‘Funny Drawings’ with pst-fun

I learned of the pst-fun package today from an answer at T_eX.SX, which provides convenience commands for some ‘fun’ drawings in PStricks. Time for some quick fun then!

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{pst-fun}

\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}(-1, -2)(13,10)
\psParrot{.8}
\rput (2.5,7) {\psBird[Branch]}
\rput (10,-1.5) {\psscalebox{-1 1}{\psKangaroo[fillcolor=red!30!yellow]{5.75}}}
\rput {-50} (6,0) {\psBird}
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

Compile with latex, or xelatex if you want a PDF output. And the output looks like this:

…and I really should get back to work now!

LaTeX Training & Consultancy

I’ve recently started offering L^aT_eX training and consultancy services as a freelancer (between writing up my thesis and parenting). So if you happen to be sourcing for a trainer, or need a consultant for L^aT_eX-related typesetting or design, feel free to have a look at my webpage and contact me.

Thanks to the other blog authors for letting me post this here. I’m doing this T&C as a personal attempt, so please address your gripes just to me (Lian Tze) if you have any issues with my services, and not to the other authors here.

Creating an Online Academic Portfolio with LaTeX and TeX4ht

This was originally asked on TeX.SX, the requirements being:

Any one know of a good script to turn a bibtex file into a nice academic portfolio that:

• links to electronic versions where known (from url or doi)
• works with local files (e.g. with bibdesk's format or otherwise)
• automatically creates a thumbnail of the first page
• and generally produces a polished web page suitable for showing off your work?

Well, I maintain my own online publication list by generating the HTML code from my BibT_eX, using BibL^aT_eX, Biber and T_eX4ht. So my answer to the above question was a quick modification of my own workflow, adding Ghostscript to the mix to generate thumbnail images of the papers. The output looks like this: (The publication lists can be split according to their types)

(BibL^aT_eX is a complete reimplementation of the bibliographic facilities provided by L^aT_eX in conjunction with BibT_eX. It’s very flexible, and many find it easier to deal with compared to the BST language. Biber is the replacement of the BibT_eX binary, for users of BibL^aT_eX.)

The source codes can be downloaded here as a .zip file. Further elaborations follow.

The Bibliography File

Back to the task at hand. First we have the BibT_eX file, the content of which is pretty much the norm, except that I used the custom BibL^aT_eX field to hold the local PDF file name. My publications.bib contains entries like:

@ARTICLE{Lim:Ranaivo:Tang:2011,
author = {Lim, Lian Tze and Ranaivo-Malan\c{c}on, Bali and Tang, Enya Kong},
title = {Low Cost Construction of a Multilingual Lexicon from Bilingual Lists},
journal = {Polibits},
year = {2011},
volume = {43},
pages = {45--51},
url = {http://polibits.gelbukh.com/2011_43/43-06.htm},
usera = {LLT-polibits.pdf}
}

The L^aT_eX Source File

Next is the portfolio.tex file, in which I set up a hook at every bibliography item to include the first page of the file pointed to by usera. I've also added a bibmacro called string+hyperlink, to make the publication title link to the url or doi field if these are available, as shown in this answer.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[backend=biber,bibstyle=authoryear,sorting=ydnt]{biblatex}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\bibliography{publications}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\ExecuteBibliographyOptions{doi=false,url=false}
\newbibmacro{string+hyperlink}[1]{%
\iffieldundef{url}{%
\iffieldundef{doi}{#1}{\href{http://dx.doi.org/\thefield{doi}}{#1}}}
{\href{\thefield{url}}{#1}}}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{title}{\usebibmacro{string+hyperlink}{#1}}

\newbibmacro{usera}{%
\iffieldundef{usera}{}{%
\savefield*{usera}{\filename}%
\usebibmacro{string+hyperlink}{\includegraphics[width=100pt]{\filename}}\\}%
}
\AtEveryBibitem{\usebibmacro{usera}}

\begin{document}
\section{My Academic Portfolio}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography[title={Articles},type={article}]
\printbibliography[title={Conference Proceedings},type={inproceedings}]
\end{document}

T_eX4ht Configuration File

I then set up a T_eX4ht personal configuration file, called portfolio.cfg (included in the .zip file). It contains some simple CSS, and tells T_eX4ht to convert the first page of the local PDFs into PNGs using ghostscript. (So yes you will need to have ghostscript installed for this to work.)

Generating the HTML

Right, now we can run the following commands:

$  htlatex portfolio "portfolio"
$  biber portfolio
$  htlatex portfolio "portfolio"

And you should then get portfolio.html, which you can further embellish with more CSS. Well that was fun!

LaTeX in comic

from here

Mail-Merge Batch Generating Documents with datatool Package

If you aren’t aware of the possibility before this, you read the title right, it’s possible to do mail-merging in L^aT_eX with e.g. the versatile datatool package. This makes L^aT_eX quite a handy Swiss knife in a pinch.

