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Previous: Image Settings Dialog  Up: The Settings Menu  Next: User Interface Settings Dialog  


TeX Settings Dialog

The menu item Settings->Configure TeX/LaTeX Settings will open up a dialog box in which you can adjust the TeX/LaTeX settings. (Image Settings Dialog covers image settings and User Interface Settings Dialog covers user interface settings.)


Setting the Document Class and Normal Font Size

Most of FlowframTk's TeX/LaTeX related functions (including the export function) require a value corresponding to \normalsize (the LaTeX command that sets the normal font size). A text area needs to know the normal font size to determine the appropriate font size declaration (see Font Size). In addition, both the parshape and shapepar functions use the value of \baselineskip for the normal font size in order to determine the location of the scan lines used to compute the required parameters. This also means that any static or dynamic frames that use a non-standard paragraph shape also require this information.

normalsizeandclass
Figure 3.9: Setting the Normal Font Size and (optionally) the Class

The normal font size can be set using the Document Settings tab (Figure 3.9). Select the required value from the drop-down list and select Okay to set it. Note that you must remember to use this value in your document. For example, if you set the normal size as 20, your document will need to use one of the extsizes class files, e.g. extarticle, and specify 20pt as one of the optional arguments:

\documentclass[20pt]{extarticle}

Note that the largest normal size listed (25pt3.2) is for use with the a0poster class file. Remember that for very large or very small fonts, you will need to use scalable fonts in your document to prevent font size substitutions. Available values, along with the corresponding value of \baselineskip and the file in which they are defined, are listed in Table 3.2.


Table 3.2: Available values for the normal font size, the corresponding value and the file in which they are defined (relative to the TEXMF tree).
 Normal size value \baselineskip value Relevant File  
 8 9.5 tex/latex/extsizes/size8.clo  
 9 11 tex/latex/extsizes/size9.clo  
 10 12 tex/latex/base/size10.clo  
 11 13.6 tex/latex/base/size11.clo  
 12 14.5 tex/latex/base/size12.clo  
 14 17 tex/latex/extsizes/size14.clo  
 17 22 tex/latex/extsizes/size17.clo  
 20 25 tex/latex/extsizes/size20.clo  
 25 30 tex/latex/a0poster/a0poster.sty  

If the checkbox labelled Update all LaTeX font size declarations in current image is selected, changing the normal size setting in this dialog will update the LaTeX font size settings for all the text areas in the current image.

If you want to export your image to a complete LaTeX document (see Export to Single-Paged Document) the document class will default to:

If you want to use a different document class, select the radio button Use class, which will enable the field where you can type the require class name (without the .cls extension). You need to ensure the class supports your specified normal font size (as a standard option, not a key=value option).

The document class is also used as the base class with the export to document class function (see Export to a Class or Package) and is used for all export functions that use the export to encapsulated LaTeX document function as an intermediate step (Export to Single-Paged Document).

The Use relative font size declarations checkbox governs the suggested LaTeX font size command when you change the font size setting for text areas. If this checkbox is selected, FlowframTk will attempt to select a font size declaration, such as \large, according to the current normalsize setting. Otherwise, \setfontsize will be used. If the font size is significantly larger than the largest available declaration, \setfontsize will be used regardless of this setting.

The Add \pdfinfo to exported LaTeX documents checkbox governs whether or not to add \pdfinfo to exported LaTeX documents. If the image has a description, this will be added to the /Title attribute. The only other attribute that is set is the /CreationDate attribute. This setting is not used for the export to PostScript or SVG functions as they use latex rather than pdflatex.

When an image is exported to an encapsulated LaTeX document or complete LaTeX document, by default the image bounding box is calculated as the minimal sized rectangle that encompasses all objects on the canvas. If the image contains an text areas, this may result in text being clipped to the left or right of the image due to the font differences. In this case, or if you require a different bounding box for some other reason, then switch on the Use typeblock as bounding box for pgfpicture checkbox and if the image has a typeblock set (see Defining the Typeblock) the typeblock will be used as the image bounding box. If the image doesn't have a typeblock set, then the default bounding box will be used. See also Figure 5.3 in Export to Single-Paged Document.


