Hello all,

I've been reading all sorts of documents, and have looked at the
ledmac examples, but I still haven't yet found the solution.  I'm
trying to typeset some epic Latin poetry, and would like line
counting, and proper verse environment (i.e., with hanging indentation
wrapping of long lines).  I've tried a form of:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ledmac,ledpar}
\usepackage{verse}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\beginnumbering
\pstart
\begin{verse}
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris \\
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit \\
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto \\
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; \\
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,  \\
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, \\
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. \\
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, \\
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus \\
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
\end{verse}
\pend
\endnumbering

Of course I'll be adding lots of notes and app crit information, so
this is just the basic layout I'm using.

I'm having a few problems with the above combination.  ledmac counts
all printed lines, but I only want the actual line numbers (ledmac
will do so using \stanza, but I can't write out 800 stanza indents for
a book of poetry).  As well, sometimes the spacing is irregular and
lines are printed without indentation at all, or somewhat squished
against the preceeding line.  (I can send samples if it helps, and my
full source code)

I've tried all sorts of combinations, and other packages, but I'm
quite happy with ledmac and would like to continuing using it.  I've
taken a thorough look at djdpoems.tex and ledbraonain.tex for some
examples, but they use the stanza macro.

I just can't figure out how best to have it typeset lengthy sets of
poetry (I suppose "irregular" stanzas).  I read in one post by Peter
Wilson that ledmac is quite capable of handling such a setup, but for
the life of me, I can't figure it out.  I'm surely missing something
simple!  Any help?

Much thanks,

- Steve

Steve wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I've been reading all sorts of documents, and have looked at the
> ledmac examples, but I still haven't yet found the solution.  I'm
> trying to typeset some epic Latin poetry, and would like line
> counting, and proper verse environment (i.e., with hanging indentation
> wrapping of long lines).  I've tried a form of:
> 
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{ledmac,ledpar}
> \usepackage{verse}
> \usepackage{fancyhdr}
> \beginnumbering
> \pstart
> \begin{verse}
> Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris \\
> Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit \\
> litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto \\
> vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; \\
> multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,  \\
> inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, \\
> Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. \\
> Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, \\
> quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus \\
> insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
> \end{verse}
> \pend
> \endnumbering
> 
> Of course I'll be adding lots of notes and app crit information, so
> this is just the basic layout I'm using.
> 
> I'm having a few problems with the above combination.  ledmac counts
> all printed lines, but I only want the actual line numbers (ledmac
> will do so using \stanza, but I can't write out 800 stanza indents for
> a book of poetry).  As well, sometimes the spacing is irregular and
> lines are printed without indentation at all, or somewhat squished
> against the preceeding line.  (I can send samples if it helps, and my
> full source code)
> 
> I've tried all sorts of combinations, and other packages, but I'm
> quite happy with ledmac and would like to continuing using it.  I've
> taken a thorough look at djdpoems.tex and ledbraonain.tex for some
> examples, but they use the stanza macro.
> 
> I just can't figure out how best to have it typeset lengthy sets of
> poetry (I suppose "irregular" stanzas).  I read in one post by Peter
> Wilson that ledmac is quite capable of handling such a setup, but for
> the life of me, I can't figure it out.  I'm surely missing something
> simple!  Any help?
> 
> Much thanks,
> 
> - Steve

     Have you looked at John Burt's poemscol package which is explicitly 
for critical editions  of collections of poems?

Peter W.

On 23 Dec, 02:20, peter wilson <herries.pr...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> =A0 =A0 =A0Have you looked at John Burt's poemscol package which is expli=
citly
> for critical editions =A0of collections of poems?
>
> Peter W.

Yes, I have, but unfortunately it's just not as powerful/versatile for
textual notes, app crit, endnotes, "edindex" indexing, etc as ledmac
(which I really love!). And I find it a bit clumsier to use than
ledmac.  So I'm quite confirmed in sticking with ledmac.

To be honest, I don't think there is an elegant solution.  I have
dropped the verse package, and I have essentially turned a 800 line
"book" of epic poetry into  8x100 line "stanzas", no line breaks, and
continuous line numbering.  Everything is working really well and as
expected.  Problems will arise with parallel translations, but I'm not
concerned with exactly matching translations.

Would you have any good suggestions for a substitute latex parallel
package for facing pages other than ledpar?  (which I think is too
strict with matching sets of \stanza and \pstart).

