only' on the internet, and don't
know that this advice IS NOT UNIVERSAL.
>
>>>Quite wrong. If you happen to own the CD, it's perfectly legal if you
>>>only keep a *small* number of copies for *your own personal use only* -
>>>in the UK at least. So it's legal to buy a CD, rip it, and listen to it
>>>yourself on your computer *provided you still own the original CD*.
>>
>> Yes and I could probably argue that if I live in a city with a lot
>>of natural disasters, I should be allowed to make 100 copies of a song for
>>personal backup.
>
>
> I can't see why one shouldn't be permitted any number of *backup* copies
> - provided that's all they are used for. Of course, if you *had* made
> 100 backups, it'd probably be reasonable to expect to have to convince a
> court that they really were backups.
>
I agree. Australian Law does not. :-(
>
>> But the moment one CD and its backup is played
>>simultaneously, I would consider that distribution and not backup (that
>>is, if you and your spouse play it at home and in the car simultaneously).
>
>
> What if you and your spouse are the joint owners of the original? It
> can't be distribution then. And you are allowed to make copies not just
> for backup but for personal study if you own the original.
Actually, you can make copies of *parts* of works for study purposes
/whether or not you own them/. The copying of entire works is illegal,
/whether or not you own them/. In Australia, anyway. (Note that owning
the work, and owning the copyright to the work are two different
creatures.) The number of owners of a work are irrelevant. There
is still one work (or license to that work), just two owners of it.
The record companies seem to think of the situation with music
and CDs as similar to that of M$ Operating Systems and PCs.
Copyright law does not tell them otherwise.
> Nothing
> wrong with (for example) photocopying a book you own if you're going to
> take that copy somewhere and use it and have it destroyed - so why not
> the same with music? But I think that yes, if two copies are in use
> simultaneously, you're probably right that *that's* illegal.
>
> (on an irrelevant practical note, me and my spouse ride motorcycles of
> the sensible sort without stereos fitted, so we can't run in to that
> sort of problem)
>
This is where the debate about 'ownership' vs. 'licensing' comes from,
in the US. The big record companies have argued (in an incoherant
fashion) that they do both at the same time. You have bought the rights
to one copy of a music CD. If that CD is damaged, however, it turns
out that you have only bought the medium after all, and do not have
the right to demand a replacement medium to access the content you have
licensed. Again, this is in the US, as seen in Slashdot, and does
not apply in Australia.
>
>> But, if we argue that it is legal for us to make backups of what
>>we purchase, then publishers that put copyprotection on software, CDs, and
>>DVDs are doing something illegal. That's funny...
>
> Oh no! It's not illegal for them to do that - they're not required to
> provide copyright material in a form that you *can* make a backup of.
> It's perfectly legal. You don't have to buy such material. And unless
> you agree to a contract not to break the copy protection before buying a
> copy of such material, it's also legal for you to break the copy
> protection and make a backup or copy for personal study *if* you own a
> copy of the copyright material.
>
> btw, most forms of protection for music discs do work out illegal if the
> firm selling them calls them CDs - something to do with the conditions
> surrounding the official CD standard, but I gather it boils down to
> `Unless it meets that standard, it ain't a CD, you can't call it a CD,
> and if you want a CD with copy protection, you've got to do it within
> the standard' - and I gather that Philips, which owns the standard, does
> enforce this with lawyers.
>
CD standard complient equipment and disks, and only those, can be marked
with the CD standard logo. If a disk displays that logo, then it claims
to be fully CD standard complient CD which will play on all similarly
complient equipment. Copy protected 'CDs' deliberately break the
standard in arbitrary ways, and will not play thus. To display the
CD logo is then false advertising, and breaking the agreement the
manufacturers have with Philips, and they can then be sued for breach
of contract.
>
>>>I am making backups of all my CDs - proper copies, not mp3 mind. This
>>>is 100% legal because I own all the CDs and I'm not getting rid of them.
>>>Music firms don't like the idea because they want us to keep replacing
>>>music media as it wears out - however, the law does not support them in
>>>this.
>>
>> Also, CDs, when treated properly, do last a while. By the time
>>your CD is not playable, I don't think you can go out and buy it anymore
>>-- it'll be out of print.
>
> I lost a CD through accidental damage only last year and bought a better
> (remastered) brand new replacement. Accidental damage is always a risk,
> and that's what I mostly want to guard against (and at 20p for a blank
> CD, it's certainly affordable in money terms but oh God the time and the
> storage space...)
>
>
>> But even so, copyright still holds and in this
>>case, not in our favour.
>
Even more so, given the combination of the Sonny Bono Copyright
Extension Act in the USA, and their government's insistance
on sharing their Intellectual Property Laws with the world.
>
> There is that. I'll be putting my vinyl on to CD as soon as I can work
> out a high quality way of doing it - get the music in digital form, and
> I should be able to make it last indefinitely. I've got one Jimi
> Hendrix album no-one else seems to have heard of - it's a bit worn, but
> from the tail end of his career and very different and I certainly don't
> want to lose it. But even if I don't ever play it, the vinyl will melt
> down one day.
>
As Australian law stands, we are not even allowed to do that. It doesn't
mean it isn't done, just that we *can* be sued over it. (ISTR it is
civil, not criminal, so you can't be arrested, but the landsharks can
still do you a lot of damage.)
<long snip, involving Australian Soaps and TV Quality...>
>
> <chuckle> And what about Rolf Harris, eh?
We refuse to take responsibility for him. Or the Crocodile Hunter.
--
David Cameron Staples
staples AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au
Quanti canicula illa est in fenestra?
jim green
> But... There are signs that XML might be used as a WP file format in
> some case (I think I heard that MS is going down that route, but I
> don't pay much attention to WPs so I don't know) - that'd give you all
> the advantages of file format stability you think we'd get if WPs used
> the LaTeX file format.
No chance! At most it will be an xml wrapper around its
secret format. They're not going to throw away the crown
jewels
-j
--
J. J. Green, Department of Applied Mathematics, Hicks Bd.,
Hounsfield Rd., University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
+44 (0114) 222 3742, http://www.vindaloo.uklinux.net/jjg
David Kastrup
> If it was intended as a legally binding license, I'd also have to
> wonder if it was enforceable, even in theory. For instance, I happen
> to own a printed copy of The TeXBook. Suppose I now download the
> sources, compile them, and make a pdf file that I keep on my
> laptop. To my mind (IANAL), this is exactly the same as scanning or
> photocopying a printed book that I own,
No. It is like breaking into a private library and photocopying the
manuscripts of a book you have bought.
> which is completely legal as long as it's for my own use.
Nope. You did not buy the manuscripts.
> Copyright law isn't a carte blanche for the copyright owner -- there
> are various exceptions and restrictions like personal use, fair use,
> and the doctrine of first sale.
Fair use to what you have bought.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
UKTUG FAQ: <URL:http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html>
Rowland McDonnell
> > But... There are signs that XML might be used as a WP file format in
> > some case (I think I heard that MS is going down that route, but I
> > don't pay much attention to WPs so I don't know) - that'd give you all
> > the advantages of file format stability you think we'd get if WPs used
> > the LaTeX file format.
>
> No chance! At most it will be an xml wrapper around its
> secret format. They're not going to throw away the crown
> jewels
What crown jewels? A proprietary file format is hardly required to make
money from software, especially since even the suits are beginning to
realise that open file formats are generally better.
jim green
> > secret format. They're not going to throw away the crown
> > jewels
>
> What crown jewels?
Control of the most popular documet format, and the
proprietary lock-in in enables. Worth billions.
> A proprietary file format is hardly required to make
> money from software, especially since even the suits are beginning to
> realise that open file formats are generally better.
Handy if you want to make *big* money. Mayby the
suits will save us though!
Rowland McDonnell
> > > secret format. They're not going to throw away the crown
> > > jewels
> >
> > What crown jewels?
>
> Control of the most popular documet format, and the
> proprietary lock-in in enables. Worth billions.
Even with all serious firms going over to SGML/XML document archiving?
I think not, not anything like as much as in the past and I think even
MS can see the writing on the wall for that kind of behaviour.
[snip]
Raymond Wan
On 25 Jun 2003, jim green wrote:
> > > secret format. They're not going to throw away the crown
> > > jewels
> >
> > What crown jewels?
> Control of the most popular documet format, and the
> proprietary lock-in in enables. Worth billions.
Actually, according to an article by Jon Bosak titled "Four Myths
about XML" [IEEE Computer (Vol. 31, No. 10, October 1998, pp. 120-122),
and available on-line at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/sun-info/standards/xml/why/4myths.htm]
Microsoft seems to be in full-support of XML. I have a feeling that
Microsoft is at least smart enough to know they better jump on the train
now, or else they'll be left behind... No doubt what will happen is that
proprietary formats will change from the .doc and .xls file formats to
stylesheets and DTD. We may end up having a problem with organisations
agreeing on which ones to use. :-)
Ray
William F. Adams
>From my experience "the real stuff" is allways found within electronic
>documents. I understand that since a book is intended to be accessible to
>as many people as possible. The advanced stuff is allways within a file,
>since electronic documents are not necesarily meant to be read by as many
>people as posible, but are meant to include the necessary information.
Did you find / typeset source2e.dvi/pdf?
What about the documentation at www.latex-project.org?
William
--
William Adams
http://members.aol.com/willadams
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
William F. Adams
(of Peter Flynn's _Formatting Information_ nee beginlatex.pdf which is at:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf )
>Aha -- with the source!
>An excellent example of how to produce both first rate PDF and first
>rate HTML from a single XML (customized DocBook) source document.
I dunno if I'd call ``first rate'' a .pdf formatted for A4, but cropped to
letter-size.
I really wish the i18n community would adopt a page 11" tall but 210mm wide as
the standard for electronic documentation---that way the pagination would be
the same between copies printed on A4 and letter sized paper and there'd be no
need to maintain multiple versions of the electronic file (and no mismatches
such as occur in beginlatex.pdf) regular margins are a small price to pay....
It also has some egregious errors (for example referring to a 72 point Times
Roman ``M'' on pg. 21, but showing that letter from Computer Modern), or
representing scaled Helvetica as true 10pt. type in Table 8.1
Norman Gray
will...@aol.com (William F. Adams) writes:
>I really wish the i18n community would adopt a page 11" tall but 210mm wide as
>the standard for electronic documentation---that way the pagination would be
>the same between copies printed on A4 and letter sized paper and there'd be no
>need to maintain multiple versions of the electronic file (and no mismatches
>such as occur in beginlatex.pdf) regular margins are a small price to pay....
Another possible solution would be for the US to adopt the same paper
size as the rest of the world (or at least fill the other paper tray
in the printer).
The fact of the matter is that A4 is the normal case, and USLetter is
the wierd special case. Distorting the design of a document so that it
looks OK on US paper is the tail wagging the dog, which I would have
thought would horrify someone with such manifest typographical good
taste as yourself.
All the best,
Norman
[hiding under his bridge...]
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Gray http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/
Timothy Madden
> Timothy Madden <tou...@boxfrog.com> wrote:
>
>> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
>> news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
>>
Thank you Rowland for your answers
>> > If that
>> > combined with any local support isn't enough and you want to learn
>> > more about LaTeX - well, you'll buy a book then. And why not? .
This problem is it's not easy to find a good LaTeX book here
> Things are different in the TeX world. For sure the *real* real stuff
> in contained in the source code - the only way to *fully* understand
> LaTeX is to read the source.
I'm sorry Rowland, I don't think reading the source is for me. I am a
programmer and I know C++ well, but TeX is a really complex and huge
program. I don't think anyone but the authors can read the sources
>
> I have rarely found high quality technical documentation in electronic
> format. In fact, I've found very little new high quality technical
> documentation *anywhere* in the last 15 years or so.
I was thinking about Intel 80286/80386/80387 programmer's reference,
the RFC's describing HTTP, FTP, NNTP, SMTP, etc, the HTML4.0 standard from
W3C, The ISO standard for C++ (which is not free, but I found it),
documentation for SQL, PHP, etc, etc
Those are all good and complete reference documets I think.
I'm sorry LaTeX doesn't have something like this.
> Software firms
> gave up on proper documentation years ago when they found that people
> would buy the stuff even if the firm didn't bother documenting it - so
> software firms typically do not bother with documentation any more.