Flowframe Settings

The Flowframe Settings tab (Figure 3.10) allows you to adjust the flowfram related settings.

flfsettings
Figure 3.10: Flowframe Settings Tab

The flowfram package now allows you to use absolute pages numbers in the page list rather than using the value of the page counter. For example, if your document pages are numbered a, b, i, ii, iii, 1, 2, 3, then with the absolute setting page number 3 refers to the page labelled i whereas with the relative setting page number 3 refers to both the page labelled iii and the page labelled 3. (See the flowfram documentation for further details.) If you want to use the absolute setting, select the button labelled absolute otherwise select the button labelled relative.

The shapepar package now has a command called \Shapepar that behaves slightly differently to \shapepar. Since \Shapepar works better than \shapepar when used with the flowframe package, FlowframTk defaults to using \Shapepar for the TeX/LaTeX->Shapepar function or when a static or dynamic frame has the shape set to Shapepar. However, if you prefer the original \shapepar command, selected the appropriate shapepar command radio button. If you want to use \Shapepar, you need to ensure you have up-to-date versions of the flowfram and shapepar packages. This setting applies both to frames with the Shapepar shape setting and to the TeX/LaTeX->Shapepar function.


Text Settings

The LaTeX Text Settings tab (Figure 3.11) allows you to adjust the text-related settings.

configureDialog-texsettings
Figure 3.11: LaTeX-Related Text Settings

textupmathupFlowframTk has two tools for creating text areas: the regular text-mode tool (Tools->Text) and the maths-mode tool (Tools->Maths). Each text area has an associated LaTeX alternative text which, if set, is used during the pgf export operations in place of the text displayed on the canvas. (This includes the export functions that use latex or pdflatex, such as the export to PDF function.) The maths-mode tool automatically inserts the maths-shift dollar symbols $ at the start and end of the alternative text. In addition, Unicode symbols present in the text when a new text area is constructed can be mapped to a LaTeX command.

The mappings applied depend on which tool has been selected. With the regular text-mode tool, all the ten TeX special characters are mapped to commands. In addition, there are some other characters that are also mapped by default. These are listed in the table shown in the Text Mode Mappings tab (see Figure 3.11). If you don't want any text mappings applied, deselect the Auto escape text symbols checkbox.

With the maths-mode tool, the hash # and percent % characters are the only two of the ten TeX special characters that are mapped by default. However there are other mappings of maths-related Unicode characters and these are listed in the table shown in the Maths Mode Mappings tab (see Figure 3.12). If you don't want maths mappings applied, deselect the Auto escape maths symbols checkbox.

configureDialog-mathsettings
Figure 3.12: LaTeX-Related Text Settings--Maths-Mode Mappings

The mapping tables can be sorted by clicking on their column headers. You can add, delete or modify any of these text- or maths-mode mappings. Any mapping that ends with a control word (a backslash followed by one or more letters) should usually be followed by a space or {} to prevent it from running into any subsequent letter when the mapping is applied. For text-mode mappings, {} is better in case the command is followed by an intended space, although this may depend on the command definition. For maths-mode mappings it's better to follow the control word with a space.

removeup You can delete a mapping or mappings by selecting the appropriate row of the mapping table (use shift-click or ctrl-click to add to the current selection) and clicking on the red minus button to the side of the table. To restore all the original mappings, quit FlowframTk and delete or rename the files mathmappings.prop and textmappings.prop in the configuration directory.

To edit an existing mapping, double-click on the second and third columns of the mapping table. The first two columns can't be edited.

addupTo add a new mapping, click on the green plus button to the side of the relevant table. This will open the add new mapping dialog. Enter the character you want mapped in the Symbol box or type the hexadecimal value in the Code Point box and then enter the replacement command in the Command box. If the command is defined in a package, enter the package name (without the .sty extension) in the Package box. If the mapping requires multiple commands from different packages, you can specify a comma-separated list of packages in the Package box. If the replacement command is available in the LaTeX kernel, you can leave this box blank. (These packages will be automatically added to the image's early-preamble code, whenever the mapping is applied.)

The package name may be preceded by optional arguments in square brackets such as [weather]ifsym (note that the package name isn't enclosed in braces). Set the package name to "none" or leave it empty if you don't want it automatically added to the early-preamble code when the mappings are applied.

