HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hsue@ellis.uchicago.edu (yung chang  hsueh)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: MS-DOS TeX
Date: 29 Dec 92 22:54:19 GMT
Reply-To: hsue@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

HI,

I tried to FTP SBTeX from site WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL, as suggested by
Tex-FAQ, but I did not find it.  Does anyone have idea what is the problem.
What I need is  TeX for MS-DOS, is there any other way out?  Thanks.
From: aeridan@ae320.technion.ac.il
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Xfig and LaTeX
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:21:17 +0200
Organization: Info-Tex<==>Comp.Text.Tex Gateway
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List


Hi.

I am using xfig on rs6000. When translating to LaTeX, transfig uses the
command \SetFigFont{12}{14.4}{rm} to set fonts. I dont have the appropriate
.sty file that defines this command. Can anyone direct me to such a
file/definition.

Thank you very much.

_________________________________________________________________
|                                                               |
|      Dr. Moshe Idan :                                         |
|                       Faculty of Aerospace Engineering        |
|                       Technion, IIT                           |
|                       Haifa, Israel 32000                     |
|                       Office : Lady Davis Bld. # 652          |
|                       Phone  : (972)-4-293489 (office)        |
|                       Fax    : (972)-4-231848                 |
|                       E-mail : aeridan@ae320.technion.ac.il   |
|_______________________________________________________________|
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: rlp@sunset.lanl.gov (Dick Phillips)
Subject: Blue Sky CM fonts
Keywords: PostScript, fonts, type q
Reply-To: rlp@lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Lab
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 21:09:35 GMT

Folks:

This may seem like an esoteric problem, but it's very real when you
MUST solve it.  I'm running TeX on a NeXT, which is a PostScript machine.
For a book I'm doing, I need to use PostScript versions of the CM fonts;
bitmapped versions are unacceptable.  Fortunately, Blue Sky Research
sells Type 1 versions of the CM fonts, 75 in all.  I've bought them and
installed them.  Everything seemed to go smoothly until I tried printing
the quadratic equation.  That is, I used the simple Plain TeX expression:

	$$-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}\over 2a$$

Curiously, all elements appeared to be correct, except the minus and
plusminus signs were missing.  I've tried several other equations with
integral signs, matrix brackets, greek characters, etc., and I get
mixed results.  For example, theta is missing, while alpha and phi are
correct.  Also, the multiply "x" and left arrow don't appear.  Any 
thoughts on what might be amiss?  Seems like an encoding problem, but
I wouldn't know where to look.  Since this problem is not likely to be
of widespread interest, please reply directly to me at rlp@lanl.gov.
Thanks,

	Dick Phillips
From: mf4f+@andrew.cmu.edu (Mark Fichman)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: problems downloading emtex
Date: 26 Dec 92 17:50:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.wfDGULi00WB34SREsv
Organization: Graduate School of Industrial Administr., Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Hi,

I downloaded emtex via anonymous ftp from ymir.claremont.edu.  When I
tested the integrity of the various *.zip files using pkunzip's -t
option, several of the files failed, and showed errors.  The error
message suggests that the files are corrupted.  I downloaded the same
files again with the same outcome, and got the same result using a newer
version of pkunzip.  Have others encountered this problem.  I got the
same exact files from another source (niord.shsu.edu). Several .zip
files were corrupted, but I have tried to work with tex1.zip from emtex,
where the tex.exe file is corrupted.  I tried pkzipfix to no avail.
The failure is in checking the CRC code.

The error message looks like this.

PKUNZIP (R)   FAST!   Extract Utility    Version 2.01   03-15-92
Copr. 1989-1992 PKWARE Inc. All Rights Reserved. PKUNZIP/h for help
PKUNZIP Reg. U.S. Pat. and Tm. Off.

