4.4 Initialization file

Considerable customization can be done with the L^ATEX2HTML "initialization" file. On Unix systems this will be called .latex2html-init; on Windows systems it is more convenient to name it l2h.ini (see Section 4.3. The master version provided with L^ATEX2HTML can be copied to the L^ATEX2HTML .tex source directory of any user, and customized there by editing with any text editor.

Options specified in a per-user, or per-document, copy of the initialization file over-ride those in the system-wide copy. This file is therefore a convenient tool for tailoring L^ATEX2HTML settings to suit the needs of a particular document or user.

The $ADDRESS line in the initialization file can be modified to provide author contact information at the foot of every HTML page. It will default to your computer login name, but the following example shows how to invoke the NRAO-standard contact information tool. Note the use of perl syntax for embedded quote marks.

$ADDRESS = "
<DIV ALIGN=left>
<FORM action=\"http://www.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/contact\" method=\"post\">
<INPUT type=\"hidden\" name=\"key\" value=\"Alan+Bridle\">
<INPUT type=\"submit\" value=\"Alan Bridle\"><BR>
<STRONG>\n$address_data[1]</STRONG></FORM></DIV>
";

A copyright statement could also be added to each page in this fashion.

Other global variables that can also be set usefully from the initialization file include:

$SHOW_SECTION_NUMBERS = 1 will cause section numbers to be shown in the HTML version, matching those in the L^ATEX version. Hiding the section numbers permits use of sections as stand-alone web documents, but showing them helps readers to navigate a complex web by reminding them of its structure. If section numbers are hidden, the HTML cross reference to a section is shown using a default symbol, rather than the section's number.

$WORDS_IN_PAGE = 150 replicates the navigation button panel at the bottom of any page containing more than 150 words (making no allowance for in-lined images or preformatted text). value, is useful. This speeds navigation by minimizing the scrolling that a reader must do to reach the button panel. The default (of 200) here seems a little over-generous.

$WORDS_IN_NAVIGATION_PANEL_TITLES = 8 enlarges the section-title fragments that are used in the text version of the navigation button panel. The default value (of 4) makes the text navigation panel rather terse and possibly ambiguous.

$MATH_SCALE_FACTOR and $FIGURE_SCALE_FACTOR offer control over the global scalings of in-line images and figures, respectively. The defaults (1.6) are sensibly chosen but may be inappropriate for specific applications. (Figures may also be scaled individually as they are converted to .gif images using the arguments of the htmlimage command in the L^ATEX source file.)

$PK_GENERATION = 1; will invoke custom generation of the PK fonts when making .gif representations of symbols. This produces much higher-quality output than the $PK_GENERATION = 0;, and should probably be used as the system-wide default. If the system-wide option has been turned off to speed up the conversion, you may want to set the custom generation flag locally, or negotiate the option with your system administrator. I also recommend setting $ANTI_ALIAS_TEXT = 0; to turn off anti-aliasing while generating images of typeset symbols and equations with the usual font sizes used in L^ATEX documents, as this option works well only with very large fonts.

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