[OS X TeX] Writing an abstract book and custom index

[Kip Bishofberger]

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004, Ross Moore wrote:
> > I'm currently helping my Mother (if nothing else, I'm at least a good 
> > son...) writing an abstract book for a conference she's arranging. 
>
> Have a look at this example:
>     find the  "Book of Abstracts" link at  http://www.iciam.org/
> 
> That was done with pdflatex in a way similar to what you have described
>   --- indeed there is quite a bit more structure to it.
> See whether it, and its two indexes, match the kind of thing that you 
> want.
> 
> If so, and you want to learn more about how it was done, then we can 
> discuss the structure in more detail, off-list.


Wow!

That's a very impressive book of abstracts (and, frankly, a pretty
fun conference... some cool talks).  I have wanted array variables
(in tex) for my thesis figures.  I want to just type:

  "...If you look at \fig\quadratic, you can see a
  quadratic.\plot\quadratic"

Then I'd have some other database file that has entries like
(warning: fake, array-like tex ahead.  proceed with caution):

    quadratic={3.12,quad.png,4in,This is a quadratic function.}
    cubic    ={3.13,qbic.png,4in,This is a cubic function.}

And a couple general definitions (note #1[1] refers to the first
item in the above list (3.12), #1[2] the second, etc):

    \def\fig#1{Figure~#1[1]}
    \def\plot#1{\topinsert{\includegraphics[width=#1[3]]
                {figures/#1[2]}}\caption#1}
    \def\caption#1{Figure #1[1]: #1[4]}

Basically, it's the #1[1] part that I can't do.  I know about
case statements, but they don't scale well to nearly 100 figures.

If you, Ross, or anyone else can show me an example of a
"friendly" database system, I'd be oh so grateful.

kipster


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