You are complete right here, I must admit.
> For sure you'd probably make very little money on the deal - but how
> do you feel about having your name as the translator of a properly
> published bit of high quality technical writing? That is unlikely to
> hurt your future prospects even if you've not the slightest intention
> of being a professional translator.
I'm not willing to take any fee because I admire all the people who worked
to make the very good program we are talking about.
It's just I don't want to work for nothing; peoples here do not really know
about LaTeX and if I tell them about it they wonder why is it better then
Word ? (I must admit it's not easy for me to find arguments that would
matter for them).
And another problem. I am not calified in any way to translate a book, even
thoght I can do it. Can anyone just talk to Addison-Wesley and translate
any book they want. Do you think Addison will publish such translations ?
And I still don't know LaTeX well enough for a translation that will appear
in print. I just begun to learn LaTeX and I encountered a little issue with
existing documentation :)
Thank you
Timothy Madden :)
Timothy Madden
news:20030625113006...@mb-m29.aol.com:
> Did you find / typeset source2e.dvi/pdf?
I'm sorry I don't think reading the sources is for me. Being a programmer
is something and being a user is something else. I'll better send my time
searching documentation.
> What about the documentation at www.latex-project.org?
Yes, there is documentation. My problem was there are many Introductions
and no complete reference (else then in print).
Thank you
Timothy Madden
David Wilson
news:20030625160611...@mb-m06.aol.com...
> Bill Hammond said:
> (of Peter Flynn's _Formatting Information_ nee beginlatex.pdf which is
at:
>
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf
)
> >Aha -- with the source!
>
> >An excellent example of how to produce both first rate PDF and first
> >rate HTML from a single XML (customized DocBook) source document.
>
Times
> Roman ``M'' on pg. 21, but showing that letter from Computer Modern),
or
> representing scaled Helvetica as true 10pt. type in Table 8.1
>
Not to mention using bitmap CM fonts, apparently ignoring its own
exhortation on p41 (but perhaps consistent with the comment at the
end of 8.3.3).
David Wilson
William F. Adams
>Another possible solution would be for the US to adopt the same paper
>size as the rest of the world (or at least fill the other paper tray
>in the printer).
I find A4 to be an awkward size paper all-around, and it just doesn't appeal to
me---too tall, and it doesn't fit in the spiffy wooden file cabinet I picked up
a couple of years ago (had receipts from 1952 in the bottom of it, and I'm
pretty sure it's a bit older than that ;).
>The fact of the matter is that A4 is the normal case, and USLetter is
>the wierd special case. Distorting the design of a document so that it
>looks OK on US paper is the tail wagging the dog, which I would have
>thought would horrify someone with such manifest typographical good
>taste as yourself.
Thanks, but my suggestion was along the lines of a compromise (where everyone
is discomfited somewhat) and that people using A4 paper set up so as to have
slightly larger vertical margins than otherwise would be the norm, and people
using letter would accept slightly larger horizontal margins---I think the
benefits of everyone having the same page numbers would outweight the minor
offense to aesthetic sensibilities.
William F. Adams
>My problem was there are many Introductions
>and no complete reference (else then in print).
What's incomplete about the references which are at www.latex-project.org?
What is it you're expecting of _Latex2e for Authors_ which you're not finding?
Raymond Wan
On 26 Jun 2003, William F. Adams wrote:
> norman said:
> >Another possible solution would be for the US to adopt the same paper
> >size as the rest of the world (or at least fill the other paper tray
> >in the printer).
> I find A4 to be an awkward size paper all-around, and it just doesn't appeal to
> me---too tall, and it doesn't fit in the spiffy wooden file cabinet I picked up
Actually, I used letter for many years, and it only took a couple
for me to get use to A4. The idea of have a set of paper sizes where
there is a simple relationship between them (i.e., A3, A4, A5, etc.) is
quite appealing. I now find letter and legal paper sizes a bit awkward,
but really, when you live in a place where the binders and file cabinets
are sized to fit the paper, you'll get use to it whether you go from A4 to
letter or from letter to A4... But I'm sure before a change in paper size
occurs, the US would have to move to the metric system, which I don't see
that happening anytime soon.
Ray
Robin Fairbairns
>>My problem was there are many Introductions
>>and no complete reference (else then in print).
>
>What's incomplete about the references which are at www.latex-project.org?
>
>What is it you're expecting of _Latex2e for Authors_ which you're not finding?
what it builds on. the document is a list of differences from latex
2.09; which was enough for me in 1993 (when the first alpha was
released) to start programming, but it's hardly a comprehensive
reference.
we really need to stop making fanciful claims about documentation:
there's a lot of good stuff available (i think lshort is *fantastic*)
but the serious user and the aspirant programmer need more.
on the other hand, it would be nice if the people who need the stuff
would would stop this "they ought to" attitude to documentation. we
have lives too (of a sort, anyway), and document what we feel like at
any given moment. (which, most of the time for me, is nothing.)
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Robin Fairbairns
>real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
>> For sure you'd probably make very little money on the deal - but how
>> do you feel about having your name as the translator of a properly
>> published bit of high quality technical writing? That is unlikely to
>> hurt your future prospects even if you've not the slightest intention
>> of being a professional translator.
>
>I'm not willing to take any fee because I admire all the people who worked
>to make the very good program we are talking about.
>It's just I don't want to work for nothing; peoples here do not really know
>about LaTeX and if I tell them about it they wonder why is it better then
>Word ? (I must admit it's not easy for me to find arguments that would
>matter for them).
a lot of us _do_ work for nothing. a lot of people post here, trying
to help others; a lot of people work on documentation -- look at tobi
oetiker's output, for example. some of us manage to finesse public
documentation via our own work (i think that's what peter flynn did
with his new document), but i can't do that, and i think i'm not
alone.
>And another problem. I am not calified in any way to translate a book, even
>thoght I can do it. Can anyone just talk to Addison-Wesley and translate
>any book they want. Do you think Addison will publish such translations ?
there's a russian edition of the texbook that isn't (iirc) published
by a-w, and seemed to me to be a rogue exercise, at the time it
appeared in the ussr.
>And I still don't know LaTeX well enough for a translation that will appear
>in print. I just begun to learn LaTeX and I encountered a little issue with
>existing documentation :)
translating something doesn't necessarily need expertise in the matter
you're viewing: it requires that you're an expert in the language you
translate _into_. i have two professional translator friends, who
regularly translate things into english that they don't understand
(one of them often calls me to ask about a technical computing term).
i would imagine, that having translated something like lshort into
romanian, you would find yourself (a) with a usable document, if not a
perfect one, and (b) with a better understanding of the subject
matter. whether the effort is worth while is for you to consider. if
you were instrumental in stimulating a latex "take-off" in romania,
your name would become very well-known among future latex users in the
romanian-speaking world. whether this is enough "payback" for you
isn't clear from what you've said.
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Stephan Lehmke
>
> we really need to stop making fanciful claims about documentation:
> there's a lot of good stuff available (i think lshort is *fantastic*)
> but the serious user and the aspirant programmer need more.
There used to be an attitude in the TeX world, "you get the tools for
free, for docs you by a couple of books", which I found quite
reasonable.
I don't see the point in letting oneself be pressured into an attitude
that everything should be given away for free just because that's the
spirit of the time.
Writing code is fun, writing docs is work (at least for me).
> on the other hand, it would be nice if the people who need the stuff
> would would stop this "they ought to" attitude to documentation.
Additionally, there are a couple of very respectable reference books
available for download nowadays.
regards
Stephan
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> we really need to stop making fanciful claims about documentation:
> there's a lot of good stuff available (i think lshort is *fantastic*)
> but the serious user and the aspirant programmer need more.
Who's this `we'? I tend to spend time complaining about how crap modern
documentation is. But I've always considered - right from when I first
met it - that LaTeX had okay docs to get you started if you had a
working LaTeX setup. Well, me and a Unix guru friend bootstrapped our
way into setting up and using LaTeX with not a lot more than the then
available printed docs from what I recall, although it was several
months before we had an on-screen previewer (grmph. Well, the
university paid for the paper and toner).
I'd say that the docs for beginners have got much better since then -
and back then, what was available was *adequate*.
I also like lshort. I've mostly got by with a first edition of Lamport,
The TeXbook, and I don't have a photocopy of the entire reference
section of Lamport's second edition because that'd be illegal.
I think you're quite right about the needs of the serious user and
programmer not being met - the basic stuff is well covered, but...
Well, what documentation support does the *serious* LaTeX user have?
Bugger all unless he's already a serious LaTeX hacker in which case he
doesn't need much. Yes. But I for one have never claimed that the
heavy duty doc needs have been taken care of in LaTeX - although
Lehman's fontinst manual does seem to be *excellent* so far.
The problem can be summarized like this, I think: it's easy enough to
learn enough about LaTeX to be a very competent user and write simple
packages and suchlike (I managed it). But it's hard to make the jump to
understanding the guts of LaTeX and the seriously heavy duty stuff -
there seems to be a big jump from the `user side' to the `hacker side'
and there doesn't seem to be any guidance on how to fill in the gap, if
you see what I mean. That missing guidance is the missing
documentation, I think.
> on the other hand, it would be nice if the people who need the stuff
> would would stop this "they ought to" attitude to documentation.
True; but I don't mind the `it'd be nice if...' approach - which is a
similar way of putting across the same sort of idea (nor do you; I
assume that's why you used it yourself above)
Rowland McDonnell
> will...@aol.com (William F. Adams) wrote in
> news:20030625113006...@mb-m29.aol.com:
>
>
> > Did you find / typeset source2e.dvi/pdf?
>
> I'm sorry I don't think reading the sources is for me.
Think about this: two of us have suggested you might like to look at the
source code. Go on, take a look - a look can't hurt, can it?
> Being a programmer
> is something and being a user is something else.
The divide in LaTeX is not clear-cut - pretty much everyone writes the
odd LaTeX command once in a while (mine are usually very odd). I turned
myself into a LaTeX programmer of a very basic sort not long after
having started using it - this was back in 1988 or thereabouts and the
wealth of packages and classes we now have just didn't exist. Nor did
the Web for that matter, or CTAN (or if it did, no-one told me - I just
knew about the Aston TeX archive). So I *had* to write my own packages
(well, style files back in those days) just to allow me to produce the
documents I wanted with the ease I wanted.
These days you can usually just grab someone else's code to do what you
want. This is a Good Thing. But it's also a Good Thing to be slightly
capable of programming in LaTeX just because it'll make your life as a
LaTeX user just that bit easier and smoother - I really do mean that.
You might find that you write some stuff some day that others might find
useful. I did just that. What, me? A shiferbwains like *me* writing
something that others might want to use? Good heavens! Okay, some of
my released LaTeX is a baroque nightmare (eurofont.sty in particular.
Hey, it *works*, orright?), but sectsty has a following.
I mentioned that package in particular because I found myself frustrated
at having to piddle about with \@startsection every time I just wanted
to change section headings. I thought of various ways of speeding
things up and making life easier - and ended up concluding that the only
sensible solution to my problem would be to write a general purpose
package to let me change any sectional header fount with a really
trivial command. So I wrote the code, used and tested it, documented
it, and eventually released it. It grew a bit when I found out what
other people thought it might be useful for (all sorts of things I'd
never considered). It turns out that a *lot* of people seem to have
wanted the control that sectsty provides - it just so happened that my
need matched the needs of lots of other people, so sectsty is dead handy
despite being a really moronic bit of code in some ways.
The thing is, when I started to write sectsty, a package to modify
section headers already existed - titlesec. But while it's much more
flexible and general purpose than sectsty, it's also harder to use. I
preferred to write my own package than use someone else's which didn't
quite do what I wanted (okay, I'm seriously contrary and practicing to
be a crabby old man in case I ever grow up).
Now then... You're bright and you're a programmer (I'm not, not really)
and you want to use LaTeX. I predict this: if you were to learn a bit
about programming LaTeX and if you then continued using LaTeX, you would
find life easier if you *did* write a few commands every now and then.
And then you'll want to package some extra commands up in a package
file. And then you'll have an idea for a particular job you want to do
- make LaTeX behave differently. Sometimes the easiest (brain strain
and time) and best quality way to do a given job is write a new class or
package file to do that job - *really*. And if you can't program in
LaTeX at all, you'll have to do it the hard way.