Searching ZIP: a:TEX1.ZIP
Testing: EMTEX/REMOVE/TEX.REM  OK
Testing: EMTEX/TEX.EXE  PKUNZIP: (W15) Warning! file fails CRC check
Testing: EMTEX/TEX286.EXE  OK

When tex1.zip is listed, the relevant portion looks like this.
PKUNZIP (tm)    FAST!    Extract Utility    Version 1.02    10-01-89
Copyright 1989 PKWARE Inc.  All Rights Reserved.  PKUNZIP/h for help

Searching ZIP: a:TEX1.ZIP

 Length  Method   Size  Ratio   Date    Time   CRC-32  Attr  Name
 ------  ------   ----- -----   ----    ----   ------  ----  ----
   5047  Implode   1231  76%  09-25-90  01:23  cec3d74e --w 
EMTEX/REMOVE/TEX.RE
 196372  Implode 122961  38%  08-05-90  00:24  94038211 --w  EMTEX/TEX.EXE
 194172  Implode 122430  37%  08-05-90  00:25  84bd357e --w  EMTEX/TEX286.EXE

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,


Mark Fichman
GSIA
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890

mf4f@cmu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Excluding text from processing
From: wright@med.wcc.govt.nz (Steve Wright  Phone +64 04 801 3735)
Date: 21 Dec 1992 20:31:22 GMT
Reply-To: wright@med.wcc.govt.nz
Organization: Wellington City Council, Wgtn, NZ
NNTP-Posting-Host: blade.wcc.govt.nz

In article <MAILQUEUE-101.921221141636.480@mail.lshtm.ac.uk>, ABARROS@lshtm.ac.uk (Aluisio J D Barros) writes:
>Hello!
>
>How can I exclude a chunk of text from being processed? I mean, as if
>all lines started with % signs. I have already tried to create an
>environment like \start{ignorethis}...\end{ignorethis} but it did not
>work.
>
>Any ideas? Thanks and MERRY CHRISTMAS!


Put \iffalse at the start of the text you want to ignore and \fi at
the end.

This is the best way Iv'e come across though I have got an environment
that will do it as well if you want it.


--
Steve Wright                  Wellington City Council
wright@wcc.govt.nz            C.A.B, 101 Wakefield Street
Phone: +64 04 801 3735        PO Box 2199
Fax:   +64 04 801 3003        Wellington
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: hgs@allegra.att.com (Henning G. Schulzrinne)
Subject: Re: cite with white space - how?
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 01:40:26 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.132629.25089@allegra.att.com> hgs@allegra.att.com (Henning G. Schulzrinne) writes:
>It would be nice if long lists of citations could be broken over several
>lines in the TeX **input** file (not the printed version). Currently,
>white space inserted into the \cite{} argument is not handled gracefully
>either by BibTeX or LaTeX. Thus, I want to be able to write
>\cite{first, second, third,
>fourth}.
>
>Any hints appreciated.
>----
>Henning Schulzrinne
>hgs@research.att.com

Judging from the answers, I did not make myself clear. Using % does not
work as it fails with rather bad consequences as soon as the ASCII
input text is reformatted to fit the screen. (In my example, it might
become \cite{first, second, third,% fourth} and eliminate the remainder
of the line in the process.) Furthermore, even blanks after commas
within \cite are not handled properly.  Thus, I'm looking for a
modified version of \cite that treats its argument as comma-separated
parameters, ignoring any white space between the arguments. To me, that
would seem to be the intuitive way of defining such a command.
From: sharaf@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (Hazem Sharaf El-Din)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: last line in the paragraph in new page
Date: 29 Dec 1992 17:21:31 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center  Hampton VA  23665
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: tab00.larc.nasa.gov
Originator: sharaf@tab00.larc.nasa.gov

How can I prevent Latex from putting last line in a paragraph in new
page? 

Thanks

Hazem

Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman)
Subject: Why can't I make ^^A (ASCII 1) \active ???
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:17:56 GMT

I tried the following:

	\catcode`\^^A=\active
	\def\^A{testing}
%             ^-------------------This is really one char:  ASCII 001

But TeX complained:  Missing control sequence inserted.

What's going on?  Is there really some inherent limitation in TeX, so
I can't do this?  I've done it before with ``real'' chars (such as <
and >).

Thanks in advance!

-Joel
Xref: sparky comp.text.tex:14507 comp.periphs.printers:3750
From: puma.uucp!john@becca.rain.com (John Meissen)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex,comp.periphs.printers
Subject: Wang printers and TeX
Date: 29 Dec 92 18:31:37 GMT
Organization: Rosetta Technologies, Inc


Can anyone tell me exactly what a Wang LCS-15 laserprinter is? I believe
it has a Ricoh engine, but other than that I have no idea.

