musixpss - a MusiXTeX Extention Package: PostScript Slurs by MetaPost

version 0.51 [2004/02/21]

Introduction

MusiXTeX is a very powerful system to writing a musical score. However, the appearance of slurs and ties are not so beautiful nor flexible since they are drawn by conbination of fonts.

This package provides a new method for slurs and ties to improve them: using Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) code generated by MetaPost.

Features

• Supporting almost all MusiXTeX traditional slur expressions (normal slur/tie, slur height adjustment, inverted slur, dotted slur).
• Almost full upper-compatible with traditional font-based slurs, except for that \curve{h}{i}{j} is equivalent to \midslur{h} at present.
• No limits of slur length, slur height, slur slope.
• Improved appearance.
• Compatible with various DVIwares and pdfTeX.
• Low consumption of TeX's registers: 1 \count, 1 \write, 1 \read.
• Good working in LaTeX music environment with musixtex.sty.

Disadvantages

• Generating too many intermediate files.
• Increase of procedure.
• Max 4095 slurs. (OS dependent)
• A bit ugly appearance on low resolution devices such as screen.

Contents

• doc_en directry
  • musixpss_e.html
    This file (documentation in poor English :-).
• doc_it directry
  • musixpss_it.html
    Documentation in Itailan, translated by Luigi Cataldi.
• doc_jp directry
  • musixpss_j.html
    Original documentation in Japanese.
• musixpss.tex
  TeX macro file.
• musixpss.mp
  MetaPost macro file (ver.0.50).
• musixpss.exe
  Support program executable (ver.0.50) for Win32.
• musixpss.c
  C source of support program (ver.0.50).
• COPYING.txt
  GNU General Public License ver.2.

* All text files are encoded with LF line termination (UNIX style).

Requirement

• TeX. pdfTeX (ver.1.10a-devel or later) is also OK.
• MetaPost. See http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/hobby/MetaPost.html . (Recent teTeX distribution seems to contain MetaPost.)
• (in case with conventional TeX)
  a DVIware which supports inclusion of EPS figures via \special{PSfile=...} . At least followings are OK:
  • dvips
  • dvipdfm (ver.0.12 or later)
  • dviout
• (in case with pdfTeX)
  two additional support macro files supp-pdf.tex and supp-mis.tex . These files must be latest ones. According to the pdfTeX sample, they are available from ConTeXt distribution or http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/ . For further info, see the pdfTeX documents and samples.
• an ANSI C compiler. (in case your OS is not Win32*)
  *"Win32" means the overall of Microsoft Windows95/98/Me/NT4/2000/xp.

Followings are not essential, just recommended.

• A printer with enough high resolution at least 600dpi.
• Ghostscript, GSview, Acrobat Reader, etc.

Installation

1. Assume that TeX (or pdfTeX), MusiXTeX, and MetaPost work well on your system.
2. Put musixpss.tex into the directry where the working score exists or where "TeX input files directry" in TEXMF tree (for example $TEXMF/tex/musixtex/misc/ ).
3. Put musixpss.mp into the directry where the working score exists or where "MetaPost input files directry" in TEXMF tree (for example $TEXMF/metapost/musixtex/misc/ ).
4. If your OS is Win32, put musixpss.exe into an appropriate directry registrated in PATH environment valuable; for example the directry where musixflx.exe is located. If not, modify musixpss.c line 44-45, compile it with an ANSI C compiler, and put the executable into appropriate directry.

Usage

Assume that the MusiXTeX score source is named foo.tex.

1. Make a MusiXTeX score source foo.tex in conventional way.
2. add a line \input musixpss.tex\relax after \input musixtex.tex .
3. Run usual MusiXTeX procedure (pass 1, 2, 3):

   tex foo
musixflx foo
tex foo

   Some warnings such as No file foo.1. will appear on the terminal and LOG file. A file foo.slu containing parameters of slurs will be additionally generated.
4. (Pass 4) Run the support program.

   musixpss foo

   The program musixpss.exe will translate foo.slu into foo.mp as MetaPost input. Filename extention is forcely regarded as .slu , regardless of its existence.
5. (Pass 5) Run MetaPost.

   mpost foo

   where command line is system dependent, see the manual of your system. EPS files foo.1, foo.2 ... containing each slur will be generated.
6. (Pass 6) Run TeX once more.

   tex foo

   The warnings will disappear and \special for including EPS files will be written in DVI file.
7. Run DVIware, Ghostscript, Acrobat Reader, etc.

When correcting and retypesetting the score, it is not required to delete intermediate EPS files such as foo.1. Sometimes just one execution of TeX will do in case there is no change in both foo.mx2 and foo.slu (this is relatively rare case) .
In case a large change of score which requires total retypesetting, deleting EPS files before retypesetting will speed up operation of Pass 3 when using musixpss in general mode or pdfTeX exclusive mode.

Options and some advanced functions

Operation mode selection

This package has 3 operation modes to adapt itself to various environment.

• \psslurmode{general} : general mode (default)
• \psslurmode{dvips} : dvips/dvipdfm optimized mode
• \psslurmode{pdftex} : pdfTeX exclusive mode

Default is 'general mode'. This mode guarantees the same compatibility of dvi file as LaTeX2e graphicx package with [dvips] option, since the internal procedures are almost same. Use this mode in general.

'dvips/dvipdfm optimized mode' is designed for dvips and dvipdfm. This mode makes the 6th pass of typesetting procedure not required and thus provides much faster operation than 'general mode', since the internal procedures of this mode is much simpler. Also, this mode provides slightly good alignment. The resulting dvi file is, however, not compatible with some DVIwares because of the difference of low-level (not LaTeX2e-level) implementation of \special{PSfile=...} from dvips.

