TeX PDF and Html Document Production

T_EX PDF and Html Document Production

1. Introduction

2. Producing PDF from T_EX

2.1 Producing PDF with dvips and Distiller or Ghostscript

2.2 Producing PDF using dvipdfm

3. Producing HTML from T_EX Source Files with TtH

4. Graphics and TtH and dvipdfm

4.1 EPS Graphics

4.2 PiCT_EX Graphics

4.3 Samples

Resources

1.

For course presentation, I have a system for producing T_EX (dvi), PDF, and Html versions of documents for students. Examples of exams, notes, and problem solutions are at

http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/mtht430/notes.htm

http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/hon201/notes.htm

The T_EXsoftware I am using is MiKT_EX (Versions 1.20e and 2.1.9) on Windows operating systems 95/98/NT/2000¼, with WinEdt as the shell and text editor.

N. B. As of March 10, 2002 at 18:54, my favorite method of producing PDF is dvipdfm .

2.

Most lab machines and users have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed as a browser plugin. Printed quality of PDF documents is excellent, but smaller fonts may not be legible on the screen. A PDF version of the document should be available for printing¹. The PDF version this document is production.pdf. The Html version of this document is production.htm.

There are several methods for moving a dvi (with various specials) to PDF.

2.1

PDF is produced using dvips with the option -Ppdf:

dvips -Ppdf foo.tex

which produces foo.ps with full font information. The option -Ppdf calls the file

/texmf/dvips/config/config.pdf,

which in turn calls for information on the PostScript BlueSky/AMS/Y&Y Type 1 fonts.

In turn, foo.pdf is produced by using Acrobat Distiller²:

¼\Distillr\ACRODIST.EXE "foo.ps"

Encapsulated PostScript graphics are easily handled using epsf.tex. In contrast, the T_EX processor PDFT_EX is not friendly to EPS graphics.

PiCT_EX graphics are handled as easily as mathematics text.

2.2

The current MiKT_EX distribution includes the filter program dvipdfm, developed by Mark A. Wicks. dvipdfm translates a dvi file to pdf.

Advantages:

·: Several Platforms: dvipdfm is available on several platforms. See

http://gaspra.kettering.edu/dvipdfm/

I have tried Red Hat Linux dvipdfm on Intel and Alpha processors.

·: Hyperlinks: The current version puts the hyperlinks in the PDF file: Try it:

http://gaspra.kettering.edu/dvipdfm/

The T_EX code for this example is

\def\href#1#2{ \special{html:<a href="#1 » } { \tt #2 } \special{html:</a>}}

\href{http://gaspra.kettering.edu/dvipdfm/} {http://gaspra.kettering.edu/dvipdfm/}

One must be especially careful with characters which have special and different different meanings in T_EX and html. Examples are the tilde ~ (a tie in T_EX and the signal for a user in a url) and # (a signal for a macro argument in T_EXand a reference to a name in a url).

·: Including EPS graphics: The current version of dvipdfm (0.13.2b) transparently uses Ghostscript to handle EPS graphics files. There is some support for handling JPEG and GIF images. Care must be taken for the program to find the appropriate postscript resources (fonts, ghostscript, ...); I have been unsuccessful in converting EPS graphics to PDF images with the correct bounding box.

·: PiCT_EX Graphics: Since PiCT_EX uses standard T_EX fonts and placements in boxes of various (small) dimensions, dvipdfm converts PiCT_EX seamlessly.

3.

My choice for producing html files is the noncommercial program TtH available at

http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/

The program acts as a filter directly on the T_EX or LaT_EX source file so that a call looks like

¼\tth.exe -u < foo.tex > foo.htm

Production is easily automated with a batch file tth.bat with a line such as

¼\tth.exe -u < %1.tex > %1.htm %2 %3 %4 %5

The option -u forces a unicode option which resolves the problem of properly using the symbol fonts to present mathematics.

The TtH Manual at

http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/manual.cgi

suggests several macros to be used in the T_EX file.

4.

4.1

Most of us start with Encapsulated PostScript produced by various programs. Most browsers expect graphics as GIF or JPEG files. Since mathematics papers have line drawings, GIF files are relatively small and contain full information.

Programs such as Maple will also export figures as EPS or GIF - using right mouse clicks. An alternate method to produce GIF files is a capture program such as Hypersnap-DX available at http://www.hyperionics.com

Ghostscript can also produce JPG (and GIF?) files from EPS, but I am not familiar with the details.

If both foopicture.eps and foopicture.gif are available, then the -e2 option on TtH interprets \epsfbox{foopictureo.eps} to embed foopicture.gif as an image:

¼\tth.bat foo -e2

As noted in Section 2.2, dvipdfm used in conjunction with epsf.tex handles EPS graphics transparently.

4.2

TtH does not handle PiCT_EX graphics. My method is to use code such as

\tthdump{ . . pictex code .. }

and then capture the image as a gif and use the TtH macro for the html for the image. An excellent preprocessor for PiCT_EX is mathsPIC by R. W. D. Nickalls. Version 2.1 of mathsPIC available at

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/pictex/mathspic/.

4.3

An example is given:

·

Let f be periodic with period 2p and

f(x) = p- |x|, -p £ x < p

Courtesy of Maple 6 , the Fourier (cosine) polynomial of degree 6 is ³

p/2 +4

cos(x)

+4/9

cos(3 x)

cos(5 x)

The graph of f(x) and six Fourier (cosine) polynomials are shown:

Sample PiCT_EX graphics:

Resources

1.: http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/manual.cgi The TtH Manual suggests several macros to be used in the T_EX file.

2.: http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/tex/index.htm Jeff Lewis's Presenting Mathematics on the Web

3.: http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/tex/production.tex T_EX source for this document

4.: http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/tex/docurl.tex T_EX macros for this document using hyperref with T_EX and TtH, mostly due to Ian Hutchinson

5.: http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/tex/basipic1.tex T_EX source for the PiCT_EX figure

6.: http://www.math.uic.edu/~lewis/tex/basipic1.m Source processed by MathsPiC to create basipic1.tex source for the PiCT_EX figure

Footnotes:

¹Some students have told me that PDF produced directly by Adobe's PdfWriter are slow to print if all fonts are not embedded.

²An alternate method is to use the script ps2pdf13.bat installed with Ghostscript 6+. Care must be taken to change the batch files with a program such as unix2dos.exe. Ghostscript 6 - e produces poor fonts for the screen.

³The LaT_EX code for this example was produced by Maple.

File translated from T_EX by T_TH, version 3.77.
On 03 Jan 2007, 15:30.