We used to use an Apple LaserWriter, and with the standard Canon 300dpi
definition I could produce beautiful documents with TeX. It died, however,
and we switched to the Wang.

Everything works, but the fonts that come out of the TeX process look
terrible. It appears to be mostly a problem with horizontal lines.

The psroff and WordPerfect documents that use the internal fonts look
fine, so it's not a problem with the printer. I could expend the energy
to try to use the internal fonts, but I would much rather just have
Metafont produce compatible fonts.


-- 
John Meissen                                  becca!puma!john
Rosetta Technologies, Inc.                    puma!john@becca.rain.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.-- Lily Tomlin
From: ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: calling Dan Speck -- come in please.
Date: 30 Dec 92 14:12:35 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium

Sorry to do this publicly, Dan.  Like a twit I deleted all your
kind mail (but I *did* keep a copy of cora.c).  Could I ask you
to email me briefly, with your ICL address etc., so I can acknowledge
you properly at work.

Thanks.

Dominik
From: jer@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Joel Ratsaby)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Emtex, setting up previewer and fonts
Date: 24 Dec 92 19:51:19 GMT
Reply-To: jer@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Joel Ratsaby)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


I got the DISK3 which contains the previewer and fonts.
Is there a specific way (or recommended) to set up
the directories for all these files ?
Is there a some sort of an install program that takes
care of the installation ?
Could anyone point out an organization of the directories
for both the EmteX files and the DviDrv and Previewer packages ?
The documentation is not clear.
thanks
--Joel

email: jer@ee.upenn.edu, jer@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
Phone: (215) 898-1858
From: duggan@siam.org
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: amsfonts
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 09:37:12 EST
Organization: Info-Tex<==>Comp.Text.Tex Gateway
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List

Is there a substantial difference between the amsfonts 2.0
and amsfonts 2.1? I haven't noted any problems.

paul duggan
SIAM
duggan@siam.org
From: bak@creta.dbg.bs1.fc.nec.co.jp (Takao Bakuya)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: physical page number
Date: 25 Dec 92 17:21:04 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: NEC Corporation, Fuchu Plant

Is there any way that I can reference to the physical page number
(not the logical page number) in the LaTeX document?

Thanks in advance.
--
T.Bakuya
From: etwz@levels.unisa.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Dashed lines in matrix?
Date: 21 Dec 92 14:45:22 +1030
Organization: University of South Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: sirius.itd.adelaide.edu.au
Originator: daemon@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au

I would like to put horizontal and vertical DASH lines in matix to represent
partition. Is it possible in LaTeX or TeX? What style file is requred? 
Thanks for your help.

Weimin Zhang
weimin@spri.levels.unisa.edu.au
From: nathalie@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Nathalie Touma)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Help: INDEX Generation
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:54:05 GMT
Reply-To: nathalie@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Nathalie Touma)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: nathalie@dewey.cc.utexas.edu


I am in the process of preparing an index for a book. All of my files
were prepared in Tex (LaTex), and the book is about 160 pages long
(single spaced).

I know about the \index and the \makeindex commands in Latex, but I
did not write the document with an index in mind, i.e., no \index
commands have been inserted ==> an efficient search, insert, and make
are necessary to generate the index.

Please, would anyone have an intelligent index routine that I could
use to make my job easier ? if so, please e-mail me a brief
step-by-step description and the necessary routines at:

nathalie@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Thank you.
From: roseman@hustat.harvard.edu (Leonard Roseman)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: (None)
Date: 25 Dec 92 17:11:35 GMT
Organization: Info-Tex<==>Comp.Text.Tex Gateway
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List


un-subscribe
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: lones@lones.mit.edu (Lones A. Smith)
Subject: Greek Theorem enumeration -- Is it possible?
Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 19:09:52 GMT


And how do I do it?