> I'll better send my time
> searching documentation.
Please do look at the typeset source code - you might well find it
useful. If not, no worries - but do look.
> > What about the documentation at www.latex-project.org?
>
> Yes, there is documentation. My problem was there are many Introductions
> and no complete reference (else then in print).
The only complete references to LaTeX that I know of are either in
print, or the actual source code of LaTeX itself (and it really is
documented - honest. Patchily and poorly in places, but it's
documented).
Rowland McDonnell
> Timothy Madden <tou...@boxfrog.com> writes:
> >real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
> >> For sure you'd probably make very little money on the deal - but how
> >> do you feel about having your name as the translator of a properly
> >> published bit of high quality technical writing? That is unlikely to
> >> hurt your future prospects even if you've not the slightest intention
> >> of being a professional translator.
> >
> >I'm not willing to take any fee because I admire all the people who worked
> >to make the very good program we are talking about.
> >It's just I don't want to work for nothing; peoples here do not really know
> >about LaTeX and if I tell them about it they wonder why is it better then
> >Word ? (I must admit it's not easy for me to find arguments that would
> >matter for them).
>
> a lot of us _do_ work for nothing.
True... But I can't help feeling it's a bit different in the case of
translating a book for commercial publication. On top of that, don't
you think it'd be easier to be taken serious as a translator if you
actually asked for a fee rather than offering the translation for free?
Maybe not - I dunno <shrug>.
Mind you, given that Mr Unpronouncable here:
is now *giving away* his excellent book on TeX...
[snip]
> >And I still don't know LaTeX well enough for a translation that will appear
> >in print. I just begun to learn LaTeX and I encountered a little issue with
> >existing documentation :)
>
> translating something doesn't necessarily need expertise in the matter
> you're viewing: it requires that you're an expert in the language you
> translate _into_.
Quite right (as you know better than I), but I personally can't help
feeling that a decent understanding of the subject matter helps a bit.
I suspect, for example, that one reason for the drop in quality of
technical documentation that I've observed over, erm, the last 20-odd
years, is that it's now written by professional technical authors
directed by powerful middle management with the usual idiotic ideas
rather than engineers with a bent for writing who ignore management
whenever possible.
[snip]
> i would imagine, that having translated something like lshort into
> romanian, you would find yourself (a) with a usable document, if not a
> perfect one, and (b) with a better understanding of the subject
> matter. whether the effort is worth while is for you to consider. if
> you were instrumental in stimulating a latex "take-off" in romania,
> your name would become very well-known among future latex users in the
> romanian-speaking world. whether this is enough "payback" for you
> isn't clear from what you've said.
Hmm. Well, one way to convince Addison-Wesley that you were up to
translating the entirity of Lamport's book might be to translate lshort.
Rowland McDonnell
> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
> news:1fx1dak.1qrcnx6gr3fq8N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
>
> > Timothy Madden <tou...@boxfrog.com> wrote:
> >
> >> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
> >> news:1fwzpfn.olz5p51qe1lc9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet:
> >>
>
> Thank you Rowland for your answers
<bows>
> >> > If that
> >> > combined with any local support isn't enough and you want to learn
> >> > more about LaTeX - well, you'll buy a book then. And why not? .
>
> This problem is it's not easy to find a good LaTeX book here
`Find'? Umm. If I wanted an obscure book, I'd decide if I wanted a
copy permanently. If I did, I'd go to a bookshop and have the bookshop
order it for me - over here (England), that tends to take about 2 weeks.
If not, I'd try finding a copy in a library - if I couldn't find one,
I'd ask a library to borrow a copy for me. That tends to take about 2
weeks as well.
I don't ever recall seeing a book on (La)TeX just sat on a bookshop
shelf. No, I tell a lie - Knuth's entire `Computers and Typesetting'
series was once available in a second hand bookshop I know, in hardback
as I recall - I couldn't afford it at the time, damnit (the explanation
is that it was a second hand bookshop which sold textbooks (and lots of
gay pornography for some reason, not to mention science fiction) in a
city over-run with university students - Manchester, as it happens).
I don't know how things are in Romania - but surely even if a Romanian
supplier couldn't get (say) Lamport or Kopka and Daley, you could buy
from overseas somehow? There are plenty of on-line book sellers who'll
ship almost anywhere in the world.
> > Things are different in the TeX world. For sure the *real* real stuff
> > in contained in the source code - the only way to *fully* understand
> > LaTeX is to read the source.
>
> I'm sorry Rowland, I don't think reading the source is for me. I am a
> programmer and I know C++ well, but TeX is a really complex and huge
> program. I don't think anyone but the authors can read the sources
LaTeX source code is different. LaTeX source code is all supposed to be
properly documented so you can typeset a source file and print out a
manual for that part of the LaTeX source code to explain how it works
along with a typeset and indexed version of the source code if you want
it. Okay, the documentation is patchy in parts and don't expect to make
any sense at all out of the LaTeX kernel until you've lived with the
TeXbook for a while, but...
Given your technical background, I don't think you'd have much trouble
reading quite a lot of the LaTeX source code. But you don't have to do
so in order to use LaTeX - well, not until you want to write your own
class and package files, anyway.
I'm NOT a great TeX hacker of any sort - but I often read LaTeX source
code to figure out how to do something.
> > I have rarely found high quality technical documentation in electronic
> > format. In fact, I've found very little new high quality technical
> > documentation *anywhere* in the last 15 years or so.
>
> I was thinking about Intel 80286/80386/80387 programmer's reference,
> the RFC's describing HTTP, FTP, NNTP, SMTP, etc, the HTML4.0 standard from
> W3C,
Ye Gods! I've got that and I find it very hard to use. That sort of
thing usually is completely inaccessible to normal human beings in my
experience. RFCs are largely meant to be inaccessible to those who are
not experts in the field: I cite them as a prime example of awkward
modern documentation as it happens.
> The ISO standard for C++ (which is not free, but I found it),
I've just had a look at the only ISO standard document I've got (ISO
3103-1980; it's the tea taster's guide to tea making) - now you remind
me, ISO documents do tend to be pretty well put together, even if they
can't spot the difference between literature and architecture (they
alway say `annex' when they mean `appendix' for some reason).
> documentation for SQL, PHP, etc, etc
> Those are all good and complete reference documets I think.
> I'm sorry LaTeX doesn't have something like this.
What do you want, exactly? LaTeX does have a reference work - Lamport's
LaTeX book has a pretty good reference section. Is that not up to the
job? If not, you can typeset latex.ltx and find out more about the
guts.
> > Software firms
> > gave up on proper documentation years ago when they found that people
> > would buy the stuff even if the firm didn't bother documenting it - so
> > software firms typically do not bother with documentation any more.
>
> You are complete right here, I must admit.
It's the main reason I'm seriously considering switching from Macs to
FreeBSD. What's the point in spending all that money on a fully
commercial setup when you just don't get what you pay for? FreeBSD has
much better documentation and support than the MacOS, and it's free...
> > For sure you'd probably make very little money on the deal - but how
> > do you feel about having your name as the translator of a properly
> > published bit of high quality technical writing? That is unlikely to
> > hurt your future prospects even if you've not the slightest intention
> > of being a professional translator.
>
> I'm not willing to take any fee because I admire all the people who worked
> to make the very good program we are talking about.
> It's just I don't want to work for nothing; peoples here do not really know
> about LaTeX and if I tell them about it they wonder why is it better then
> Word ?
`Better'? Hmm. It gives higher quality output than MS Word and for
anything complex, LaTeX is easier to use than MS Word. But LaTeX's user
interface is too anti GUI for most people to consider using it.
It's not so much that it's better than MS Word, just more suitable for
some jobs in the hands of some people. I've found that the best way to
interest people in LaTeX is say nothing about it until it crops up in
conversation - which it will if they want to send *me* a WP file, for
example. Basically, I get *asked* about why I use something as deviant
and `not written by Microsoft' as LaTeX - and I tell 'em I use it
because I find it faster and more reliable than MS Word, but (and this
is the important bit) *it's not really suitable for everyone*. Bing!
They're interested! (okay, the technique is entirely unfair, but who
cares?)
>(I must admit it's not easy for me to find arguments that would
> matter for them).
I'm not sure if these all still work, but:
http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~mooreb/nomsg.html Why LaTeX is better than MS
Word
http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue22/words.html Word Processing vs. Text
Processing?
http://www.ideography.co.uk/library/seybold/WYS-ante.html What has
WYSIWYG done to us?
http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/wp.html WPs vs. LaTeX
http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.tex {tex,dvi,html}
http://www.conglomerate.org/docs/death_of_wysiwyg.html Death of wysiwyg
from the XML point of view 2002-02-15
> And another problem. I am not calified in any way to translate a book, even
> thoght I can do it.
Are you *sure* you're not qualified? Are you a highly literate native
Romanian speaker with a good command of technical Romanian *and*
technical English in the required field? I think the answer to that
question is `yes' - and it's easy enough to prove to Addison-Wesley that
this applies even if you don't have any formal qualifications in the
field: if they can see a good English to Romanian translation from you
and are confident that you really did it and capable of working to
contract terms (i.e., adequate quality by the specified time; I'm very
bad at persuading people so don't ask me what else you might do), I
can't see why they wouldn't be interested in seriously considering
having you translate the book *IF* you could also convince them that
there's a worthwhile market for a Romanian LaTeX book. Well, why not?
We're living in a world where free software is being plugged by, for
example, the German government which wants to use it as much as
possible. Okay, that's Germany and not Romania - but it strikes me that
one reason for the German government wishing to eschew Microsoft is cost
and one thing I do know about Romania is that it's not as rich as
Germany. And European governments do look at each other - I don't
suppose there's much enthusiasm for `being German' about things in
Romania, but I can't see any reason not to follow the German lead in
this. (Our dear leader, that lovely Mr Blair, wants the British
taxpayer to give as much money to foreign firms as possible especially
if they're from the US (I know, I know, but that's British PMs for you),
so he seems to be trying to make running Windoze compulsory for
everything including (and this is not a joke) accessing government Web
sites)
And having read Robin's post, it strikes me that if you were to
translate lshort into Romanian, that on its own might convince
Addison-Wesley that you were up to the job of the entire LaTeX book.
> Can anyone just talk to Addison-Wesley and translate
> any book they want. Do you think Addison will publish such translations ?
Anyone can talk to Addison-Wesley about anything. They'll only listen
if they think it'll affect their profits. If you've got a proposal for
(say) translating Lamport's LaTeX book which convinces them that:
1) There's a market for a Romanian translation of the book
2) You are capable of doing the translation to spec and to schedule
I can't see why they shouldn't be seriously interested.
> And I still don't know LaTeX well enough for a translation that will appear
> in print. I just begun to learn LaTeX and I encountered a little issue with
> existing documentation :)
<mad laughter> And there I was telling you to translate the thing...
<chuckle> Yeah, well, probably best to spend some more time getting the
hang of it first - you sound *extremely* technically competent and I
don't suppose you'll have any great trouble getting the hang of LaTeX
much, much better than I've ever managed - but it does take time...
(and I know that professional translators say they don't necessarily
need expertise in the field they're translating - but I've never been
entirely happy with that myself).
Having said all *that*, a few years ago I attempted to improve the
fontinst documentation because I couldn't figure out how to use the
bloody thing. Yes, documenting software you don't understand isn't easy
- but the idea was that I could probably get more help for *me*
personally from those who understood it if I were trying to improve the
docs. I can't pretend I did a good job and I went mad before I could
finish it, but it wasn't a complete washout - I made some significant
improvements to what was available and learnt a hell of a lot in the
process (mostly my own work - writing the docs meant I had particular
reasons to try particular experiments in a rational fashion to find out
what happens when you do `X' - as opposed to `How do I do Y', which is
what I'd been doing up until then).
> Thank you
> Timothy Madden :)
No worries :-)
Rowland McDonnell
> In <bde696$6tr$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Robin Fairbairns writes:
> >
> > we really need to stop making fanciful claims about documentation:
> > there's a lot of good stuff available (i think lshort is *fantastic*)
> > but the serious user and the aspirant programmer need more.
