[texhax] TeXBook Appendix E online anywhere?

Barbara Beeton bnb at ams.org
Fri May 22 16:41:38 CEST 2009


    Lars Madsen wrote:

    > Peter Seibel wrote:
    >  
    > > Is the TeX code in Appendix E of Knuth's TeXBook available online
    > > anywhere. I want to play with the code he used to typeset the book and
    > > would rather not have to type it all in by hand.
    > > 
    > > My attempts at Googling it up didn't find anything.
    > > 
    > > -Peter
    > 
    > the source for the texbook is usually included in most LaTeX dists, it is
    > for looking at the code, compiling it is not allowed.
    >  
    There is certainly a clear warning against printing out the TeXbook from
    the file that has been included in TeX distributions since the beginning.
    But that is setting and printing the entire book---not quite the same as
    extracting bits of the code from an appendix---and one would have to
    knowingly modify the head of the TeXbook file to do so.  I am not sure that
    the intentions are to prevent a something like a drag-and-drop extraction
    of bits of DEK's TeX code.  Reuse of published code is largely regarded as
    an honorable and sensible way to improve programs. On an X-based display
    (from Open Office to Emacs, as an example) extracts would not take very
    long, especially since much of it would be irrelevant and unwanted. 
    Barbara?

hi, pierre,
since i've been called in, here's my take.
the contents of appendix e are examples.
examples are meant to be used as models,
and this does often include the direct use
of code fragments.  i believe don wouldn't
mind the extraction of *fragments* from
the source of appendix e -- as peter seibel
implies, that's a good way to avoid typing
errors.

however, peter also says
  ...  I want to play with the code he used to typeset the book ...
and as has been pointed out elsewhere, that's
directly available in the core tex distribution
as manmac.tex.  that file carries absolutely no
prohibitions, so it looks to me to be the best
place to start.
							-- bb


More information about the texhax mailing list