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# Drawing Labels and SM's TeX Emulation

There are two separate ways to specify special characters to SM, by using a syntax very similar to TeX (the type-setting system created by Donald Knuth that we used for this manual), or the traditional Mongo way. You might ask what are the advantages of TeX? One is that sub- and super- scripts are handled much more naturally, making it much harder to type when you meant Another is that you no longer have to remember that is hidden in the Greek font as q', you can simply type \theta. A third would be that you may well know TeX already.

If you want to make SM understand TeX strings you should define the variable TeX_strings (if you put a line TeX_strings 1 in your .sm' file this will be done automatically). You can, of course, undefine it at any time to revert to the old-fashioned strings described below. Using TeX-style strings is strongly recommended by the authors; all future and most recent improvements to SM's labels are only supported in TeX mode.

If you want to change the default font used for labels, define the variable default_font, either interactively (DEFINE default_font oe), or by putting a line in your .sm file': default_font oe. This affects axis as well as regular labels and only works if you use TeX_strings (of course).

For some devices with hardware fonts (for example, postscript printers or a Tektronix 4010 terminal), if expand is exactly 1, and angle is exactly 0, the hard fonts will be used for speed. Various strategies to defeat this are discussed below.

## An Introduction to TeX

(TeXsperts should skip this section.) If you don't know TeX let's start with an example:
label \pi^{\-21/22 = {\3\int2e^{-x^22\,dx

will print a well-known result (You'll have to RELOCATE somewhere where the label will be visible first, of course). (If you want to try it now, you should be careful typing those ^'s, as they are special to the history editor, dealing with this is discussed below.) In this example the characters \, {, 2, and ^ are special (and so is _ which wasn't used). Postponing \ for the moment, ^ means make the next group a superscript', _ means make the next group a subscript', where a group is either a single character, a single control sequence (wait a moment!), or a string enclosed in braces. So A_a^{SM2B would appear as A \ can serve one of two functions, either turning off the special meaning of the next character (so \_ is simply a _ with no special significance), or to introduce a named control sequence'. These fall into three groups, those that change fonts, those that serve as abbreviations for single characters (e.g. \pi in the example), and those that are macros. The font changes persist until the end of the string, or the current group, whichever comes first.

## Available Fonts

The available fonts are greek', old english', private', roman', script', and tiny'. They may be referred to either by a two-character control sequences (\gr, \oe, \pr, \rm, \sc, or \ti) or simply by the first character (e.g. \r for the roman font). In addition \i or \it can be used to make the current font italic (italics are turned off again either by a second \it or by grouping the first \it within {2). The bold' font \b or \bf is similar, in that it makes the current font bold, and can be toggled off with a second \bf if you didn't simply group it. I'd strongly recommend treating \bf and \it like any other font change, and group them rather than relying on this toggling action.

You can alter the size of the letters by using an escape such as \6 which scales the current group (any font change is local to a group). \6 corresponds to multiplying the size by @tex $1.2^6$ or about 3, \-4 scales by @tex $1/1.2^4$ or 0.48. This is similar to the magstep' used in scaling fonts in TeX. These scale factors are in addition to the expansion produced by going up or down (^ or _), or setting EXPAND.

## SM's TeX Control Sequences

Other control sequences either consist of one non-alphabetic character, or else a name consisting only of letters, so \, or \palmtree is valid but \one2three is not. If a alphabetic name is followed by a space, the space is treated as simply delimiting the name and is discarded. For example, AB^{\alpha_\beta CD2 will appear as (note that the space after beta disappeared). How do you make just a few characters italic (script, old english, etc.)? Try ABC{\it DEF2GHI. You can't read a subscript, and want it in tiny' font? Try \Lambda_{\ti ab2. All of the Greek letters are defined, as \alpha-\omega,\Alpha-\Omega, there are various mathematical symbols (e.g. \int, \infty, or \sqrt), some astronomical (e.g. \AA for and some miscellaneous characters (e.g. \snow to draw a snowflake). You can generate a complete list of definitions by saying load fonts TeX_defs.

Some of these definitions are more complex than just special characters, if you know TeX most of them should be familiar.

\bar str
Draw a bar over str.
\over str1 str2
Draw str1 over str2, separated by a horizontal line.
\phantom str
Don't actually draw str, but take up as much space as str would have if you had drawn it.
\smash str
Draw str but pretend that it took up no space.
\strut
Make the current formula have at least the depth and height of a parenthesis.

You can also define your own TeX definitions by using the special command \def\name{value2 inside a label. It produces no output, but defines name to expand to value. For example, I could define \TeX to produce TeX by saying

LABEL \def\TeX{T\raise-200\kern-20E\raise200X2.

Once a definition has been made it is remembered forever (well, until you leave SM actually) whatever devices you plot on. You must make sure that all curly brackets are properly paired inside your definition. You can have arguments just like real TeX, referred to as #1, #2, #3 and so forth, for example
\def\sub#1{_{#122


Your SM guru can compile TeX-definitions into the binary fonts file, instructions are given in the fonts appendix.

## SM's Extensions to TeX

We have made a number of extensions to TeX that are useful in a plotting package, but wouldn't be especially valuable in a printed document. We have also distorted the meanings of some of TeX's control words; sorry.

