Re: [tlug] LaTeXing

[Matt Gushee <mgushee@example.com>]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 08:45:35PM -0500, Pedro D. Jara Palma wrote:

> well the question is:
>  how do i Tex (LaTex) ?
> my emacs is already configured for Japanese, but i read that i need ntt jtex
> or something like that, but i cant find the packages anywhere. and its seems
> that i need a japanese version of xdvi too (and i cant download this
> anywhere, i make my homework in google i swear!!!).

I wouldn't suggest using NTT-jTeX, even if you can find it--it's really,
really old and to my knowledge, no longer being developed in any way.
There's probably not even a user community to help you out, except for
maybe a few dotty old professors at provincial universities.

Fortunately, there are two other alternatives. One is pTeX, which is the
other Japanese-localized TeX. Although for some reason it's bloody hard
to find any significant documentation for it on the web, it shouldn't be
too hard to find packages--they may even have come with your Linux
distribution, and if not they're quite likely to be available in the
'contrib' area of the distribution archive. Another place to look is the
CTAN FTP archives ... I forget exactly where they are, but you can find
links at the TeX User's Group Web Site (www.tug.org).

If you want a full Japanese feature set, pTeX is probably the way to go.
I believe it supports vertical text and furigana, and probably provides
the best Japanese typesetting you're going to get. However, last time I
checked, the pTeX code base was a bit on the old side, and it didn't
have things like PDFTeX (which generates PDF directly from TeX/LaTeX
--no DVI files involved). So if you want to have those cutting edge
features and/or you're only doing light Japanese work, another option is
to use a standard English TeX distribution like teTeX, and install the
CJK macro package (definitely available from CTAN, if not from your
Linux vendor). I've done a little bit of work with that, though it's
been quite a while. If you're interested in the CJK package, you might
want to take a look at:

  http://www.havenrock.com/archives/classic/docproc/nihongo/aho-jdps/

You'll find there a package of miscellaneous stuff that I put together
about 3 years ago to help facilitate processing Japanese docs with the
CJK package. I'll try to help with any questions you have about that.

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@example.com
http://www.havenrock.com/