[Mac OS X TeX] URGENT: margin kerning and protcode.tex

Ross Moore ross at ics.mq.edu.au
Wed Oct 31 23:03:52 CET 2001



> This is cursed. One, I forgot to put the update_protocde script in 

No, not cursed. It's Murphy's Anthropic Principle of Computer Programming:
 
"Every little mistake that it's reasonable that you might make,
you *will* make, before the module works perfectly".


> working condition before distributing (the commands are preceded by echo 
> for testing). Two, there was a typo in protcode.tex.
> 
> And it emains cursed, because even after applying Roos Moore's patch 
> correctly, I get an error when using this with pdftex 1.00a.

Thanh's  protcode.tex  was clearly just a quick hack to access
the margin-kerning features now available in pdfTeX.

It requires 3 edits before it becomes useable with arbitrary LaTeX jobs:

 1. fix the logic in testing for what version of pdfTeX is being used;

 2. remove the \input abbr.tex  at the beginning, which makes lots of
    unnecessary definitions (some causing conflicts);

 3. replace the \div and \mul  by \divide and \multiply (since \div , \mul
     no longer have the meanings from  abbr.tex, which may conflict anyway).

Now  protcode.tex  should be OK for LaTeX jobs.

It's still no good for plain TeX jobs, as it needs the proper expansions
for macros:   \makeatletter  \makeatother
and scratch count-registers:   \@tempcnta  \@tempcntb

I think you can bet that this will not be the last word on margin-kerning
and  protcode.tex .   (Murphy more or less guarantees that!)


Hope this helps,

	Ross



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