>
> There used to be an attitude in the TeX world, "you get the tools for
> free, for docs you by a couple of books", which I found quite
> reasonable.
It's still there. I think that way.
> I don't see the point in letting oneself be pressured into an attitude
> that everything should be given away for free just because that's the
> spirit of the time.
It's not. And if people did do that, the global economy would fall
apart and we'd not be using LaTeX because we'd be starving with no
electricity at all.
> Writing code is fun, writing docs is work (at least for me).
And that's the way it should be for a hacker - which is the problem.
Hackers write the code, but they don't like writing docs and generally
speaking haven't a clue how to write documentation at all. Personally,
I often enjoy writing docs more than writing code. I was a teacher.
Different people, different points of view.
[snip]
Thomas Lotze
> norman said:
>>The fact of the matter is that A4 is the normal case, and USLetter is
>>the wierd special case. Distorting the design of a document so that it
>>looks OK on US paper is the tail wagging the dog, which I would have
>>thought would horrify someone with such manifest typographical good
>>taste as yourself.
Why should one papersize be "normal" as opposed to another? Why couldn't
they just be there, for the reader to choose between?
Moreover, if any one papersize is awkward, it's A4 (and the rest of the
DIN series, of course). Though they do have their advantages (two A5
sheets fitting one A4 sheet exactly is a nice thing sometimes), they are
due to a mathematical idea, which is an awkward thing when talking about
typographical good taste.
BTW, I'm European and used to the DIN paper sizes.
> Thanks, but my suggestion was along the lines of a compromise (where
> everyone is discomfited somewhat)
This means there's no longer any really good solution. Not something to
wish for, if you ask me.
Why not have more than one format to typeset a document in (and thus
maintain several files as the - relatively low - price for good
typographical quality), or printers that can print on both DIN and
American paper sizes?
> I think the
> benefits of everyone having the same page numbers would outweight the
> minor offense to aesthetic sensibilities.
References are better given in terms of logical structure anyway. This is
especially true of technical documentation such as that this thread is
about.
Just consider texts which come not only typeset but also as plain text or
HTML, or texts changing from one version to the next - page numbers are
rather meaningless in those cases while chapter numbers etc are much more
universal and survive many changes to the document page numbers don't.
Cheers, Thomas
--
Thomas Lotze
Rowland McDonnell
> norman said:
> >Another possible solution would be for the US to adopt the same paper
> >size as the rest of the world (or at least fill the other paper tray
> >in the printer).
>
> I find A4 to be an awkward size paper all-around, and it just doesn't
> appeal to me---too tall,
Woo! Have you ever met foolscap folio? The size we had in Britain
until A4 took over? If you think A4 is too tall, try 8.5" x 13.5".
Your liking for US letter paper is simply a matter of what you're used
to, though - the proportions of US letter paper are aesthetically pretty
bad just as are those of A4 (read on).
(A4 is 8.3" x 11.7", US letter is 8.5" x 11.5", and US legal is 8.5" x
14")
Now then, the golden ratio (Phi) is about 1·6180339887 and rectangles in
that proportion have been considered pretty good looking by most people
for a few thousand years now from what I've heard.
Paper Ratio twixt %age from Phi
size sides
US letter 1.35 17% down
A4 1.414 13% down
Foolscap folio 1.59 1.8% down
US legal 1.65 1.8% up
I think that A4 is too `square' and too wide, and that US letter paper
is even worse - both sizes are too wide for printing single column in
10pt or 11pt type, for example. I like foolscap folio proportions
better than most paper sizes. Because of that liking, now I've done the
calculations, I'm utterly unsurprised to discover that foolscap folio is
closer to the golden ratio than most of the other common paper sizes one
sees around - and of course US executive paper is even further away from
nice proportions than the normal paper sizes, but you'd expect that from
the suits, wouldn't you?
I don't have a lot of foolscap left and my printer driver's never heard
of the stuff, but there you go.
> and it doesn't fit in the spiffy wooden file cabinet I picked up
> a couple of years ago (had receipts from 1952 in the bottom of it, and I'm
> pretty sure it's a bit older than that ;).
True, but for the price of your last new Mac, you could buy a very large
number of filing cabinets to replace it.
> >The fact of the matter is that A4 is the normal case, and USLetter is
> >the wierd special case. Distorting the design of a document so that it
> >looks OK on US paper is the tail wagging the dog, which I would have
> >thought would horrify someone with such manifest typographical good
> >taste as yourself.
>
> Thanks, but my suggestion was along the lines of a compromise (where everyone
> is discomfited somewhat)
It'd never take off. Too many people would point blank refuse to play.
>and that people using A4 paper set up so as to have
> slightly larger vertical margins than otherwise would be the norm, and people
> using letter would accept slightly larger horizontal margins---
They shouldn't, really. Everyone would have to accept dodgy positioning
of the text block on the paper, but \textwidth is set by reference to
the type size, *not* the paper size. The margins will be buggered, but
the line length and line breaking and all that damned well ought to be
unaffected.
>I think the
> benefits of everyone having the same page numbers would outweight the minor
> offense to aesthetic sensibilities.
I don't think that myself. We have section numbers for reliable
cross-referencing and I like my documents to look *nice*. Why
compromise output quality just to accomodate a minority of users with
awkward paper? I don't mind playing silly buggers to get the formatting
right whether a LaTeX document is destined for A4 or US letter, but I'm
damned if I'm going to accept a horrible bodge as an alternative.
Rowland McDonnell
> Bill Hammond said:
> (of Peter Flynn's _Formatting Information_ nee beginlatex.pdf which is at:
> http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf )
> >Aha -- with the source!
>
> >An excellent example of how to produce both first rate PDF and first
> >rate HTML from a single XML (customized DocBook) source document.
>
> I dunno if I'd call ``first rate'' a .pdf formatted for A4, but cropped to
> letter-size.
A4 is what most people use, so it makes sense to format the document for
that paper size rather than the less common US letter size - which is
what the author in fact did. You can hardly expect a document to look
good if you print it on the wrong paper stock, can you now?
If you're one of the minority of computer users who uses US letter
paper, it strikes me that you can expect to run in to this sort of
problem. It's only cropped to letter size if you haven't got A4 paper
to print on.
> I really wish the i18n community would adopt a page 11" tall but 210mm wide as
> the standard for electronic documentation
I really wish the USA would use the same standards as everyone else in
the world. A better solution in the long run, I reckon. But I shan't
hold my breath - when it comes to paper sizes, there's all those filing
cabinets that need replacing in the USA if you're going to go from US
letter to A4. Not any time soon, right? (A4 fits inside foolscap
filing; A4 doesn't fit inside US letter filing)
>---that way the pagination would be
> the same between copies printed on A4 and letter sized paper and there'd be no
> need to maintain multiple versions of the electronic file (and no mismatches
> such as occur in beginlatex.pdf) regular margins are a small price to pay....
Actually, there's no need to maintain multiple versions of the source
file at all in any case. Using LaTeX, it's easy enough to put
discretionary breaks and other such code in, conditional on paper size
settings, so you can have different output formatting from a single
source document, depending on the paper size you have selected. I have
done this myself.
I think it's best to do the formatting properly using a single source
file. Ugly for all - well, no, that's horrible. I mostly print on A4,
and I'd much rather print out a document beautifully formatted for US
letter on that than a bodge of the sort you're talking about.
(as it happens, some years ago I experimented with the compromise paper
size setting you suggested for approximately the reasons run into here.
I didn't like it *at all*.)
> It also has some egregious errors (for example referring to a 72 point Times
> Roman ``M'' on pg. 21, but showing that letter from Computer Modern), or
> representing scaled Helvetica as true 10pt. type in Table 8.1
That's a different matter. It strikes me that there are merely a few
mistakes which need ironing out.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> But I'm sure before a change in paper size
> occurs, the US would have to move to the metric system, which I don't see
> that happening anytime soon.
I thought it happened officially back in the 1970s - except that the US
government decided to make it a voluntary change, so hardly anyone
bothered. But you'll find that although (for example) people will talk
about making ICs on (say) a 12 inch wafer, they really mean a 300mm
wafer. There's a lot of `talking in imperial and working in metric'
going on around the place. Bloody confusing if you ask me.
Rowland McDonnell
> On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 02:36:48 +0000, William F. Adams wrote:
>
> > norman said:
> >>The fact of the matter is that A4 is the normal case, and USLetter is
> >>the wierd special case. Distorting the design of a document so that it
> >>looks OK on US paper is the tail wagging the dog, which I would have
> >>thought would horrify someone with such manifest typographical good
> >>taste as yourself.
>
> Why should one papersize be "normal" as opposed to another?
`Why'? Who knows - but US letter paper is a minority paper size when
compared to A4, globally. But if you're in Delaware, A4 is the odd
stuff. It's not really very helpful to say that A4's the more normal
stuff - it might be, globally, but we each and every one of us lives
somewhere local.
> Why couldn't
> they just be there, for the reader to choose between?
Because the author has to prepare input for two differently formatted
output files?
> Moreover, if any one papersize is awkward, it's A4 (and the rest of the
> DIN series, of course).
I'd say much less awkward than US letter. Awkward, yes; but not as bad
(see my other post in this thread; the one about the golden ratio and
paper sizes)
> Though they do have their advantages (two A5
> sheets fitting one A4 sheet exactly is a nice thing sometimes), they are
> due to a mathematical idea, which is an awkward thing when talking about
> typographical good taste.
Not really. The mathematical idea of the golden ratio has done well for
aesthetic purposes for a bit longer than the last fortnight.
> BTW, I'm European and used to the DIN paper sizes.
(ISO for the rest of the world ;-) )
[snip]
> Why not have more than one format to typeset a document in (and thus
> maintain several files as the - relatively low - price for good
> typographical quality),
Because it's extra unwelcome work for the author. And US authors of
LaTeX docs can say `US letter's the default LaTeX paper size, so it's
reasonable for me to use it' while everyone else can say `A4 is the most
common paper size, so it's reasonable for me to use it'.
> or printers that can print on both DIN and
> American paper sizes?
We've pretty much all got printers that can print on both, haven't we?
But I don't want to have to file US letter paper documents next to A4
documents because that makes life awkward. *No-one* wants to file
different-but-close paper sizes next to each other - USians don't want
to fiddle with A4 (backward bunch that they are, but there's no changing
'em so I'll stop whinging) and I don't want to fiddle with US letter.
On top of all that, A4 paper is non trivial to get hold of in the USA
and US letter paper is non trivial to get hold of outside the USA (and,
I assume, Canada?)
[snip]
Thomas Lotze
> It's not really very helpful to say that A4's the more normal stuff - it
> might be, globally, but we each and every one of us lives somewhere
> local.
Which is what I mean. Typesetting for the most common paper size is not a
decision made from the point of view of readers, since someone who uses
some specific paper size normally doesn't care how large a part of the
rest of the world uses something different. It is a decision made from the
author's point of view (which is the wrong one when talking about
typography) - it minimizes the number of complaints he gets about the
right paper size not being supported.
> Because the author has to prepare input for two differently formatted
> output files?
However, in <1fxfar2.r002vsyjh5lgN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet>,
you state yourself how easy it is for authors using LaTeX to do just that.
> Not really. The mathematical idea of the golden ratio has done well for
> aesthetic purposes for a bit longer than the last fortnight.
No. It's not the mathematical idea which has done well, it's the ratio
which accidentally can be described by a mathematical idea.
In the case of the ISO paper sizes, the mathematical idea is all there is
- aesthetics hasn't been considered when defining the sizes.
> Because it's extra unwelcome work for the author.
See above. Besides, someone interested in some particular paper size can
always re-typeset any document the source code of which is available.
> And US authors of
> LaTeX docs can say `US letter's the default LaTeX paper size, so it's
> reasonable for me to use it' while everyone else can say `A4 is the most
> common paper size, so it's reasonable for me to use it'.
Of course they can, but I couldn't care less about what paper size some
author uses - I want to print the thing on *my* printer and on *my* paper.
Which can be that which is standard in my country, or that which I
personally like best, or whatever. If this means I have to re-typeset the
doc, so be it.
> But I don't want to have to file US letter paper documents next to A4
> documents because that makes life awkward.