'pdfTeX exclusive mode' is just as the naming. This mode works well with pdfTeX ver.1.10a-devel or later. It is known that some old version of support macro files supp-pdf.tex and supp-mis.tex lead to unaccountable error. In that case please update these two files at first.

The author hopes to adapt this package to DVIwares not listed above (xdvi, etc.) but has no environment of such DVIwares, other TeX distributions and OS's. Informations and trial reports are welcome via 'TeX-music Mailing List' or direct email.

operation mode	general mode	dvips optimized mode	pdfTeX exclusive mode
general DVIwares*	OK	dependent on DVIware	NG
dvips	OK	OK	NG
dvipdfm	OK	OK	NG
pdfTeX	NG	NG	OK

*Any DVIware compatible with LaTeX2e graphicx package with [dvips] option. for example dviout, etc.

operation mode	general mode	dvips optimized mode	pdfTeX exclusive mode
code	\input musixtex \input musixpss \relax	\input musixtex \input musixpss \relax \psslurmode{dvips}%	\input musixtex \input musixpss \relax \psslurmode{pdftex}%
procedure	Total 6 pass + DVIware tex foo musixflx foo tex foo musixpss foo mpost foo tex foo %DVIWARE% foo	Total 5 pass + dvips or dvipdfm tex foo musixflx foo tex foo musixpss foo mpost foo dvips foo (or dvipdfm foo)	Total 6 pass + Acrobat Reader pdftex foo musixflx foo pdftex foo musixpss foo mpost foo pdftex foo (AcroRd32) foo

Slur thickness adjustment

The thickness of slurs can be changed by redefining a macro \psslurthickadj . For example, \def\psslurthickadj{2.5} makes the slurs 2.5 times thicker than the default.

Switching EPS-based slurs and font-based slurs

EPS-based slurs can be switched on and off at any place in the score source by:

• \enablepsslurM
  use EPS-based slurs (default)
• \disablepsslurM
  use font-based slurs

This might enable coexistence with 'PostScript Slurs Type K' ...??

Support program: cleaning intermediate EPS files

The support program has a function for deleting intermediate EPS files. This function is useful when deleting EPS files before total retypesetting and so on.

musixpss -clean foo.slu

musixpss foo.slu -clean

removes all intermediate EPS files foo.1, foo.2, ...foo.n . (filename extention .slu can be omitted.)

License

Free Software; based on the GNU GPL ver.2 (or later). See the file COPYING.txt for details.

See also

• Author's web page
  http://homepage1.nifty.com/kuuku/notation/index-e.html
• Werner Icking Music Archive: MusiXTeX and Related Software
  http://icking-music-archive.org/software/indexmt6.html
• MetaPost
  http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/hobby/MetaPost.html
• GNU General Public License ver.2
  file COPYING.txt or http://www.gnu.org/.

Author

Hiroaki MORIMOTO
mailto: CQX05646@nifty.com

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Luigi Cataldi; providing Italian version document and giving compatibility reports about pdfTeX.

History

version 0.10 [2001/02/10] (first public release)

version 0.20 [2001/02/23]

• EPS inclusion method is changed from \special{epsfile=...} to special{PSfile=...} .

version 0.21 [2001/04/30]

• Bugfix for \midslur h

version 0.22 [2001/06/15]

• dvipdfm compatible.
• Bugfix for slur alignment.

version 0.23 [2001/10/17]

• Bugfix for \islurd... with \midslur h (upside down)
• Emulation of slur height limitter of original MusiXTeX: for example \isluru0...\midslur{-5}\tslur0

version 0.30 [2001/10/21] (first announcement to TeX-music Mailing List)

• Support for inverted slurs. (\invertslur, \Tslurbreak , \Islur[u|d]break)
• Bugfix for \musicsize <> 16pt.
• Trimming internal parameters for \midslur h with large h.

version 0.40 [2001/11/03]

• Support for dotted slurs.
• Operation mode selection: \psslursimplepositioning[true|false] switches dvips optimized mode ON and OFF.
• Emulation of slur height limitter of original MusiXTeX can be enabled and disabled by \psslurorgemu[true|false] .
• Relate slur thickness to \musicsize .
• Improved MetaPost code (divided into common section and indivisual slur parameters).
• Add check routine for getting arguments from file.

version 0.41 [2002/06/01]

• No functional change.
• License change (GNU GPL ver.2)
• English documentation (HTML) is provided in distribution archive.

version 0.50 [2003/01/05]

• Slur thickness can be adjusted by redefining \psslurthickadj .
• pdfTeX compatible.
• Operation mode selection: \psslurmode{general|dvips|pdftex} invokes "general mode", "dvips optimized mode", "pdfTeX exclusive mode", respectively. Thus \psslursimplepositioning[true|false] became obsolate and no more supported.
• Cleaning function for intermediate EPS files.
• The common section of MetaPost code is moved into musixpss.mp .
• Fix line end %-ing in musixpss.tex .
• Japanese documentation is ported into HTML.

version 0.51 [2004/02/21]

• Suppress extra inclusion of EPS files. In Pass 1 EPS slur files are neither included nor searched. In Pass 3 and 6 of general mode and pdfTeX exclusive mode, further search for EPS files is canceled in case the expected EPS file is not found.
• [2004/03/21: revision 1] Include Italian document privided by Luigi Cataldi.

TODO:

• implement \Check@staff
• curve assignment
• automatic recognition of pdfTeX
• and so on...