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Editing HTML and LaTeX Directly

Why Direct Edit?

HIPR consists of hypermedia and hardcopy versions, realized by HTML and LaTeX files respectively. Both these file types are originally generated from common source files written in HIPRscript. Using HIPRscript source files ensures that both HTML and LaTeX files contain the same information and in addition halves the amount of work required to make changes. Therefore, if at all possible, it is usually easier to make changes to HIPR by first modifying the HIPRscript source files and then regenerating the corresponding HTML and LaTeX files using the translation programs supplied with HIPR.

However, installing the extra utilities necessary to get the HIPRscript translation working is not trivial, and in fact is very difficult on non-UNIX machines. In addition, whereas many people already understand HTML and LaTeX, HIPRscript is a new language which you must learn in order to use. For these two reasons therefore, it is sometimes easier to make changes to HIPR by directly editing the HTML and LaTeX files themselves. This is particularly true if the changes involved are small or you don't anticipate having to make changes very often.

Hints and Tips

Obviously, before you can make changes to HTML and/or LaTeX files, it is necessary to know a bit about those languages. HTML manuals are readily available on the World Wide Web. If you are connected to the internet, then simply clicking on the Help menu of your browser should provide access to such a manual. LaTeX manuals are more conventionally found in hardcopy form. The standard textbook is Leslie Lamport's book LaTeX, published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-201-15790-X).

HIPR is split up into a large number of files. Before you can make a change to the way HIPR looks it is necessary to work out which of those files contains the information you want to change. The easiest way to do this is by using the hypermedia version of HIPR. Simply go to the page you intend to modify and read off the name of the file in the message window showing you the current URL. The last bit of this gives the name of the relevant HTML file in the html sub-directory. The corresponding LaTeX file will have the file extension .tex and will be found in the tex sub-directory.

We recommend that when you make changes to HIPR you change both hypermedia and hardcopy versions in order to avoid confusion. This involves making similar changes to corresponding HTML and LaTeX files.

When you make changes to HIPR by directly editing the HTML and LaTeX files, you are leaving the original HIPRscript files unchanged. Therefore if at some point in the future you regenerate HIPR from the HIPRscript files, your changes may be overwritten. For this reason, if you think you might be using HIPRscript at some time in the future, then you should probably start using it straight away.

Figures are included as inline GIF files in HTML, but as encapsulated PostScript in LaTeX. Therefore there are two picture files corresponding to each figure. They will both be found in the figs sub-directory and will have similar names, but the GIF file will have the extension .gif, whereas the PostScript file will have the extension .eps. If you wish to add or replace a figure then you should ensure that the picture is present in both formats.

It is not really practical to alter equations in HTML by direct editing. This is because most current browsers cannot display the necessary symbols, and so equations are included as inline graphics. These graphics are generated directly from the HIPRscript by the translation programs. Therefore if you want to add or modify equations that contain non-ASCII symbols, then you will find it easiest to use HIPRscript.

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©2003 R. Fisher, S. Perkins, A. Walker and E. Wolfart.

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