I don't want to *have* to do that either, I just want to *be allowed* to
use my preferred paper size, which might differ from doc to doc.
> *No-one* wants to file
> different-but-close paper sizes next to each other - USians don't want
> to fiddle with A4 (backward bunch that they are, but there's no changing
> 'em so I'll stop whinging) and I don't want to fiddle with US letter.
So there's four options: Force the whole world to use the same paper size,
fiddle with different paper sizes in your printer, live with bad results,
or typeset docs for several paper sizes in parallel. I'm confused by this
discussion - which option is the one you prefer?
> On top of all that, A4 paper is non trivial to get hold of in the USA
> and US letter paper is non trivial to get hold of outside the USA (and,
> I assume, Canada?)
Which only underlines my point by restricting the above set of options
further, leaving in the one I advocate.
William F. Adams
French-fold brochures). Surely one can just go to a printshop and have
arbitrary sizes of paper cut?
As regards A4 being too large or comfortable, well, how many A4-sized books
does one see (even in Europe)? I recently picked up a catalogue for an
exhibition of Matthew Carter's type designs which, if memory serves is A4, and
I find it simply too large to read / handle comfortably, and the design doesn't
make effective use of the space either IMO. I also find British magazines to be
over-sized as well, though it may be a useful datapoint that _Eye_ Magazine
doesn't use A4 (it's still way too big though ;)
AFAICT though, the document in question (Peter Flynn's Formatting Information /
Beginner's LaTeX) is designed / typeset to A4, but the .pdf is sized to letter,
hence the running heads are chopped off on most pages (if you go to pg. 14 you
can see that something's chopped off there---it's even more obvious on pg.
103). At least if it'd been designed / typeset to 11" x 210mm that wouldn't've
happened (I also find these proportions a bit more pleasing, though it's a
nuisance to trim such a small edge off from a letter-sized page---much easier
getting to this from A4).
Here's a counter-proposal---let's typeset all the electronic docs to A4 and we
in the US can print at 94% and trim a bit less than 3/4" off the side.
Rowland McDonnell
> I find legal (8.5" x 14") a bit largish as well (though it is nifty for
> French-fold brochures). Surely one can just go to a printshop and have
> arbitrary sizes of paper cut?
Yes, but... To have paper cut to size economically, it's got to be of
about the same aspect ratio of the stock you're cutting it from.
> As regards A4 being too large or comfortable, well, how many A4-sized books
> does one see (even in Europe)?
None, thankfully - it was never meant to be for books. It's meant as a
replacement for things like foolscap folio as the standard commercial
`shove it in the tripewriter' paper stock. And it's not so bad for that
job (it's not too wide for a typewritten document) - but once you stop
typing on it and start typesetting, then the problems become obvious.
> I recently picked up a catalogue for an exhibition of Matthew Carter's
> type designs which, if memory serves is A4, and I find it simply too large
> to read / handle comfortably, and the design doesn't make effective use of
> the space either IMO. I also find British magazines to be over-sized as
> well,
That's just a matter of what you're used to - I find US magazines a bit
small, odd, and pokey size-wise. The differences are frankly trivial -
either one of us would quickly adapt to the other size standard if
exposed to it.
Rowland McDonnell
> On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 15:05:49 +0000, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
>
> > It's not really very helpful to say that A4's the more normal stuff - it
> > might be, globally, but we each and every one of us lives somewhere
> > local.
>
> Which is what I mean. Typesetting for the most common paper size is not a
> decision made from the point of view of readers, since someone who uses
> some specific paper size normally doesn't care how large a part of the
> rest of the world uses something different.
Surely that depends on the intended use of the document? If you're
preparing a document to be (say) downloaded and printed via the Web, the
author ought to ensure that those who print it out have it formatted for
the paper they're using. How else? No-one else is in a position to
perform that necessary step in quality management. So you've got to
look at your audience. You might decide that you don't give a damn and
ignore `the other lot' - but you should at least *think* about it. I
always do.
>It is a decision made from the
> author's point of view (which is the wrong one when talking about
> typography)
Jan Tschichold wrote some books. Are you telling me that his
typographical decisions were wrong?
> - it minimizes the number of complaints he gets about the
> right paper size not being supported.
That's a very narrow viewpoint - I've never made decisions like that.
> > Because the author has to prepare input for two differently formatted
> > output files?
>
> However, in <1fxfar2.r002vsyjh5lgN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet>,
> you state yourself how easy it is for authors using LaTeX to do just that.
That's right. However, most people won't bother no matter how easy I
think it is.
> > Not really. The mathematical idea of the golden ratio has done well for
> > aesthetic purposes for a bit longer than the last fortnight.
>
> No. It's not the mathematical idea which has done well,
Yes it is. That ratio was used in architecture because it looked good,
but it wasn't played around with until it was worked out mathematically
- which is why I called it a mathematical idea, because the idea of
using that ratio came from mathematical work.
>it's the ratio
> which accidentally can be described by a mathematical idea.
Is it accidental? Can you prove that claim?
> In the case of the ISO paper sizes, the mathematical idea is all there is
> - aesthetics hasn't been considered when defining the sizes.
It's not really much of a mathematical idea - it was just some suits
making an arbitrary decision based on some arbitrary numbers.
> > Because it's extra unwelcome work for the author.
>
> See above.
Most authors won't bother - however easy it might be.
> Besides, someone interested in some particular paper size can
> always re-typeset any document the source code of which is available.
No they can't - not if they don't have the right founts and/or diagrams
and/or dvi (or whatnot) driver which can handle it all.
> > And US authors of
> > LaTeX docs can say `US letter's the default LaTeX paper size, so it's
> > reasonable for me to use it' while everyone else can say `A4 is the most
> > common paper size, so it's reasonable for me to use it'.
>
> Of course they can, but I couldn't care less about what paper size some
> author uses - I want to print the thing on *my* printer and on *my* paper.
> Which can be that which is standard in my country, or that which I
> personally like best, or whatever. If this means I have to re-typeset the
> doc, so be it.
Most people, however, don't want to work like that. It can be awkward
to change paper sizes - sometimes *very* awkward, especially if you're
using a lot of the width of US letter or a lot of the height of A4.
> > But I don't want to have to file US letter paper documents next to A4
> > documents because that makes life awkward.
>
> I don't want to *have* to do that either, I just want to *be allowed* to
> use my preferred paper size, which might differ from doc to doc.
You can - if you've got LaTeX source and the other bits you need. As
you know as well as I do. Er?
> > *No-one* wants to file
> > different-but-close paper sizes next to each other - USians don't want
> > to fiddle with A4 (backward bunch that they are, but there's no changing
> > 'em so I'll stop whinging) and I don't want to fiddle with US letter.
>
> So there's four options: Force the whole world to use the same paper size,
> fiddle with different paper sizes in your printer, live with bad results,
> or typeset docs for several paper sizes in parallel. I'm confused by this
> discussion - which option is the one you prefer?
<grin> Why do you expect me to express a preference? But... No-one
can force the whole world to use the same paper size. I'm not having
different paper stocks in the house if I can avoid it; nor am I going to
put up with bad results if I can avoid that, either. So it's the
parallel typesetting for me - but more by default than active
preference.
> > On top of all that, A4 paper is non trivial to get hold of in the USA
> > and US letter paper is non trivial to get hold of outside the USA (and,
> > I assume, Canada?)
>
> Which only underlines my point by restricting the above set of options
> further, leaving in the one I advocate.
You seem to be arguing that source code should be provided and that the
end user should do the re-typsetting. I think that's a mistake.
William F. Adams
>Yes, but... To have paper cut to size economically, it's got to be of
>about the same aspect ratio of the stock you're cutting it from.
Nah, you just have to have an accomodating printer who's willing to have a
bargain bin of odd-sized paper pads.
I said:
>> I also find British magazines to be over-sized as
>> well,
>That's just a matter of what you're used to - I find US magazines a bit
>small, odd, and pokey size-wise. The differences are frankly trivial -
>either one of us would quickly adapt to the other size standard if
>exposed to it.
For the past couple of years, pretty much the only magazines I've bought have
been British---Linux Format, PC Plus, Eye Magazine, Computer Arts and a couple
of others---I've still not gotten used to it (btw, I found the first couple of
years of MacWorld here in the US excessively large too :/
Raymond Wan
On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> 'em so I'll stop whinging) and I don't want to fiddle with US letter.
> On top of all that, A4 paper is non trivial to get hold of in the USA
> and US letter paper is non trivial to get hold of outside the USA (and,
> I assume, Canada?)
Hi,
FYI, Canada uses US letter paper, unfortunately. Obtaining A4
paper is not impossible in Canada, but you'll be paying more whenever you
find it. Canada is also a bit stuck in the imperial/metric squabble,
except that in school, students are taught mainly the metric system and
have been for the last 10 or 20 years. Petrol is sold in litres, but
fruits and vegetables, for some reason, are sold in pounds with kilograms
being a small footnote next to it. Hoping to see a government (federal, I
suppose) that would just mark a day where a complete change over to the
metric system occurs -- funny how they had no problems doing that when
they introduced a national sales tax! ;-)
Obtaining a paper size that is different from the standard in your
country is non-trivial, but not impossible. Sometimes, you're in
Australia and you're submitting a paper to a US conference which just has
to be sent paper copies on letter size -- very annoying. :)
Ray
Donald Arseneau
> being a small footnote next to it. Hoping to see a government (federal, I
> suppose) that would just mark a day where a complete change over to the
> metric system occurs -- funny how they had no problems doing that when
> they introduced a national sales tax! ;-)
They did, and the courts ruled that government had no such authority.
They could mandate that metric measures/pricing be provided, but they
could not prohibit imperial -- freedom of speech and all that. That's
where the change-over stalled.
Funny, I don't see anybody selling gasoline by the gallon, but those
private court challenges were made by gasolie retailers. The price of
a gallon of gas would scare people away. People consistently sell by
the smaller unit of measure to keep the advertised price "low". Thus
pounds instead of kilograms, but 100g is taking over from pounds in
many cases now.
Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca
Raymond Wan
On 1 Jul 2003, Donald Arseneau wrote:
> Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> writes:
> > being a small footnote next to it. Hoping to see a government (federal, I
> > suppose) that would just mark a day where a complete change over to the
> > metric system occurs -- funny how they had no problems doing that when
> > they introduced a national sales tax! ;-)
> They did, and the courts ruled that government had no such authority.
> They could mandate that metric measures/pricing be provided, but they
> could not prohibit imperial -- freedom of speech and all that. That's
> where the change-over stalled.
With the amount of stress they put on the metric system in
schools, I would hope that switching to the metric system would only be a
matter of time. But freedom of speech...never thought that kind of
argument would come into play here.
> Funny, I don't see anybody selling gasoline by the gallon, but those
> private court challenges were made by gasolie retailers. The price of
> a gallon of gas would scare people away. People consistently sell by
> the smaller unit of measure to keep the advertised price "low". Thus
> pounds instead of kilograms, but 100g is taking over from pounds in
> many cases now.
And if I remember correctly, cookbooks (cooking shows, etc.) were
still using teaspoons and tablespoons. But yes, 1 pound < 1 kg and 1
litre is less than a gallon...never thought one of the reasons for this
inconsistency was to give an impression of lower costs. If that's the
case, a complete change may never happen. I'm sure some day, someone
would officially make a third system that combines pounds with litres,
purely for marketing reasons. It's all quite amusing, really...
Ray
John Harper
Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>(snip) I'm sure some day, someone
>would officially make a third system that combines pounds with litres,
>purely for marketing reasons.
Someone did, over 200 years ago. Ever since 1799, 1 livre (pound) in
France = 500 gm, about 2% off 1 livre in pre-revolutionary Paris =
489.506 gm. See http://www.scales-and-weights.com/lexicon/Libra.htm
(It's further off 1 lb avoirdupois = 453.593 gm of course.)
John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john....@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
Thomas Lotze
>> Which is what I mean. Typesetting for the most common paper size is not a
>> decision made from the point of view of readers, since someone who uses
>> some specific paper size normally doesn't care how large a part of the
>> rest of the world uses something different.
>
> Surely that depends on the intended use of the document?
Sorry, the "someone" in my above statement was meant to be the reader who
intends to print a typeset doc on his setup.
