The previous chapter explained how a document that is acceptable to TeX may contain several commands that TeX2page does not inherently understand and for which suitable HTML-only definitions must be provided. The reverse problem also obtains: A document that is processed successfully by TeX2page may contain commands that plain TeX and LaTeX may not recognize.
As we have seen, TeX2page recognizes a mix of plain-TeX and LaTeX commands, and commands from external macro files besides. Thus, a plain TeX document could very well use LaTeX commands and pass through TeX2page without hitch. When running plain TeX on the document, of course, the LaTeX commands will fail, unless TeX-only definitions for the missing commands are provided. Examples of common LaTeX commands recognized by TeX2page include the commands for title, chapters and sections, footnotes, labels for cross-referencing, table of contents, verbatim text, itemizations, enumerations, index, and bibliography.
It is also possible that the
document uses commands from external macro files
without actually loading said files. TeX2page will be
indulgent, but plain TeX and LaTeX won’t.
In this case,
simply loading the macro files should be
enough. Thus, a plain TeX document using the \cite
command should load btxmac.tex, and a LaTeX document that uses
the \color and \definecolor commands should load the package
color.sty.
A plain TeX document using macros provided by a LaTeX
package may also be able to load the package in some cases, with
the aid of the miniltx.tex macro file. To load
color.sty, for instance:
\expandafter\def\csname Gin@driver\endcsname{pdftex.def}
% The above may not be needed in newer \TeX\ distributions,
% which will load the appropriate driver automatically.
% Replace pdftex.def with dvips.def if output print format
% is PostScript rather than PDF.
\input miniltx
\input color.sty
\resetatcatcode
Although the above is only meant for TeX,
it is not necessary (but not incorrect either) to wrap it inside
\ifx\shipout\UnDeFiNeD\else ... \fi, as
TeX2page knows enough to skip such loads.
Other useful LaTeX packages that can be loaded into plain
TeX using miniltx are graphicx.sty and
url.sty. (Unfortunately, one has to say
\expandafter\def\expandafter\+\expandafter{\+}
before \inputting url.sty.)
It is possible to \input
several .sty files between the calls to \input miniltx and
\resetatcatcode. However, miniltx is a bit of a compromise, and it
causes each .sty file to re-evaluate the supposedly per-document commands
in the driver file
(e.g., pdftex.def), which can cause infinite loops. This is avoided by
preceding the loading of the second and subsequent .sty
files with \let\color\@ldc@l@r. E.g.,
\input miniltx
\input color.sty
\let\color\@ldc@l@r
\input graphicx.sty
\let\color\@ldc@l@r
\expandafter\def\expandafter\+\expandafter{\+}
\input url.sty
\resetatcatcode
The LaTeX package path.sty can be
loaded into plain TeX directly, without miniltx.
A collection of workable TeX definitions for TeX2page commands is
provided in the macro file tex2page.tex in the
TeX2page distribution. These allow your document to be
processed by TeX, even if they do not (and sometimes
should not) have the same effect in the DVI output as
they do in the HTML output. It
can be included in your TeX document as
\input tex2pageThe file is also available under the LaTeX-friendlier name
tex2page.sty, and can be
loaded into LaTeX with:
\usepackage{tex2page} % if document is in LaTeX
The macros in tex2page.tex are just sample
definitions of the TeX2page commands missing in TeX.
You can either choose not to use these commands or to
override their definitions with your own, better,
definitions.
Note that TeX2page itself does not need the file
tex2page.tex. Rather, plain TeX and LaTeX need the
tex2page.tex macros in order to process files
written using the extra commands supported by TeX2page.
If your document does not use these extra
commands, then you can do without tex2page.tex.