home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TeX 1995 July
/
TeX CD-ROM July 1995 (Disc 1)(Walnut Creek)(1995).ISO
/
tex-k
/
tex-k-archive.past
/
1995.02
/
000015_vieth@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de_Fri Feb 3 10:31:45 1995.msg
< prev
next >
Wrap
Internet Message Format
|
1995-02-28
|
3KB
Received: from thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de (xerxes.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de) by cs.umb.edu with SMTP id AA12558
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for <tex-k@cs.umb.edu>); Fri, 3 Feb 1995 03:31:59 -0500
Received: from macbeth.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de by thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA02636; Fri, 3 Feb 95 09:31:45 +0100
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 09:31:45 +0100
From: vieth@xerxes.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de
Message-Id: <9502030831.AA02636@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de>
Received: by macbeth.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de (4.1/SMI-4.1)
id AA01645; Fri, 3 Feb 95 09:30:55 +0100
To: hanche@imf.unit.no
Cc: tex-k@cs.umb.edu
In-Reply-To: <1995-02-02.221335.hanche@chanur.imf.unit.no>
Subject: Re: MetaPost for web2c-6.1/kpathsea-2.6
hanche@imf.unit.no wrote:
> Rather, I am writing to tell you that I don't know what MetaPost is
> (what? is it possible not to know? you bet it is! there is too much
> information floating around in the net to keep track of it all!). I
> would very much appreciate knowing what it is before I try decide
> whether I should want to install a copy. I imagine there may be
> others on the tex-k list wanting to know, too. I did a quick search
> through my tex-k archives with no great amount of luck.
>
> So could you tell me, please? And maybe the rest of the list too? A
> two or three line summary with a URL pointing to a suitable source of
> information is all I ask.
I'm sorry that I failed to explain this when I send out my patches for
MetaPost to the tex-k mailing list. To answers your question:
MetaPost ist a system for drawing figures using a METAFONT-like
language but with PostScript output instead of raster bitmaps.
It has facilities for the inclusion of TeX material in labels
which are processed by invoking a shell script (makempx) that
runs a sequence of utilty programs (mptotex, tex, dvitomp).
There is also a MetaPost macro package for plotting data files.
MetaPost was written by John Hobby, who was Knuth's primary co-worker
during the METAFONT development, and much of the code in MetaPost
and its utiltiies is actually taken from METAFONT, TeX and dvitype.
As John Hobby currently works for AT&T research, MetaPost used to
be available only under a non-disclosure agreement from AT&T, but
it now has been placed in the public domain, which is a good think.
MetaPost was announced on the ctan-announce mailing list in early
January. I don't have the text of the announcement here anymore.
A PostScript file of the manual is avaliable on ftp.netlib.att.com.
Look out for cstr162. It's quite impressive, so you may want to
have a look at it before you decide about installing MetaPost.
Hope this helps,
Ulrik Vieth.