> If you're
> preparing a document to be (say) downloaded and printed via the Web, the
> author ought to ensure that those who print it out have it formatted for
> the paper they're using.
Which means typesetting for several paper sizes in parallel, at least if
the document is in a language that is spoken in several countries with
different paper sizes. Especially on the web, you can't know who will
download something.
>>It is a decision made from the
>> author's point of view (which is the wrong one when talking about
>> typography)
>
> Jan Tschichold wrote some books. Are you telling me that his
> typographical decisions were wrong?
No, that's different. He wrote books, typeset them and had them printed on
a specific paper size. So the problem we're talking about didn't arise in
his case - his books are not made to be printed by the reader using some
unforseeable paper size.
>> - it minimizes the number of complaints he gets about the
>> right paper size not being supported.
>
> That's a very narrow viewpoint
Exactly. That's why I discourage it.
> That's right. However, most people won't bother no matter how easy I
> think it is.
Sadly, yes. But this doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good (in terms of a
good result) solution to bother and do the extra work. Or have someone
with enough typographical knowledge do it for those paper sizes the author
doesn't care about.
> Yes it is. That ratio was used in architecture because it looked good,
> but it wasn't played around with until it was worked out mathematically
> - which is why I called it a mathematical idea, because the idea of
> using that ratio came from mathematical work.
Parse error. Now what came first - the use of the ratio because it looked
pleasing even before it was worked out mathematically, or the mathematical
idea giving rise to usage of the golden ratio?
> Is it accidental? Can you prove that claim?
The point I'm trying to make is that the golden ratio's success is due to
the fact that it looks harmonious, not due to the fact that is has an
elegant mathematical description. And I don't think the human sense of
aesthetics can be explained mathematically. (Of course mathematics itself
is highly aesthetical, but that's a different matter.)
> It's not really much of a mathematical idea - it was just some suits
> making an arbitrary decision based on some arbitrary numbers.
Not so arbitrary. The area of A0 is exactly one square meter. But anyway,
it's really just that, no-one asked whether those formats looked pleasing
or were easy to handle if used for books and magazines.
> No they can't - not if they don't have the right founts and/or diagrams
> and/or dvi (or whatnot) driver which can handle it all.
Right. For general documents, they don't have access to the sources. But I
think we were talking about documentation such as that of LaTeX where the
source is available.
> Most people, however, don't want to work like that.
Fine, so they have to live with inferior results.
> It can be awkward
> to change paper sizes - sometimes *very* awkward, especially if you're
> using a lot of the width of US letter or a lot of the height of A4.
That's true. A solution here would be to author for the hypothetical
compromise paper size so the document can be typeset well on several real
sizes.
> You can - if you've got LaTeX source and the other bits you need. As
> you know as well as I do. Er?
Er? That's what I said all along.
> <grin> Why do you expect me to express a preference? But... No-one
> can force the whole world to use the same paper size. I'm not having
> different paper stocks in the house if I can avoid it; nor am I going to
> put up with bad results if I can avoid that, either. So it's the
> parallel typesetting for me - but more by default than active
> preference.
Ah - so we actually agree. Let's go to the virtual pub then, instead of
discussing on where there's not really a difference in opinion.
> You seem to be arguing that source code should be provided and that the
I just thought the documents we're talking about were like that. In the
more general case, I can't keep up my arguments, of course.
> end user should do the re-typsetting. I think that's a mistake.
Maybe not the end user. It could be someone making the original document
more accessible to people using a different paper size, like a translator
or software distributor, to give some awkward analogies.
Rowland McDonnell
> On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 21:20:39 +0000, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
>
> >> Which is what I mean. Typesetting for the most common paper size is not a
> >> decision made from the point of view of readers, since someone who uses
> >> some specific paper size normally doesn't care how large a part of the
> >> rest of the world uses something different.
> >
> > Surely that depends on the intended use of the document?
>
> Sorry, the "someone" in my above statement was meant to be the reader who
> intends to print a typeset doc on his setup.
Ah! I see - sorry, I thought you were referring to the author. Yes, of
course - the reader does generally use a single paper size and doesn't
care about what anyone else might be printing on.
> > If you're
> > preparing a document to be (say) downloaded and printed via the Web, the
> > author ought to ensure that those who print it out have it formatted for
> > the paper they're using.
>
> Which means typesetting for several paper sizes in parallel, at least if
> the document is in a language that is spoken in several countries with
> different paper sizes. Especially on the web, you can't know who will
> download something.
No. It means typsetting for only two internationally standard paper
sizes, but not in parallel because you only do one job at once in
general. There are many examples of authors making two versions of a
document available: one formatted for A4, and the other for US letter.
The CMacTeX documentation is one such example, IIRC.
> >>It is a decision made from the
> >> author's point of view (which is the wrong one when talking about
> >> typography)
> >
> > Jan Tschichold wrote some books. Are you telling me that his
> > typographical decisions were wrong?
>
> No, that's different. He wrote books, typeset them and had them printed on
> a specific paper size.
I think you'll find that he decided on the paper size, came up with the
typographical design, *then* wrote the books and had someone else do the
typesetting.
(Which he then criticised greatly, flogged the typsetter in the town
square by way of punishment, and eventually got something close to what
he wanted. But he probably prowled round the printing works just to
make sure nothing went wrong at that end. Sorry, have I overestimated
his degree of lunacy?)
But this is pointless quibbling.
> So the problem we're talking about didn't arise in
> his case - his books are not made to be printed by the reader using some
> unforseeable paper size.
So what? No-one's documents are designed to be printed on unforseeable
paper sizes, are they? Paper sizes are defined by international
standards, and only a few paper sizes are widely used by `normal
computer users' around the world.
If you prepare a document with LaTeX and want it to be printed out and
read globally, you can ensure that virtually everyone is catered for
very well by providing two versions only: one for US letter, and one for
A4 (in the case of the sort of thing that I get up to; okay, A5 or a
half letter sized booklet is sometimes an option).
That's the nice thing about having standards, y'see - and paper sizes
are standard so there's no trouble with the destination paper sizes
being unknowable. We *know* what they're likely to be and there's only
two to chose from on the whole, if you're talking about distributing
printed documents to the average 'net user now.
[snip]
> > That's right. However, most people won't bother no matter how easy I
> > think it is.
>
> Sadly, yes. But this doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good (in terms of a
> good result) solution to bother and do the extra work.
Yes it does. If people won't do it, it's an unworkable solution and if
it's unworkable, it's bad. Don't ignore the psychological factors.
> Or have someone
> with enough typographical knowledge do it for those paper sizes the author
> doesn't care about.
Why should anyone want to format a document `for the masses' to print
properly on (say) crown octavo paper? Have you ever so much as heard of
that size before now? But it's a formally defined British Standard
paper size.
> > Yes it is. That ratio was used in architecture because it looked good,
> > but it wasn't played around with until it was worked out mathematically
> > - which is why I called it a mathematical idea, because the idea of
> > using that ratio came from mathematical work.
>
> Parse error. Now what came first - the use of the ratio because it looked
> pleasing even before it was worked out mathematically, or the mathematical
> idea giving rise to usage of the golden ratio?
As I understand it, the ratio came first and someone noticed that the
proportions looked good. I could be wrong - but even in Newton's time,
geometrical rather than analytical proofs were considered more
fundamental. Those ancient Greeks drew diagrams of *everything*
mathematical; they couldn't possibly have come across the interesting
properties of the golden ratio without drawing a rectangle in those
proportions. And how can you draw a picture of a bit of architecture
and `prove' that it was really built with its sides in the ratio of
1:<irrational number>? You can't - not unless the way of getting that
ratio was worked out before you did the building. Builders of
significant structures have, as far as I can tell, always worked with
things like modern linear measurement rulers. `Always'? Yep - there's
evidence of rulers being used to mark out the circular core of Silbury
Hill (get hundreds of bits of string cut to the same length. Tie 'em
all to a post. Stretch them out radially in all directions - et voila,
a circle!), one of the oldest man-made structures in Britain.
> > Is it accidental? Can you prove that claim?
>
> The point I'm trying to make is that the golden ratio's success is due to
> the fact that it looks harmonious, not due to the fact that is has an
> elegant mathematical description.
Yes - but...
Might it be that it looks harmonious because of - well, something else?
I don't know, but (for example) there is some evidence that the
characteristic psychadelic patterns you get in LSD-inspired art are some
sort of indication of mental structures in some fashion - it seems that
some of the more abstract LSD visions are like that. I dunno myself -
never tried LSD (maybe one day when I'm less mad and work out how to
test the stuff I will have just synthesised - how else can you get pure
LSD these days?) or looking into the research that closely.
Of course the fact that the description is elegant isn't the reason for
the golden ratio looking good - but I don't like the idea that it's
purely coincidental that *that* particular elegant bit of maths makes
something looking so good for *that* job. I don't have an explanation -
but I don't like the `co-incidence' version of events.
> And I don't think the human sense of
> aesthetics can be explained mathematically. (Of course mathematics itself
> is highly aesthetical, but that's a different matter.)
I think that the human sense of aesthetics cannot be explained. But I
don't see why an elegant mathematical formulation shouldn't also be
aesthetically elegant - and until we're in a position to make some near
objective measurements of aesthetics, I don't see that anyone's in a
position to say anything much one way or another on this point.
> > It's not really much of a mathematical idea - it was just some suits
> > making an arbitrary decision based on some arbitrary numbers.
>
> Not so arbitrary. The area of A0 is exactly one square meter.
Precisely - quite arbitrary. A metre (the metric unit) is a purely
arbitrary standard - some loony 18th century Frenchman decided to come
up with a standard length unit of roughly a yard and based it on a
arbitrary fraction of one quarter of the circumference of an arbitrary
planet (this one). A good idea for the time, but entirely arbitrary.
The metre standard is now quantum based, but it's still just as
arbitrary. There's nothing fundamental about the dimension `1 metre'
and there's no tie-up with anything human in the metric system. Bring
back cubits, sez I.
> But anyway,
> it's really just that, no-one asked whether those formats looked pleasing
> or were easy to handle if used for books and magazines.
That's what I mean - they picked sizes based on arbitrary units without
trying to tie them up with the human needs for the paper: we need sizes
which are convenient to use and aesthetically pleasing. `They' defined
a size series that was easy to make and involved easy numbers in the
measurement scheme. The A paper series is crap when looked at from the
human point of view but there you go - it's what we've got. The C
series has the excuse of being the envelopes for A series paper - they
have to be *that* size for reasons of fit. I've never looked at B
series paper in real life.
> > No they can't - not if they don't have the right founts and/or diagrams
> > and/or dvi (or whatnot) driver which can handle it all.
>
> Right. For general documents, they don't have access to the sources. But I
> think we were talking about documentation such as that of LaTeX where the
> source is available.
Mostly, yes. But, for example, Lehman's fontinst documentation is
typeset using founts that most people don't have. There is plenty of
LaTeX documentation that can only be printed properly if you've got a PS
output device (okay, most people now have pdfTeX or some sort of PS
printer workaround, if only via gs, so that limit's going). There are
many limitations.
> > Most people, however, don't want to work like that.
>
> Fine, so they have to live with inferior results.
Look at the world around you. It's what they want. Depressing but
true.
> > It can be awkward
> > to change paper sizes - sometimes *very* awkward, especially if you're
> > using a lot of the width of US letter or a lot of the height of A4.
>
> That's true. A solution here would be to author for the hypothetical
> compromise paper size so the document can be typeset well on several real
> sizes.
True, but I'd only do that if forced and I'd kick and scream. I did
once experiment with doing things that way, and...
Well. You know how printing stuff designed for US letter paper looks a
bit crap when you print it on A4? Using the proposed compromise paper
size, you get crap results printing on both A4 *and* US letter paper.
But if you use a real paper size, you only get crap results on *either*
A4 *or* US letter rather than both. The compromise paper size
suggestion is worse than the current lack of arrangments.
