Re: [Fhsst-authors] Potpourri

[marcuirl]

Peter Hutnick <address@hidden> writes:

Hi Peter,

> 1. When I make a DVI any pstricks lines are omitted.  Character
> portions of the figure do show up.  When I make a PDF from the DIV
> the lines appear.  Does this mean something is wrong with my
> pstricks install?  Or is this an inherent limitation of pstricks?  I
> experience the same behavior on my Windows system and my GNU/Linux
> system.

I'm sure not I understand what you mean. I have noticed funny things
in dvi files as well (e.g. conservation of momentum figure in
physics/collisions.tex) Sam tells me that these are related to a
non-bug i.e. an actual bug in pstricks the author refuses to fix!
Assuming you have the same TeX and pstricks on both systems (only
linux for me here) I would suspect it is a problem with the dvi file
and or viewer that then gets fixed in the conversion to ps/pdf

How about a very simple/basic example that shows what you mean?

> 3. \begin{figure}[!h] is not recommended, but is used frequently (43
> times) in hsalgebra.  In fact, contemporary versions of LaTeX
> automatically convert this to !ht.  Maybe these should be changed to
> a more liberal setting?

\begin{figure}[!htpb]

h: here appears as close to this point as LaTeX can get it
t: top  appears where there is space at top of current page if not top
   next page
b: bottom appears like top but at the bottom of the page
p: appears on a special page at end of file where all figures are
displayed

!: overrides a whole load of settings that can be changed by the user
and are too complicated to get into here.

So if you expect/want all your figures to be at the top of pages then
I would just use !ht. As you say, LaTeX will put the figure where it
thinks best in relation to the text anywaz and the default is !ht!

For those who need or want greater LaTeX help can I plug the following
book:

http://tinyurl.com/26tf3

I have the third edition and it really is my LaTeX bible! If your in
the UK/Ireland this is one of the cheapest sources of this book. But
maybe your library has copies.

> Thanks for any and all guidance!

HTH, marcu
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