For example, in Figure 3.13 the new mapping dialog is being used to define a new text mapping from the Unicode dagger † symbol (U+2020) to the \textdagger command. Since this command is defined in the LaTeX kernel, the package field can be left empty. The Unicode symbol can be specified either by typing the hexadecimal code into the Code Point field or by typing the actual symbol into the Symbol field. If there is already a mapping for this Unicode symbol, the old mapping will be overwritten.

addTeXMapping
Figure 3.13: Adding a New Text Mapping

importupYou can also import mappings from a tab-separated file (.tsv) where the first column is the hexadecimal code, the second column is the command (or commands) and the third column is the package name or comma-separated list of packages. Any additional columns are ignored, as are blank lines or lines starting with # (hash). The file shouldn't contain any delimiters nor may any of the cells contain a newline or tab character. For example, the file may look like:

00260E  \Telephone      [misc]ifsym
0026A1  \Lightning      [weather]ifsym

You can find extra mappings using the Symbol Lookup page at http://www.dickimaw-books.com/latex/symbol-lookup.php which has a web form you can use to look up mappings in the database. If the mapping ends with a control word the import function will automatically append a space for maths-mode or {} for text-mode, unless the Unicode character type is one of: combining spacing mark, connector punctuation, modifier symbol or modifier letter, in which case just a space is appended. (This adjustment isn't done for the edit mapping or add a single-mapping functions described above. You need to do this yourself, as I did in Figure 3.13.) If this adjustment isn't appropriate, you can edit the mapping to remove it.

For example, in Figure 3.14, I've selected the "Latin-1 Supplement" block with the mode set to "text". If I then click on the "Search" button at the bottom of the form, this will list all the mappings listed in the database that match. To import these values into FlowframTk, you first need to download them in the correct format. Set the "Results Format" drop-down list to TSV (not CSV) and click on the "Search" button. Depending on your browser, this may automatically save the file symbol-lookup.tsv in your downloads directory/folder or it may try to open the file. Be careful if it tries to open the file in a spreadsheet application as this may change the format to one that's not compatible with FlowframTk.

symbol-lookup
Figure 3.14: Symbol Lookup Script

If you try this search on the Symbol Lookup page and open the file in your favourite text editor, you may notice that some codepoints are listed multiple times. For example:

0000A3  \textsterling   none    text    0
0000A3  \pounds         none    both    0
If you simply import the file into FlowframTk, new mappings will override the earlier mappings, so in this case the mapping for U+A3 will be set to \pounds rather than \textsterling so delete any of the mappings you don't want before you import the file.

This example also produces mappings that require the fontenc package. For example:

0000AB  \guillemotleft  fontenc text    0
This indicates commands that are part of the LaTeX kernel but don't work with the default OT1 font encoding. In my case, I've set my default preamble to include fontenc with the T1 encoding, so I don't want that package automatically added to my early-preamble code. To fix this, I just need to use my text-editor's search-and-replace function to replace all instances of "fontenc" with "none" before I import this file. If you don't have this package in the default preamble, you'll need to add the appropriate option. For example, change the line to:
0000AB  \guillemotleft  [T1]fontenc     text    0
(Again, you can use your text-editor's search-and-replace function.) Similarly, if you want to import any of the symbol maps that include commands from the mathdesign package, you'll need to add the option to set the required font. For example
002231  \intclockwise   [utopia]mathdesign      math    1

Once all these modifications have been made, the file can then be imported by clicking on the import button in the appropriate mapping pane. In this case, I have fetched mappings that are valid in text-mode, so I need to select the Text Mode Mappings tab and then click on the import button to the right of the mapping table. This will open a file chooser which I can use to select the TSV file.

Note that mappings take up resources and the more mappings you have, the longer it will take to startup FlowframTk, so it's best to only add the mappings that you're likely to need. The symbol lookup form on the Dickimaw Books website has a maximum limit of 500 for the search results. (A smaller limit can be set if required. The default value is 200.)


Default Preamble

The Default Preamble tab (Figure 3.15) allows you to specify code that should always be added to the preamble when exporting images to complete LaTeX documents or formats that use the encapsulated LaTeX document function as an intermediate step (see Export to Single-Paged Document). This code isn't used for the export to class (.cls) or package (.sty) functions.

texconfig-preamble
Figure 3.15: Default Preamble Code

The default preamble code is stored in a file called preamble.tex in FlowframTk's configuration directory. If you edit this file outside of FlowframTk, you'll need to use the reload button to refresh this panel. The other buttons are the same as for the TeX editor described in TeX Editor Settings. You can also access these button actions through the context menu, which can be opened using a menu-click on the editor pane.



Footnotes

... (25pt3.2
this value is actually 24.88pt, but FlowframTk lists it as 25pt.


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