\point n s
\apoint angle n s
Insert a points (such as would be drawn with DOT) into a label. The string \point43 (or \point 4 3) will draw a point at the current position in the string, of ptype 4 3'. This sequence, from the \ to the 3, is treated as a single character as regards things like subscripts. If you want to specify an angle, use something like \apoint 45 4 0.

\hrule width
Draw a horizontal line at the level of the current baseline, of length width in screen units. It will be multiplied by the current expansion.

\kern dx
\kern # moves the current plot position by # horizontally, where the distance # is specified in screen units (the whole screen is 32768 across). It is multiplied by the expansion currently in effect, and may be postive or negative. See also \raise.

\line type length
\line inserts a line into a label, at about the level of the middle of a lower-case character. e.g. \line 1 1000 will draw a line of length 1000 (in screen units, so the screen is 32768 across), of ltype 1. See also \hrule.

\move dx dy
Move a group by (dx,dy), but don't disturb SM's current idea of where it is. This means that we can draw a line over a character with a string such as \move 0 300{\line 0 4002A. It is possible to use the commands such as \width to take the guesswork out of such commands, for example the definition of \bar is
\def\bar#1{\move0\advance\height{#12by100{\rule\width{#122#12


\raise dy
\raise # moves the current plot position by # vertically, where the distance # is specified in screen units (the whole screen is 32768 across). It is multiplied by the expansion currently in effect, and may be postive or negative. See also \kern.

\vrule depth height
Draw a vertical line at the current position of depth d and height h (and width 0) in screen units. Dimensions are multiplied by the current expansion.

There are also a number of control sequences that can be used whenever a number is expected (by \kern, \line, \move, or \raise); for an example of their use see \move in the preceding table.

\advance num1 [ by ] num
Increment first number (which can be of the form \width{...2) by the second. The by is optional.

\depth{...2
The depth a group would have if it were drawn.

\divide num1 [ by ] num2
Divide the num1 by num2/1000. As for \advance, num1 and num2 need not be simple' numbers but can be combinations of widths, advances, and so on. The by is optional.

\height{...2
The height a group would have if it were drawn.

\multiply num1 [ by ] num2
Multiply the num1 by num2/1000. See \divide for the lack of restrictions on num1 and num2. The by is optional.

\width{...2
The width a group would have if it were drawn

If you want to know the dimensions of the string that you have just drawn (or just not drawn, q.v. PUTLABEL 0) you can look at the internal variables $sdepth,$sheight, and $slength. ## Caveats and Cautions when using TeX Now for a few caveats: Firstly, because \n is a newline, you must type \\nu or "\nu" to get a Secondly, the superscript character ^ is special to the history editor, so to type it interactively you must quote it with the quote_next key (usually ^Q or ESC-q, i.e. type ^Q^). Alternatively, you could change your history character to some under-used character such as % or ' (which is the solution that I use: you can choose a new character such as ' by simply putting a line history_char ' in your .sm' file). Thirdly, TeX (and our pseudoTeX) are rather verbose and labels may not fit on one line. The solution is to continue the line by ending it with a \. This is probably best done within a macro, as the continuation line won't appear on your history list if typed at the prompt. You can currently have about 25 continuation lines (2000 characters). A final point will only worry TeXies, namely that the emulation isn't perfect: for example \sum_i won't put the i beneath the summation symbol. Some of the other discrepancies were listed in the previous section. ## How to Stop the Device using its Fonts If EXPAND is set to exactly 1, and ANGLE is exactly 0, then SM will use hardware fonts, when available, in writing labels. This is faster, but can lead to two styles of labels in one plot which is ugly. There are various ways to trick SM into always using its own fonts: you can say say "ANGLE 360", or use a \0 to select a font with (explicitly) no expansion. To affect the axis tick labels too, using the AXIS or BOX commands, you'll have to say "EXPAND 1.0001" or somesuch. Rather than always expanding your plots, you could ask your SM Guru to edit the graphcap' file to prevent a given device (usually a printer) from ever using hardware fonts. Tell her to see section The Stdgraph Graphics Kernel. If she won't oblige, you can define your own device in your own graphcap file, and put yours first in the .sm' file. For example, my .sm' file includes the line +graphcap /d/rhl/graphcap  and the file /d/rhl/graphcap' looks like: # Private overrides for RHL: # postscript|postscript + no hardware fonts:\ :TB@:TE@:TC=postscript:  Then I set $printer to postscript (also in .sm') and all is well.

An alternative is to specify the device as

        DEVICE postscript :TB@:TE@:tc=postscript:

which is perhaps simpler (you'd just define your value of printer properly).

## Old-style Labels

If you insist on using old-style labels (which are still the default), here's a quick summary. Type \a or \\a to change to font a for one character (first form) or permanently (second form). The possible fonts are g, o, p, r, s, and t for greek', old english', private', roman', script', and tiny' respectively. In addition, the pseudo-fonts u and d move text up' and down' respectively, and i produces italic' (actually just slanted) characters. Size changes are just like any other font change, so \6 and \-4 will affect one character and the rest of the string respectively. This is really somewhat simpler than it sounds - try

label \gp\u\-21/2\2\d = \3\g:e\u-x\u2\d\s dx

Note that tiny' is a misnomer, it is (nowadays) just a font that look better if you need small letters ( \t\-6 will produce a shrunken tiny' font, just like the old days). Spaces are treated differently in different fonts, as a greek space is a negative space (i.e. a backspace), and a script space is only half as wide as a normal space.

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