Writing HTML files with specified page breaks
When putting a syllabus on the web, it's desirable that it can be printed out nicely as well as showing well on the screen. One frequent problem is that page breaks are more or less random, and can come in undesirable places. The following uses CSS to specify the location of a page break. It will be invisible when viewed with a browser, and permits text (such as "continued on other side") to be printed on paper at the page break. First, include the following in the HEAD section of the file:
<style>
<!--
@media screen { .continue {display:none} }
@media print {
.continue {
margin-right: .5in;
font-family:sans-serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-size:smaller;
text-align:right;
page-break-after:always
}
}
-->
</style>
<div class=continue> (Continued on other side)</div>
Writing Letters with UF letterhead in LaTeX
The file blankletter.tex is a template for using LaTeX to write and print letters with the University of Florida letterhead. Directions for using it are given in the file.Setting up a mailing list for a class
Setting up a mailing list for a class is simple: just go to the page http://www.clas.ufl.edu/clasnet/handouts/course-mailing-lists.html, fill out and submit the form, and then follow directions. (One observation: the form claims that the password can be blank, but in my exprience this is not true. I have been known to use the work "blank".)I use a separate program to archive messages which come through the mailing list: this is mhonarc. Full information about this program is available at its web page, http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mhonarc.html. You could install it yourself or use it from my bin directory, "/home/fac0/wjm/bin". To use it, you also need to be using procmail, which you do by creating a file called ".procmailrc" in your home directory. Here are the relevant parts of my ".procmailrc" file, with comments (lines starting with # are comments, and are ignored by procmail). Note that what I have here reflects an element of paranoia: Each message gets (1) saved to a special inbox, "LAarchive", (2) run through "mhonarc" to be placed in the web archive, and (3) appears in my regular mailbox.
HOME=/home/fac0/wjm
PATH=$HOME/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:usr/ucb/bin:usr/local/bin
# ~/Mail must exist.
MAILDIR = ${HOME}/Mail
SHELL=/usr/bin/sh
## To use my copy, replace the next line with the following (without
## the leading sharp signs).
## BIN=/home/fac0/wjm/bin
BIN=${HOME}/bin
MHONARC=${BIN}/do_mhonarc
#---------------- Linear Algebra
## The following three lines save all message in the mailbox "LAarchive".
## You can change the name, or you can omit (or comment out) the
## lines if you don't want this.
:0 c:
*^Sender.*s02-3163\@clas\.ufl\.udu
LAarchive
## The following three lines run mhonarc to add the message to the
## web archive.
##
## The "c" in the next line makes the message come up in my regular
## mail, as well. Omit the 'c' if you don't want this.
##
## Note that you must create the directory "archive" specified in the third
## line. It must also be at least world executable
## (Use the command "chmod o+x directoryname").
:0 c
*^Sender.*s02-3163\@clas\.ufl\.edu
|${MHONARC} -add -outdir /home/fac0/wjm/public_html/class/linalg/archive
#---------------- Same for my Set Theory class
:0 c:
*^Sender.*s02-4633
SETarchive
:0 c
*^Sender.*s02-4633\@clas\.ufl\.edu
|${MHONARC} -add -outdir /home/fac0/wjm/public_html/class/settheory/archive
can be included in a web page by including
them as GIF images generated from a tex file. The equation above was
generated from the following tex file:
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\large
$$
\sqrt[\textstyle 3]2 = a \sqrt 2+b
$$
\end{document}
using the following commands (assuming the tex file is ``equation.tex'')
latex equation.tex dvips equation -o /opt/latex2html/pstoimg -gif -transparent equation.pswill create the GIF file. I've written a script which can be used instead of pstoimg. The last line would be replaced by
~wjm/bin/mypstoimg equation.ps
The standard mail command is now mailx. The command mail has been aliased to mailx, so this doesn't seem to matter when using csh or tcsh, but the command for information is man mailx. If you are using another shell they you'll have to use mailx (or, of course, set up an alias for yourself).
The command mail is a crippled version which allegedly imitates the ucb mail program. In particular it silently ignores the -s flag, and regards its argument as an additional recepient. This is presumably a bug. It also doesn't accept the -v flag, and it is not clear that it has that functionality.
[According to Urvashi, non-solaris applications such as emacs can be started up in the standard way: in the System-manager/startup click on "set Home Session" and then "Return to Home session". However iconized windows don't necessarily come up iconized, so the method below may be needed if you want an application to be automatically started, but iconized.]
- Solaris applications such as dtterm will, by default, start up as they were at the end of the last session.
- For other applications, add a line to the file "~/.dt/sessionetc" just as you had in the "~/.xtras" file under the old system. But this file (unlike ".xtras") much be made executable ("chmod +x sessionetc").
- Be sure that each line ends in an `&'.
You can also put commands in "~/.dt/sessionexit" to be executed on exit.
- You can disable colors in a particular buffer by the command ESC-X font-lock-mode or globally by inserting the line (global-font-lock-mode nil) in the file ~/.emacs. It is possible to have a terminal specfic start up file which could be used to disable colors in a remote terminal window but not on the console screen; however I haven't yet tried this. The directions are available via the emacs info system.
- Go to the Style-Manager, go to Color, and choose "BlackWhite" to get black on white instead of white on black. I have no idea what the names mean, but this seems to work. More or less.
- I had to add the following to my "~/.emacs" file to avoid
having various emacs faces come out as black on black. It is still
not always right. Also there should be grey available as well as
black and white. (Emacs seems to think that there is, but it seems
to be wrong.)
(set-face-foreground 'modeline "white")
(set-face-background 'modeline "black")
(set-face-foreground 'highlight "black")
(set-face-foreground 'secondary-selection "black")
(set-face-background 'secondary-selection "Grey")
(set-face-background 'highlight "Grey")
pdflatex '\pdfoutput=1 \input myfile.tex'
I did it a 8-1/2 x 11 page with 150 dpi and got readable copy, though still with broken letters. The files are under 10K when stored as GIF files, so it might even be possible to go to 300dpi.
- Use the usual Maple commands to create the desired plot in an xmaple window. Fix the viewpoint, scaling, etc as desired.
- Use the print icon to print it to a file. Be sure that you have portrait selected, and pagenumbers turned off. You may as well used the default "untitled-plot.ps" as the filename, since you are going to change it anyhow.
- Now, in a Unix window in the working directory, issue the
following command. (You will probably have to give the full pathname
for epstool unless it has been installed in the system.)
epstool -c -b -omyfilename.eps untitled-plot.ps
You can test the result with the following latex file:
----------------------------------------------------------------
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
$$\fbox{\includegraphic[scaled=.5]{myfilename.eps}}$$
\end{document}
----------------------------------------------------------------
The "scaled" number is typical, but depends on how big the plot is,
and how big you want it.
To see the contrast, use "plotsetup(ps); plot(...)" to make what Maple thinks is an eps file, and include it in a tex document in the same way.
The program epstool is also available for windows.