D. P. STORY
University of Akron, Ohio
dpstory@uakron.edu
Abstract:
Adobe's Acrobat (PDF) and Donald Knuth's TEX system make a
powerful team for putting mathematics on the internet. For the
educator, this team, called ``AcroTEX,'' is the poor man's multimedia
software company.
Though TEX was implemented before the rise in popularity of the WWW, PostScript code written to the DVI file, using TEX's \specials, can be used to enhance an electronic document created from a TEX source by introducing such elements as color, hypertext links, form features, sounds, and even video clips. These special features are achieved by inserting `pdfmarks' into the output file. The Adobe Distiller, in turn, interprets these pdfmarks and translates them into the appropriate element as it writes the PDF document. TEX is, therefore, well suited for creating PDF files, especially technical material. With the aid of the very powerful macro facility and the ability to position material very precisely on a page, these electronic enhancements can be created and placed in an exact and automated way.
The talk explores the capabilities of AcroTEX and the contents of
the AcroTEX web site
(http://www.math.uakron.edu/~dpstory);
examples include tutorials, an electronic grading system, mathematical
games, and technical articles.