[texhax] shapepar

[Philip G. Ratcliffe]

> I'm trying to get shapepar working, and have just tried the the
> canada.shape example. (see at the end of my mail for the example text -
> taken from the README) and this is the output I got with LaTeX:
> [snip]
> ! Undefined control sequence.
> l.6 \newshapepar
>                 {some long text that will be shaped into your foo-shape}
> ?

Not surprising, I just wonder where you got \newshapepar from.

> [snip]
> I checked /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/shapepar.sty (installed on my
> system in 2003) and there was no macro called \newshapepar so I tried
> \shapepar instead and got this:

Now we're getting somewhere.

> [snip]
> ! Shaped Paragraph Error: Error in specification. Check carefully!.
> \SH at sperror ...in specification. Check carefully!}
>
> l.6 ...xt that will be shaped into your foo-shape}

Well, looking at the code you attached and _reading the manual_ (page 1 is
sufficient), it's obvious why: as the manual explains, the syntax is

 \shapepar{\candle} some long text that will be shaped into your foo-shape

where \candle is defined in the file candle.def (my up-to-date MiKTeX
installation does not have a canada.shape but a number of .def files).

> I'm not very clever with TeX, so any tips will be highly appreciated.

Try reading the manuals and maybe the wish you expressed at the top of your
posting may even come true.

Cheers,  Phil Ratcliffe

P.S. My system gives me the following LaTeX package message:
     Package: shapepar 2002/12/30 v 2.0, Shaped paragraphs