Re: subscripts/superscripts and symbols

[Chris Sperandio <sperandi eng usf edu>]

Quoting Rajarshi Guha <rajarshi@presidency.com>:

> On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 09:16, Lars Clausen wrote:
> 
> > > Unless things have changed text is a whole object and you can't
> paste
> > > individual characters from other apps into the text. One method
> that
> > > might work if dia was made to use a feature like Ctrl-V in vi to
> insert
> > > special characters that are in the extended ascii set. My method of
> > > inserting them via an editor doesn't change the font type but uses
> the
> > > ascii characters above 127. Using a Ctrl-V like feature and
> inserting the
> > > numerical ascii code would be a simple way to address this.
> > 
> > Try selecting a text object, then select Edit->Paste Text.  That
> should
> > paste outside txt into the object.
> > 
> 
> This method works pretty well. However it appears that the pasted text
> does not become part of the new object. Specifically, if I choose Text
> and click on my sheet, I get the green box indicating where it starts.
> Then I paste some chars from the charmap and then when I go to move the
> green box - the box meves but the pasted text stays constant. Anyway,
> for my purposes it works fine - but I was wondering whether this would
> be possible:
> 
> Would it be possible to implement some form of parser so that symbols
> could be represented as tags (something like LaTeX's \alpha, \beta
> etc).
> Thus entering text and then pressing enter would cause the parser to
> generate the proper code for the required symbol and then represent it
> 

If you're ultimately producing eps figures, you may want to check out the 
pstricks or metapost exporters.  You should be able to use (La)TeX markup in 
your text fields with those.  I just submitted a patch (via bugzilla) for the 
metapost plugin that should fix most of its problems if you're using CVS.  I 
think somebody was working on a LaTeX text object also.