Okay, okay, I didn't print on real US letter paper (it's not that hard
to find in the UK, but I just couldn't be bothered), but tried to
approximate the size by chopping a bit off the bottom of A4 and sticking
another bit of A4 on the back to extend sideways so what I saw looked to
be the right size, even though it wasn't really. Stand back and squint
(not a bad way to assess the positioning of the text block on paper in
any case - stops you trying to read the words) and you can't see the
join. I'm reasonably sure that my
slightly-iffy-for-general-use-but-released-anyway rmpage package
actually has the proposed compromise paper size built into it. Yep,
there it is:
%% \DeclareOption{letter4paper}{\def\RM@papertype{9}
%% \setlength\paperheight{8.5in}
%% \setlength\paperwidth{210mm}
%% }
Hmm.
I've just had a thought: one might contemplate a compromise paper size
that worked like this: the author typesets the document so that the text
block fits nicely on `letter4' paper (as defined above). Then the end
user can re-typset for A4 or US letter paper - and the typesetting won't
change, but the gap around the text block will be more aesthetically
pleasing. This would produce adequate results with trivial extra effort
from the author and stands as much chance of catching on as Caligula has
of being elected the next US president.
> > You can - if you've got LaTeX source and the other bits you need. As
> > you know as well as I do. Er?
>
> Er? That's what I said all along.
I once had an alcohol-fuelled argument with someone about the internal
layout of a BMW `boxer twin' motorcycle engine. After half an hour, it
dawned on me that, erm, we'd been furiously telling the other that, erm,
we shared exactly the same thoughts on the subject but had failed to
notice because of a minor communication breakdown. Whereupon I laughed
like a drain and got another beer.
> > <grin> Why do you expect me to express a preference? But... No-one
> > can force the whole world to use the same paper size. I'm not having
> > different paper stocks in the house if I can avoid it; nor am I going to
> > put up with bad results if I can avoid that, either. So it's the
> > parallel typesetting for me - but more by default than active
> > preference.
>
> Ah - so we actually agree. Let's go to the virtual pub then, instead of
> discussing on where there's not really a difference in opinion.
(<grin> again. See above)
> > You seem to be arguing that source code should be provided and that the
>
> I just thought the documents we're talking about were like that. In the
> more general case, I can't keep up my arguments, of course.
Ah. Righto.
> > end user should do the re-typsetting. I think that's a mistake.
>
> Maybe not the end user. It could be someone making the original document
> more accessible to people using a different paper size, like a translator
> or software distributor, to give some awkward analogies.
Ah! Well, the only thing to do now is ask what beer you'd like. On a
day like today, my preference would be for a cool pint of the Hopback
Brewery's Summer Lightning, sadly nearly unobtainable in draft form this
far north.
(your suggestion is pretty much the same as mine - except I take the
line that the author ought to prepare the versions for different paper
sizes - because there's no chance of it working any other way as far as
I can tell)
Rowland McDonnell
> On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > 'em so I'll stop whinging) and I don't want to fiddle with US letter.
> > On top of all that, A4 paper is non trivial to get hold of in the USA
> > and US letter paper is non trivial to get hold of outside the USA (and,
> > I assume, Canada?)
>
> Hi,
>
> FYI, Canada uses US letter paper, unfortunately. Obtaining A4
> paper is not impossible in Canada, but you'll be paying more whenever you
> find it. Canada is also a bit stuck in the imperial/metric squabble,
In Ireland, road signs show you distances in kilometres, but the speed
limit signs are all in mile per hour. Good, eh?
(It makes a little sense: I'm talking about *Ireland*, right? Remember:
they're not stupid, but they are all insane over there (I live on the
English side of the Irish sea). The government's going to make the
country metric and people seem to like the idea - metric ain't great,
but since it's anti-English and helps 'em fit in better with the rest of
the world... Anyway, so they change the road signs to kilometres.
That's okay - the old buffers who won't change how they think *know* how
long it takes to get from Galway to Limerick if they want to and if you
mistake the signs, no problems - you'll still get there, perhaps
slightly surprised at having arrived much sooner than you'd expected.
But what do you think would happen if the 50mph road signs were replaced
with signs saying `80' for 80 km/hr? That's right: people would assume
it meant 80 mph and, oh dearie me no oh god no nonononononono! I mean,
we're talking about a country where a man on bail with instructions to
sign on at the local cop shop every evening - well, he told the judge -
in court - he hadn't done so because he couldn't *find* the cop shop.
The sound of stereo thudding is the judge's head banging into the wall
alongside mine)
> except that in school, students are taught mainly the metric system and
> have been for the last 10 or 20 years.
In Britain, schooling was purely metric starting from when I started
school back in the early 1970s. But since then, imperial units have
been officially added back in to syllabus because they're useful - you
can still find pressure gauges in industry calibrated in psi, for
example. As it happens, I was in an engineering supplies shop a few
weeks back, and there was a young lad (early 20s) having trouble dealing
with the talk of fractions of an inch. He complained that he hadn't
been taught any of that stuff in school (1/4" \veryapprox 6mm, and so
on). But when I was teaching GSCE maths, I had kids complain that they
*were* being taught all that stuff in school. Either way, they whinge.
(for those who don't know, it's `imperial' because those units are
Roman; the reference is to the Roman empire, not the British one. What
ignorant Yanks call `English' units are in fact Roman in origin)
> Petrol is sold in litres, but
> fruits and vegetables, for some reason, are sold in pounds with kilograms
> being a small footnote next to it.
It's probably the same in Canada as it is here in Britain: illegal to
sell such produce in imperial units, so you've got to sell in metric.
But it seems that in Canada, they've taken the sensible line of saying
you can tell people what it weighs in imperial just so long as you also
provide them with the metric equivalent.
It's not so flexible over here because the EU wants to ensure that no
trace of any measurement system other than metric exists - even if that
means the central bureaucrats define the particular metric sizes you're
*allowed* to sell in. Bread, for example, comes in either 400g or 800g
loaves (uncooked weight) and that's yer lot - other sizes are not
permitted AFAIK. They also banned bent cucumbers a little while back
(honest) - that ban has been thrown out in court as `an affront to
common sense' according to the judge in his summing up, but British
cucumbers are now all a mutant straight variety, so it seems.
> Hoping to see a government (federal, I
> suppose) that would just mark a day where a complete change over to the
> metric system occurs -- funny how they had no problems doing that when
> they introduced a national sales tax! ;-)
It's a bit different. Britain went metric over 30 years ago,
officially. We had about 25 years of nothing but metric teaching in
schools. Now, imperial units have made a comeback in British schools -
because despite the government trying to clobber the old units for an
entire generation, they're still there and still in use and the kids
need to learn 'em.
(I was lucky: my schools might have been purely metric, but everyone
around me worked in imperial - so I'm bilingual in measurement systems.
Just don't ask me about BTUs or anything to do with the awful cgs
system.)
> Obtaining a paper size that is different from the standard in your
> country is non-trivial, but not impossible. Sometimes, you're in
> Australia and you're submitting a paper to a US conference which just has
> to be sent paper copies on letter size -- very annoying. :)
Isn't that a bit silly of the conference organisers? You never print
conference proceedings on that paper size (I hope), so what's the point?
Rowland McDonnell
> rowland said:
> >Yes, but... To have paper cut to size economically, it's got to be of
> >about the same aspect ratio of the stock you're cutting it from.
>
> Nah, you just have to have an accomodating printer who's willing to have a
> bargain bin of odd-sized paper pads.
There is that.
> I said:
> >> I also find British magazines to be over-sized as
> >> well,
>
> >That's just a matter of what you're used to - I find US magazines a bit
> >small, odd, and pokey size-wise. The differences are frankly trivial -
> >either one of us would quickly adapt to the other size standard if
> >exposed to it.
>
> For the past couple of years, pretty much the only magazines I've bought have
> been British---Linux Format, PC Plus, Eye Magazine, Computer Arts and a couple
> of others---I've still not gotten used to it
Hmm. But are you exposed to US letter paper on a regular basis?
> (btw, I found the first couple of
> years of MacWorld here in the US excessively large too :/
Just out of interest: what do you do with broadsheet newspapers? (aside
from swear at them like I do because of the stupid paper size)
Rowland McDonnell
> On 1 Jul 2003, Donald Arseneau wrote:
> > Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> writes:
> > > being a small footnote next to it. Hoping to see a government (federal, I
> > > suppose) that would just mark a day where a complete change over to the
> > > metric system occurs -- funny how they had no problems doing that when
> > > they introduced a national sales tax! ;-)
> > They did, and the courts ruled that government had no such authority.
> > They could mandate that metric measures/pricing be provided, but they
> > could not prohibit imperial -- freedom of speech and all that. That's
> > where the change-over stalled.
>
> With the amount of stress they put on the metric system in
> schools, I would hope that switching to the metric system would only be a
> matter of time.
As I said elsewhere, British schools were purely metric from
1970-veryearly up to, erm, some time in the mid 1990s. An entire
generation taught nothing but metric - but there's so much imperial
stuff hanging around even now that they *had* to put imperial units back
on the syllabus because the schoolkids were being significantly
disadvantaged - *really*.
The point being that having (nearly) purely metric schools even for a
generation doesn't make the country purely metric. For some reason,
milk and beer are still sold in pints in Britain although petrol's gone
over to litres.
FWIW, I've got an Aussie aunt and uncle. She's born and bred in
Australia, and Australia's been purely metric starting back in the late
1960s from what she told me. *He* was born and bred in London. He
can't work in imperial units at all any more; she can, no worries. Odd,
eh?
[snip]
> > Funny, I don't see anybody selling gasoline by the gallon, but those
> > private court challenges were made by gasolie retailers. The price of
> > a gallon of gas would scare people away. People consistently sell by
> > the smaller unit of measure to keep the advertised price "low". Thus
> > pounds instead of kilograms, but 100g is taking over from pounds in
> > many cases now.
>
> And if I remember correctly, cookbooks (cooking shows, etc.) were
> still using teaspoons and tablespoons.
British cookery books over here tend to give two sets of units - one
metric, one imperial. Personally, I prefer cooking and woodworking in
imperial rather than metric. Anything to do with science and precision
engineering, and I'll use metric.
Lucian Wischik
>As I understand it, the ratio came first and someone noticed that the
>proportions looked good. I could be wrong - but even in Newton's time,
>geometrical rather than analytical proofs were considered more
>fundamental. Those ancient Greeks drew diagrams of *everything*
>mathematical; they couldn't possibly have come across the interesting
>properties of the golden ratio without drawing a rectangle in those
>proportions.
I'm confused. Is the argument that the golden ratio is used by letter,
in contrast to the 1:sqrt(2) used by A4, and so letter is better? Or,
why did the golden ratio come up?
>That's what I mean - they picked sizes based on arbitrary units without
>trying to tie them up with the human needs for the paper: we need sizes
>which are convenient to use and aesthetically pleasing. `They' defined
>a size series that was easy to make and involved easy numbers in the
>measurement scheme. The A paper series is crap when looked at from the
>human point of view but there you go
Aren't you overdoing it a bit with all this "crap"? Fact is, A-series
doesn't really look crap at all. "Imperceptibly distant from optimum"
I might grant you, but "crap" ?
Personally, I prefer documents in Letter format. Just because Acrobat
Reader works gracefully with that size (one page is 2 screenfulls
exactly) but awkward with a4 (where one page is 2.03 screenfulls or
so).
--
Lucian
Vidhyanath Rao
Actually, it must be possible in US to buy file cabinets in which A4
paper will fit: I have one in my office (supplied by the university
purchasing office 20 years ago), but it seems to be the oddball one
among my colleagues.
I also used to reduce to 94% to deal with A4, but with bifocal time on
me, I am starting to resist it.
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in
message
news:1fxfdes.c6onj1ra21yvN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
> There's a lot of `talking in imperial and working in metric'
> going on around the place. Bloody confusing if you ask me.
Of course. And international projects get screwy too. Just ask NASA.
And expensive. I need to buy two sets of wrenches: One in metric sizes
and
one in SAE sizes. I never know which one I will need.
R. H. Allen
real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
>Raymond Wan <rw...@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>
>> Obtaining a paper size that is different from the standard in your
>> country is non-trivial, but not impossible. Sometimes, you're in
>> Australia and you're submitting a paper to a US conference which just has
>> to be sent paper copies on letter size -- very annoying. :)
>
>Isn't that a bit silly of the conference organisers? You never print
>conference proceedings on that paper size (I hope), so what's the point?
