Wikipedia talk:TeX markup

Bold vectors

I don't know if this is the right page to bring this up, but is there a way the <math>-environments could have support for bold vectors?

Apparently you have to introduce a command to do this, such as

 \renewcommand{\v}[1]{\mathbf{#1}}

(taken from http://www.maths.abdn.ac.uk/~jrp/latex_course/firststeps/page5.htm ), but I can't get this to work in an individual formula. Perhaps a similar command should be globally defined? --Martin

The answer is given in the (UK TeX user group's FAQ. In short use either of the packages bm.sty or amsbsy.sty. --Anon

• Note that there is a standard macro \vec for vectors in LaTeX. If Wikipedia wants to use boldface for vectors, they should \renewcommand{\vec}[1]{\mathbf{#1}}. (This would allow you to change vector formatting down the road, or for different publication venues.) Don't encourage bad LaTeX habits, and please use \vec for vectors! -- Steven G. Johnson.

• The problem is that Wikipedia isn't really writing in LaTeX. We'd never be able to know if a \renewcommand wouldn't mess something up (without a full search of all of its uses). -- Toby Bartels 03:52 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Which software?

A question: Which TeX software generates the little PNG images? -- Hirzel

The system was written by user:Taw; here's my understanding of it: the formula is first parsed and validated by an Ocaml program called texvc. If texvc decides that the formula should be rendered by TeX, the TeX interpreter will be called (it uses the amstex or amslatex package) and produces a dvi file, which dvips converts to postscript. The program ghostscript then converts it into png. Maybe imagemagick is also involved as the last step, I don't know. AxelBoldt 22:02 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

Will these conversion scripts also be included in the Wikimedia software download? I think this kind of functionality makes wikis a lot more attractive to scientists (who are used do doing their formulas with TEX). I suspect a lot of people (and that includes myself) would like to set up intranet sites with this TEX-aware wiki... --Martin

Yes, texvc is included in the Wikipedia source repository and should be in the downloadable snapshot. There are some dependencies, which are noted in the README, but it's all free software. (T_EX, ImageMagick, OCaml, GNU Ghostscript) --Brion

texvc doesn't call ghostscript directly, but it calls ImageMagick and ImageMagick in turn calls ghostscript. Taw 17:19 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)

Ksi?

How can I make a Ksi greek symbol? (It seems Wiki Markup does't know this letter). You know, Ksi likes this: [|] if you view from <- |-:< here. Gubbubu

Failed to parse (unknown function "\Ksi"): {\displaystyle \Ksi } Failed to parse (unknown function "\Chsi"): {\displaystyle \Chsi } Failed to parse (unknown function "\Csi"): {\displaystyle \Csi } Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "http://localhost:6011/en.wikipedia.org/v1/":): {\displaystyle \Khsi } $\Xi$ ?

You see, all these are failed.

You seem to have answered your own questions---\Xi and \xi give $\Xi$ and $\xi$. I remember this being the spelling that TeX uses. If it's not displaying for you, change your math preferences to use images. (So you'll get $\Xi \,\!$.) grendel|khan 14:07, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

Upright Greek

Why is it that the TeX macros for the uppercase Greek letters which are not ordinarily defined in plain TeX or LaTeX result in slanted letter shapes? I'm talking about the difference between

$\mathrm {A} \mathrm {B} \mathrm {E} \!\,$

on the one hand (not part of plain TeX, slanted), and

$\Gamma \Delta \Theta \!\,$

on the other (part of plain TeX, upright). Shouldn't \Alpha be defined as something like

\def\Alpha{\mathrm{A}}

instead? --MarkSweep 06:08, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, \Alpha isn't defined in plain TeX or LaTeX. (I just checked.) Must be something in texvc. I'd submit a bug to Bugzilla on this one. grendel|khan 09:59, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

Yes, I see it's defined that way in texutil.ml. I'll file a bug report. --MarkSweep 21:13, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)