X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["792" "Thu" "1" "October" "92" "09:38:01" "MDT" "\"Jonathan M. Gilligan\"" "gilligan@CENTRAL.BLDRDOC.GOV" nil "16" "Re: picture mode in LaTeX3/additional fonts in distribution" "^Date:" nil nil "10"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (serv01) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/1.9.92 ) id AA06310; Thu, 1 Oct 92 16:41:26 +0100 Received: from vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (vm.hd-net.uni-heidelberg.de) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.0/SMI-4.0-sc/19.6.92) id AA23368; Thu, 1 Oct 92 16:40:54 +0100 Message-Id: <9210011540.AA23368@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0237; Thu, 01 Oct 92 16:41:35 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 0224; Thu, 01 Oct 92 16:41:31 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 0222; Thu, 01 Oct 92 16:41:28 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: rolf.lindgren@USIT.UIO.NO's message of Thu, 1 Oct 92 13:12:37 +0100<9210011219.AA02105@central> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 09:38:01 MDT From: "Jonathan M. Gilligan" Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of Subject: Re: picture mode in LaTeX3/additional fonts in distribution Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 806 In the discussion of whether to tie LaTeX3 to Postscript, I haven't seen a discussion of how one might handle one of the most desirable (to me) Postscript features---the ability to rotate boxes, so tables can be printed sideways---outside of Postscript. This cannot be accomplished with the \special s of any other drivers that I am aware of. Perhaps the LaTeX3 folks, along with the DVI standards committee could take up the idea of standardizing a rotation \special. On a related topic, why not have LaTeX3 accomplish fancy graphics as Tom Leathrum's mfpic package does: by writing a .mf file, which metafont then processes. This saves wear and tear on the wheel-reinventing shop and avoids reliance on \special s, since metafont is already part of the standard TeX distribution. ---Jon