Well, erm ... many conferences really *do* print their proceedings on
letter paper. IFAICT, pretty much all of the IEEE conferences do. And
I've seen quite a few on A4 as well.
alan
R. H. Allen
real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
>William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> norman said:
>> >Another possible solution would be for the US to adopt the same paper
>> >size as the rest of the world (or at least fill the other paper tray
>> >in the printer).
>>
>> I find A4 to be an awkward size paper all-around, and it just doesn't
>> appeal to me---too tall,
>
>Woo! Have you ever met foolscap folio? The size we had in Britain
>until A4 took over? If you think A4 is too tall, try 8.5" x 13.5".
>Your liking for US letter paper is simply a matter of what you're used
>to, though - the proportions of US letter paper are aesthetically pretty
>bad just as are those of A4 (read on).
>
>(A4 is 8.3" x 11.7", US letter is 8.5" x 11.5", and US legal is 8.5" x
>14")
Worse, from a golden ratio perspective: US letter is 8.5" x 11".
>Now then, the golden ratio (Phi) is about 1·6180339887 and rectangles in
>that proportion have been considered pretty good looking by most people
>for a few thousand years now from what I've heard.
The problem with that approach to page sizes, IMO, is that dimensions
like 13.5" and 14" are a bit unwieldy to hold in your hands. The paper
curls and bends all over the place and it becomes difficult to read
without constant shifting about. Foolscap folio and US legal might be
the "prettiest" according to the golden ratio, but if it's hard to read,
who cares?
FWIW, I'm well accustomed to US legal and I still hate it. I vastly
prefer US letter and A4.
Also, Peter Wilson's memoir docs have a pretty interesting discussion of
the aesthetics of the printed page. You should read it if you haven't
already.
alan
William F. Adams
>Hmm. But are you exposed to US letter paper on a regular basis?
touche, but to be fair, a lot of the work here at work is on 11 x 17 'cause we
need to have trim marks &c.
I've been suggesting we should get 9" x 12" cut at a print shop so as to save
on shipping, but no interest :(
>Just out of interest: what do you do with broadsheet newspapers? (aside
>from swear at them like I do because of the stupid paper size)
Fold them. My wife hates that ;)
Ron Bean
will...@aol.com (William F. Adams) writes:
>Here's a counter-proposal---let's typeset all the electronic docs to A4 and we
>in the US can print at 94% and trim a bit less than 3/4" off the side.
For "electronic docs", how about using a "paper" size that
actually fits on a computer screen? (AcroTeX and PDFscreen have
the right idea, but it's not hard to roll your own).
If you're expecting people to print these out at home, I'm
finding that paper size isn't the major problem. IMHO, documents
that use the LaTeX defaults don't look all that good when printed
on an inkjet printer, because the type is too small and Computer
Modern wasn't designed to look good at low resolutions.
It might look better if it were printed on a laserprinter, but I
don't happen to have one here. It might also look better using a
font that was designed to look good at low resolutions (Lucida,
Georgia, etc). I also think a larger font size would help, but
that might be more open to argument (assuming you have a
laserprinter).
Vlad Tepes
Lucian Wischik <lu...@wischik.com> wrote:
> I'm confused. Is the argument that the golden ratio is used by letter,
> in contrast to the 1:sqrt(2) used by A4, and so letter is better? Or,
> why did the golden ratio come up?
The best proportions for dividing a line is when the ratio of the
shortest (1) and longest piece (k) equals the ratio of the longest piece
and the total (1+k). We get the equation
1 k 1 ą sqrt(5)
----- = ----- <=> 0 = k^2 - k - 1 <=> k = -----------
k 1+k 2
The positive solution solves to approximately
1.618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805762862135448622705,
which is the golden ratio.
>> That's what I mean - they picked sizes based on arbitrary units without
>> trying to tie them up with the human needs for the paper: we need sizes
>> which are convenient to use and aesthetically pleasing. `They' defined
>> a size series that was easy to make and involved easy numbers in the
>> measurement scheme. The A paper series is crap when looked at from the
>> human point of view but there you go
> Aren't you overdoing it a bit with all this "crap"? Fact is, A-series
> doesn't really look crap at all. "Imperceptibly distant from optimum"
> I might grant you, but "crap" ?
A nice white sheet of paper doesn't look like crap to me either.
But the proportions aren't good.
Tastes vary, but it is not random. People tend to agree on certain
things, even though it doesn't seem to be logical. For instance that
certain colors don't match, that some foods taste good togeter, that
certain wines go with certain dishes and that some music is sad and
other music happy.
The funny thing is that much of this appear to be universal.
--
Vlad
Thomas Lotze
> That's the nice thing about having standards, y'see -
Yes, there are always several to choose from ;o)
>> Sadly, yes. But this doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good (in terms of a
>> good result) solution to bother and do the extra work.
>
> Yes it does. If people won't do it, it's an unworkable solution and if
> it's unworkable, it's bad. Don't ignore the psychological factors.
On this, I really disagree. I don't ignore the psychological factors, I
just don't think they are an excuse for doing a bad job because someone
just can't be bothered.
> Look at the world around you. It's what they want. Depressing but
> true.
Maybe I'm an idealist, but I frankly don't care. Let "them" have whatever
they want, I'll try and put some thought at least into what I'm doing, and
advocate this way of doing things.
>> That's true. A solution here would be to author for the hypothetical
>> compromise paper size so the document can be typeset well on several real
>> sizes.
>
> Well. You know how printing stuff designed for US letter paper looks a
> bit crap when you print it on A4? Using the proposed compromise paper
> size, you get crap results printing on both A4 *and* US letter paper.
> But if you use a real paper size, you only get crap results on *either*
> A4 *or* US letter rather than both. The compromise paper size
> suggestion is worse than the current lack of arrangments.
That was precisely the opinion I tried to defend by entering this thread.
And it's why I talked about authoring for the compromise paper size, not
typesetting in it. Just don't use figures that are to high for one likely
papersize, or to wide for another. Then the material can be typeset
independently in either of the paper sizes taken into consideration when
choosing figure sizes. The type areas will be different, adapted to the
respective paper size, but it will be possible to choose them well.
Which is different from this:
> Then the end
> user can re-typset for A4 or US letter paper - and the typesetting won't
> change, but the gap around the text block will be more aesthetically
> pleasing.
I'd not ignore the paper size when choosing the size of the text block.
> I once had an alcohol-fuelled argument with someone about the internal
> layout of a BMW `boxer twin' motorcycle engine. After half an hour, it
> dawned on me that, erm, we'd been furiously telling the other that, erm,
> we shared exactly the same thoughts on the subject but had failed to
> notice because of a minor communication breakdown. Whereupon I laughed
> like a drain and got another beer.
Hihi. Reminds me of that evening a couple of weeks ago, just after I
bought my first motorcycle, a Honda with a V engine. I discussed engine
internals with my flat mate who's about to get a BMW with a boxer engine.
I understood perfectly well what he was trying to tell me, but he just
couldn't resist building model engines from Lego blocks. Not as
alcohol-fuelled an event, but still...
> Ah! Well, the only thing to do now is ask what beer you'd like. On a
> day like today, my preference would be for a cool pint of the Hopback
> Brewery's Summer Lightning, sadly nearly unobtainable in draft form this
> far north.
I've no such good background on beers since in real life, I don't drink
alcohol. However, I've always wanted to know what's behind that Skull
Splitter stuff I once came across on the Orkneys. Let's see whether they
have it here.
> (your suggestion is pretty much the same as mine - except I take the
> line that the author ought to prepare the versions for different paper
> sizes - because there's no chance of it working any other way as far as
> I can tell)
That would certainly be best, but there are those authors who just
couldn't care less...
Will Henney
> ( just a few words about the golden ratio )
< snip >
> The positive solution solves to approximately
> 1.618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805762862135448622705,
> which is the golden ratio.
I remember as a child keeping myself amused for hours by typing
the golden ratio into my calculator and repeatingly pushing the
reciprocal button (try it!). I also love the fact that if you join
up the 12 corners of 3 orthogonally intersecting golden
rectangles you get an icosahedron (I once made a mobile like this
from cardboard and cotton).
However, I must confess to a blindness when it comes to the
aesthetic appeal of golden-rectangle shaped pieces of paper.
They just don't do anything for me, sorry. The squarer the
better in my book (just don't get me started on origami).
Will
David Cameron Staples
<snip long discussion on imperial vs metric units>
It's all too confusing.
second/litre/meter vs second/pint/yard
I vote we dump 'em all and move to the
fortnight/firkin/furlong system, whereby everyone
will be equally confused, and no-one unfairly
disadvantaged thereby.
And, of course, {\pi} seconds is approximately
equal to a nanocentury. This can't be coincidence!
--
David Cameron Staples
staples AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au
Quanti canicula illa est in fenestra?
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > There's a lot of `talking in imperial and working in metric'
> > going on around the place. Bloody confusing if you ask me.
>
> Of course. And international projects get screwy too. Just ask NASA.
That problem was entirely inside the USA. NASA uses metric exclusively
internally but *used* to permit external suppliers to work in imperial
and communicate to NASA in imperial. Of course the only suppliers which
would do that were in the USA - so it was US firms supplying the US
space agency which caused the problem. NASA has since changed its mind
about units for some reason. I can't think why, unless it had something
to do with the loss of a multimillion dollar mission to Mars.
International projects only get screwy over this sort of thing if US
firms are involved. Everyone else in the world uses metric.
> And expensive. I need to buy two sets of wrenches: One in metric sizes
> and one in SAE sizes. I never know which one I will need.
My dad's got three socket sets 'cos he needed them: Whitworth, metric,
and A/F. I never had any trouble working out which socket I needed when
I was growing up with those tools - if you're working on a metric thing,
grap the metric set, if it's not metric, grab the A/F set, and if *that*
doesn't fit, you've got a deviant bit of kit made in Whit. And when
you've got that range of socket fittings available, you'll find that no
matter how foobar the nut and bolt, you'll find a socket to fit it
*really* snugly. It might turn out to be from the Whitworth series and
you're working on a rusty 1980s Honda (i.e., 100% metric), but one of
the bloody sockets will grip and let you undo the thing. A shame
they're all 200 miles away from me at the moment and - well, my dad's
always spent more on tools than I can justify...
Whitworth's nice - the threads are designed to be optimally strong in
steel (IIRC, or possibly some sort of iron given the age of the thread
profile). Metric thread profiles are very weak due to the designers
basically not paying any attention to strength at all as far as I can
tell.
Rowland McDonnell
> rowland asked:
> >Hmm. But are you exposed to US letter paper on a regular basis?
>
> touche, but to be fair, a lot of the work here at work is on 11 x 17 'cause we
> need to have trim marks &c.
Well, yes - but do you treat those bits of paper as `I'll hold that up
and read it with my coffee' or `Stick it on the desk so we can work with
it'? You view the two sizes differently, I'll bet.
*I've* worked with the larger-than-A3-size (I never bothered finding out
the exact size - it's clearly far too bloody big and it's safe to let
the printer and prepress people worry about the details because they
don't get paid if they don't get it to work right) you use when looking
at 2 x A4 page proofs/films/whatnot. Doesn't mean I think the size is
anything but insanely unwieldy from the point of view of handling the
stuff, even if you can't avoid the need to use it and handle it.
In fact, when we had (at *that* publishing firm) those large films and
large proofs to check, we tended to trundle into the boardroom because
it was the only place we could find enough clear desk space to lay the
damned things flat (it was either that or the floor). A *HUGE* empty
desk most of the time - rather than what we actually used in our office
space, being the `slightly' smaller and rather more crowded desks you'd
expect to see on the editorial side of a technical trade rag.
> I've been suggesting we should get 9" x 12" cut at a print shop so as to save
> on shipping, but no interest :(
Very odd. If you use a lot of paper in an odd size, that sort of thing
makes perfect sense.
> >Just out of interest: what do you do with broadsheet newspapers? (aside
> >from swear at them like I do because of the stupid paper size)
>
> Fold them. My wife hates that ;)
I fold 'em, but why can't they make the damned things in a more
convenient size, eh? Why is it only the newspapers-for-cheeseheads
which are convenient to hold? (I had said `read' there, but then I
remembered what happened last time I tried reading a tabloid. All those
words, thousands of 'em, and nothing worth reading at all).