The example scenario: you need to produce a batch of letters, name cards, or certificates really quickly. Let’s say certificates of appreciation for some long-serving employees. The recipients list has most probably been compiled by someone, as a spreadsheet like this:

Now all spreadsheet applications should be able to export the worksheet as a comma-separated values (CSV) plain text file, so we have namelist.csv with the following contents:

Name,ID,Gender,Years in Service
Abdul Ali,382473856,M,15
Francesca Joestar,461276432,F,10
Chan Ker Mei,463724631,F,5
Hikaru Yagami,154954739,M,10

The datatool package can then load namelist.csv as a simple database, which each line being a record, consisting of fields delimited by commas. By default, the field names are given by the first line of the .csv file. After assigning macros to the field names, we can then use the macros to insert ‘mail merge’ fields into a L^aT_eX document.

Here’s a quick example, using the wallpaper package and an external image (image courtesy of fromoldbooks.org) for the decorative frame:

% Use scrartcl to allow larger base font size
\documentclass[16pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[left=3cm,right=3cm,top=6cm,bottom=5cm]{geometry}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tgschola}
\usepackage{fourier-orns}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{wallpaper} % For background image frame

\usepackage{datatool}
% Load database 'names' from file 'namelist.csv'
\DTLloaddb{names}{namelist.csv}

\begin{document}
\linespread{2}\selectfont
\pagestyle{empty}
% Set old-border.jpg as background image
\TileWallPaper{\paperwidth}{\paperheight}{old-border}

% For each record (line) in database 'names'
% Assign field values by name to macros
\DTLforeach{names}
{\name=Name, \ID=ID, \gender=Gender, \yr={Years in Service}}{
  {\centering
    {\LARGE\bfseries Certificate of Appreciation}\par
    {\LARGE\decofourleft\quad\decoone\quad\decofourright}\par
    \vskip2em
    We thank\par
    % Insert '\name' field
    {\large\bfseries\MakeUppercase{\name}}\par
    % Insert '\ID' field
    {\large (ID: \ID)}\par
    for having been with\par
    {\large XYZ Company}\par
    % Insert '\yr' field
    {for \emph{\LARGE\yr} glorious years}\par
    \vskip1em
    % Test '\gender' field and insert him/her, his/her
    We commend \DTLifeq{\gender}{M}{him}{her} on
    \DTLifeq{\gender}{M}{his}{her} excellent service.\par
  }
  \vfill
  \hfill
  \begin{minipage}{.4\textwidth}
    Managing Director\par
    \vskip1cm
    \rule{8em}{.5pt}
    \vskip-1em
    (MD's Name)\par
  \end{minipage}

  \pagebreak
}
\end{document}

And voilà, the output document has 4 pages, each containing the certificate for a recipient listed in namelist.csv.

Just for fun, here’re the same certifates using ornaments from the adforn font package. For more flamboyant ornaments, see the webomints fonts (installable via getnonfreescripts) or the psvectorian package.

The .tex source codes can be downloaded here.

datatool has many more macros for testing field values and even arithmetics. Other accompanying packages in the bundle, such as datapie, dataplot and databar, even lets you draw charts from .csv files via TikZ/PGF, so do check out the documentation.

Now I’m off to my holidays! Happy Chinese New Year to everyone, and may the Year of the Dragon brings only good tidings for you!

Use of LaTeX in Industry

A question on TeX.SX about “How is L^aT_eX used in industry and what are some examples?” has garnered over 6k views since posted yesterday. I had mentioned during my MOSC talk that L^aT_eX would be very useful in scenarios where some printable content has to be batch-generated or on-the-fly, and now some actual real life examples are given in the answers.

For example, this website allows users to query transportation timetables and returns the results as a pdfTeX-generated PDF:

And here’s another schedule generated by another German transportation website (PDF):

If you read the other answers, you’ll see what and how L^aT_eX is used in other companies (besides academic publishers). For example, this answer by Peter Flynn:

As a LaTeX consultancy, we have produced classes and styles for many organisations, including companies, government departments, and non-profits. A London auction house uses LaTeX to generate invoices; an electronic systems training company uses LyX and LaTeX to create their course workbooks and white papers; a Dublin printer uses LaTeX for pharmaceutical labelling; a local government organisation uses TeX to generate the Register of Voters; a professional scientific association uses LaTeX for its regular series of technical reports; and of course we use it internally for client reports, newsletters, and invoicing.

Latex on Mobile Smart Devices

I believe most of us got a smartphone which you may use for surfing, taking pictures, emails and playing games. But somehow you might as well use your tablet or perhaps phone (let say, as big as Samsung Galaxy Note) for your productivity tasks.

Since I am more into Android devices (the reason is, most Apple stuffs are pricey, and I could get several Android devices with the price), I managed to find some applications which allow the users to do their Latex activity. 

I found VerbTex[APK file], which uses Verbosus, (which, unfortunately means, you need an internet access to send your Tex file for compilation). 

Also, I found this for the iPad. I am not sure whether it compiles natively or work like VerbTex. But throughout my readings on the page, nothing being mentioned on sending the compilation over the network (perhaps it could be compiled natively?)

How about you, tell us about your "mobile latexing" experience!