[texhax] Curley W

Aaron Gray angray at beeb.net
Fri Dec 21 18:15:07 CET 2007

> On Dec 21, 2007, at 10:37 AM, Aaron Gray wrote:
>
>>> On Dec 20, 2007, at 2:31 PM, Aaron Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am wondering how to render a Curley W in TeX.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.diku.dk/undervisning/2006-2007/2006-2007_b2_246/
>>>> milner78theory.pdf
>>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Aaron,
>>>
>>> Try the mathrsfs package.  It's pretty close.
>>>
>>> \documentclass{article}
>>> \usepackage{mathptmx}
>>> \usepackage{mathrsfs}
>>> \begin{document}
>>> To be precise, we show that if $\mathscr W(\bar p,f)$ succeeds and
>>> returns $(T,\bar f)$, then $(T\bar p)|f$ is a wt.
>>> \end{document}
>>
>> Hello Matthew,
>>
>> Thanks for the reply. I am using MediaWiki (WikiPedia's software) and
>> unfortunately that does not support \usepackage{} :(
>
> Ah, you should have said so earlier.  See MediaWiki's own page [1]
> for the full story. You could try using CSS to instruct the web
> browser to select a scriptlike font.  I believe Wikipedia's policy
> [2] is to use wikitext or HTML to render math unless it's only
> possible with LaTeX.  This way the page remains machine-readable
> (sort of).  So something like
>
> <span style="font-family: 'zapf chancery', cursive;">W</span>
>
> should work.  You can make that a template to avoid code repetition.
>
>> Out of interest I have MediaWiki running on my own Linux server, do
>> you know
>> is there anyway to preload packages ?
>
> Yes, there's got to be a way.  The sure-fire way would be to search
> the MediaWiki source code.  The way these math-on-the web programs
> work is they take text, write it into a file, then run (la)tex on the
> file.   The temporary file needs a preamble, so if you find where
> it's written you can just update that preamble.  Whoever wrote this
> particular extension to MW may have built in some customization
> mechanism that would do this for you, but I don't know.
>
> Judging on your next paragraph, however, I think your best bet is a
> solution within the current MW configuration.
>
>> Also I dont even know how to run TeX on the command line, can I put
>> the code
>> in a .tex file then run tex on it ? I should experiment with this.
>
> In the olden days this was the only way to use tex.  Look at the TUG
> site (see "more links" at the end of the message) for information on
> that.
>
> Hope that helps!
>
> --Matt
>
> [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%
> 28mathematics%29#Typesetting_of_mathematical_formulas

zapf chancery is that the font the W is in ?

Aaron