Re: Looking for TeX/LaTeX gurus help

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 01:16:43PM -0500, Karl Berry wrote:
> 
> No, it doesn't.  The way you get a text ringa accent in plain TeX is
> \def\ringaccent#1{{\accent23 #1}}.  Something similar could be done for
> math, but it's not in plain.

Ok, I'll use the ascii representation when wanting to do plain TeX in
@math.

>     \underline could be used, it is in TeX too.
> 
> Ah.  Math for @ubaraccent should be \underbar (which uses \underline).

Ok.

>     > You'll want \usepackage{textcomp} for sure, it makes lots of symbols
>     Ok. Are those in TeX too?
> 
> For starters, there is no \usepackage in plain TeX, as you probably
> know.

Yes, I know. My question was, are things in textcomp also in plain 
TeX (in math), but i guess the answer is not necessarily.

> I thought you weren't targeting plain TeX.  Doing that is an entirely
> different situation than targeting LaTeX.  texinfo.tex already does
> everything that is easy.  Going beyond texinfo.tex leads into deep
> waters -- things that are unimplemented there are unimplemented for a
> reason.

For things relevant in @math, I'd like to have something that is in 
plain TeX if possible. I don't care about TeX in other cases.

>     Is there something similar for plain TeX? 
> 
> For unextended plain TeX with the CM fonts, see (for example),
> http://www.tug.org/utilities/plain/cseq.html,

There are only the TeX Primitive Control Sequences here.

> http://www.eijkhout.net/tbt,

This indeed seems to explain everything, including showing the font 
tables.

> http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/teximpatient,

I use this book too, but it doesn't really explain clearly what is available
in math mode and what is not (or at least I don't really understand how
it is said).

> and of course The TeXbook.
> 
>     Also in many places it is said that fontenc T1 should be used, but I
>     am not sure what to do in general for fonts and charsets. If I could
>     have some directions, that would be nice...
> 
> Sorry, but it's not that kind of thing that can be easily summed up.
> Maybe we should come up with a plan offline.

Ok.

--
Pat