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.