Many thanks,

- Steve

I first wrote poemscol back in 1994 because I couldn't solve the
problem about counting only verse lines that you mention, and I
couldn't use edstanza to solve the problem either, again for the
reasons you mention. I originally planned to use edmac, the precursor
of ledmac, but John Lavagnino, who wrote edmac, couldn't solve the
problem then either, and suggested I try the approach I used in
poemscol.  But obviously John has since found a way to solve that
problem, since his and Gary Taylor's wonderful edition of the
Collected Plays of Thomas Middleton, which just won an important prize
from the MLA, would not have been possible without solving it. (John
was my student in the 1980s, I'm proud to say, but I learned a lot
more from him than I ever taught him.)

There are some things I am still proud of in poemscol. I like the
method it uses to mark occasions where there is a verse paragraph
break at a page turn.  I like the macros which keep the running
headers in the endnote sections updated with the page numbers to which
the notes refer ("Explanatory notes to pp. 47--52").  I think that
feature should be easy to import into ledmac, but I haven't had the
time to do it.  Poemscol does have some (at this point rather
rudimentary) macros for parallel text typesetting (since I'm working
on a parallel text edition now myself).  I expect those macros will
get better as I get further along in my edition. You can get some
sense of what poemscol can do from my edition of the Collected Poems
of Robert Penn Warren, which was written with version 1.0 of
poemscol.

It should be possible to rewrite the stanza environment in ledmac for
long passages without indents, but I haven't found the time to try it.
Have you thought about writing to John Lavagnino directly to ask him
how he solved this problem? He's a nice person, and I'm sure he'll
help you.

All best on your project!
John

On Dec 24, 5:13=A0pm, John Burt <johndb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I first wrote poemscol back in 1994 because I couldn't solve the
> problem about counting only verse lines that you mention, and I
> couldn't use edstanza to solve the problem either, again for the
> reasons you mention. I originally planned to use edmac, the precursor
> of ledmac, but John Lavagnino, who wrote edmac, couldn't solve the
> problem then either, and suggested I try the approach I used in
> poemscol. =A0But obviously John has since found a way to solve that
> problem, since his and Gary Taylor's wonderful edition of the
> Collected Plays of Thomas Middleton, which just won an important prize
> from the MLA, would not have been possible without solving it. (John
> was my student in the 1980s, I'm proud to say, but I learned a lot
> more from him than I ever taught him.)
>
> There are some things I am still proud of in poemscol. I like the
> method it uses to mark occasions where there is a verse paragraph
> break at a page turn. =A0I like the macros which keep the running
> headers in the endnote sections updated with the page numbers to which
> the notes refer ("Explanatory notes to pp. 47--52"). =A0I think that
> feature should be easy to import into ledmac, but I haven't had the
> time to do it. =A0Poemscol does have some (at this point rather
> rudimentary) macros for parallel text typesetting (since I'm working
> on a parallel text edition now myself). =A0I expect those macros will
> get better as I get further along in my edition. You can get some
> sense of what poemscol can do from my edition of the Collected Poems
> of Robert Penn Warren, which was written with version 1.0 of
> poemscol.
>
> It should be possible to rewrite the stanza environment in ledmac for
> long passages without indents, but I haven't found the time to try it.
> Have you thought about writing to John Lavagnino directly to ask him
> how he solved this problem? He's a nice person, and I'm sure he'll
> help you.
>
> All best on your project!
> John

I'll have to do a lot more reading before I think I would be capable
to rewrite the stanza environment.  At the moment, I'm still a dabbler
with LaTeX, and far from fluent in its syntax.  This is really the
first project I'm attempting to use it, and so far I'm very
impressed.

I have learned a lot from Dr. Dekker's examples supplied with ledmac
(they help immeasureably in understanding the ledmac documentation/
manual), and I learn even more by customising them to suit my own
needs.

I have also read through the poemscol documentation as well, but the
examples you supply, though clear, are fairly rudimentary. I've
explored your webpage in hopes of finding a few more examples (or
FAQs, like Dr. Dekker has), but CTAN has the whole package.  I do
admit poemscol is a very handy package, but for the work of creating a
rather cumbersome apparatus criticus, I will need to stick with
ledmac.  I was hoping that both ledmac and poemscol would be more
widely used by classicists, and I could view some sample work, but
alas...  At the moment, the ledmac package produces formatted text
closest to the "standard" with only simple adjustments.  Perhaps I
could import some macros from poemscol;  but I will need to look into
this in the future.

Thank you for your suggestion in contacting John;  I feel I need to do
some more study before contacting him.  I imagine most of my questions
could be answered if I spend a bit more time with the Latex manual.

Many thanks for your response!

- Steve