VU Math: Intro to Our Computer Systems

HOW  TO  USE  TEX
On Our Department's Unix Computers
including a section on pictures

This web page is intended for people who already know at least a little bit about TeX. If you don't, or if you want additional documentation or manuals, refer to our brief introduction to TeX, on another web page.

Creating TeX

You can use TeX, and several of its varieties, on our machines. Create your TeX files using an editor, such as vi or uemacs. The resulting files can then be processed with the tex, latex or amstex commands. For example, to process a file alpha.tex written in plain TeX, you would type
tex alpha
See the TeX book for explanations of what happens next. You can process files using the latex and amstex commands in a similar way. The result will be a "DVI" (device independent) file with a name ending in .dvi -- for example, alpha.dvi.

Previewing DVI files

If you are connected to one of our machines on an X terminal, you can use the xdvi program to preview your files. To preview alpha.dvi just type
xdvi alpha.dvi

Converting TeX

Our Unix system, as it is presently configured, is not able to print DVI files directly. Instead, you must first convert them to PS (postscript) files, using a program called dvips. To convert the entire file alpha.dvi to alpha.ps you type
dvips alpha
(Perhaps "convert" is not quite the right word -- that word suggests that your DVI file will disappear, but in fact it will not. Your directory will now contain the PS file in addition to, not just instead of, the DVI file.) Or, if you want just pages 3 to 7,
dvips -pp 3-7 alpha
After either of these commands, you can print the resulting PostScript file alpha.ps with the command
lpr alpha.ps

Cleaning up log, DVI and PostScript files

After you have finished printing a TeX document, you do not need the log file (.log extension), DVI file (.dvi extension) and possibly PostScript file (.ps or .alw extension) created during the printing process. Please delete these files so that we do not run out of disk space. DVI files usually take up about the same amount of room as the original TeX file does, and PostScript files can take up several times as much room, so a large amount of disk space can be wasted if users do not remove these files after they have finished printing or previewing.

Using pictures with TeX

We have a package, written by Brendan McKay of the Australian National University, with extensions by Mark Ellingham, which allows you to create pictures as part of your TeX files. The documentation is available in two TeX files,
/usr/local/lib/tex/doc/misc/picdoc.tex and
/usr/local/lib/tex/doc/misc/ppdoc.tex.
At present, printing these files, and using the picture macros, requires the use of a special dvi-to-PostScript conversion program, dvialw, instead of the usual dvips program. Use the two-step printing process described above, replacing dvips with dvialw, and alpha.ps by alpha.alw -- dvialw produces PostScript files with the extension .alw instead of .ps.

The pictex macros are also available. There are ways to include graphics output from Mathematica in your TeX files: Steve Tschantz is the expert on this. The dvips program has facilities for including EPSF encapsulated PostScript files, which many graphical applications can produce; see /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/dvips/epsf.tex and epsf.sty for directions.

There is also a way to include Encapsulated PostScript (EPSF) files into TeX documents on Atlas. This uses the files

/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/epsf.tex   for plain/AMS TeX, and
/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/epsf.sty   for LaTeX & variants.
Instructions are contained in those files.

Some other TeX-related programs on our system

Here are a few more programs available to you. You can find out more about them by accessing their "man" pages --- e.g., type "man dviselect".

A VU Math web page, updated 13 Sept 2001 by webmaster@math.vanderbilt.edu.