--
Lones A. Smith
Department of Economics
MIT E52-252C
Cambridge MA 02139
v-mail: (617) 253-0914
e-mail: lones@lones.mit.edu  (NeXT mail or the garden variety stuff)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: uddeborg@sisu.se (Goeran Uddeborg)
Subject: Re: Unicode Standard
Organization: Swedish Institute of Systems Development
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 12:13:30 GMT

In article <BzpKMC.15E@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jwarner@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Jack E. Warner) writes:
>Is there a newsgroup for the Unicode Standard?

comp.std.internat
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman)
Subject: Re: FAX dvi driver (?)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 15:20:24 GMT

In article <1993Jan2.034523.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu> blcarr01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:
>
>I have seen some work that others have done on writing METAFONT mode_def's
>for FAX devices which leads me to wonder if someone has worked on a FAX dvi
>driver. Does anyone know of a FAX dvi driver that can send a dvi file using
>a generic FAXmodem?  Any information would be very helpful.
>

The most useful software for sending .dvi files by FAX I've seen came
with my 14.4K Boca modem.  It's called QLINK, and it includes a TSR to
capture output to a HP compatible printer, and send it via FAX.  In
other words, anything you can print on an HP compatible laser printer,
QLINK can send over a fax.  QLINK includes complete PCL 5 emulation.

What I do now is just use the HP dvi driver that comes with emTeX,
capture the output via QLINK, and off it goes.  (This would also work for
WP, Ghostscript, Pagemaker, etc.)

-Joel
(joel@wam.umd.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: mccauley@ecn.purdue.edu (Darrell McCauley)
Subject: Attn: Agricultural Engineers
Followup-To: poster
Keywords: ASAE, asaetr
Organization: Ag Engineering Dept, Purdue University 
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:07:45 GMT

Announcing ASAETR 1.1, a set of LaTeX and BibTeX styles (+ a font), with 
documentation, for authors associated with the American Society 
of Agricultural Engineers. This is the package described at my
presentation at the 1992 International Winter Meeting of ASAE held
in Nashville recently (ASAE Paper No. 92-3572).

It is temporarily available via anonymous ftp from
  Name:       pasture.ecn.purdue.edu
  Addresses:  128.46.161.85, 128.46.133.85, 128.46.129.85
  Directory:  pub/mccauley/tex/asaetr
but I hope to update the version on shsu.edu soon.
-- 
James Darrell McCauley                Dept of Ag Engineering, Purdue Univ
internet: mccauley@ecn.purdue.edu     West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1146, USA
bitnet: mccauley%ecn@purccvm          UUCP: pur-ee!mccauley
From: "Antonie Kotze" <AAK@rau3.rau.ac.za>
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Information
Date: 29 Dec 92 09:50:52 GMT-2
Organization: Rand Afrikaans University
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List

Hi
I am looking for the MACRO "PHYZZX.TEX". Where can I obtain it?
A. A. Kotze
**********************************************************************
*                         Antonie Kotze                              *
*                                                                    *
* Department Applied Mathematics      Tel: + 27 11 4892067           *
* Rand Afrikaans University           Fax: + 27 11 4893207           *
* P O Box 524                       Email: aak@rau3.rau.ac.za        *
* Aucklandpark 2006                        005aakp@witsvma.wits.ac.za*
* South Africa                                                       *
*                                                                    *
**********************************************************************

Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: booklet printing with dvips/psnup: poor output
Keywords: dvips, psnup, postscript
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 19:42:55 GMT

In <H.eg.OrqZKspCnj2@wpcst1.phys-chemie.uni-wuerzburg.dbp.de> kruel@wpcst1.phys-chemie.uni-wuerzburg.dbp.de (Thomas-Martin Kruel) writes:
>  Everything works fine except that the output on a SUN SparcPrinter 
>is very poor. The characters come out cribbled, e.g. you can't 
>recognize the vertical bar of an `e' and so on.

dvips includes bitmap representations of the fonts used into the postscript
file. The postscript utilities tell the printer to shrink that bitmap which
is a lossy process. If you work with scalable fonts this problem is overcome
by 'hints' in the font description that f.e. tell the renderer to leave the
vertical bar of an 'e' at least 1 pixel wide. This is not possible with the
bitmap fonts you use.

There are two solutions. 1) Tell dvips to use 600dpi fonts (which hopefully
exist or can be calculated with metafont). This most likely will give enough
resolution so that you don't miss details. 2) Use scalable Postscript fonts.
Dvips supports virtual fonts for the standard Postscript font families. There
are some styles for TeX and LaTeX that exchange the standard Computer Modern
fonts with Postscript fonts.

Regards,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
From: Wolfgang Ratzka <wolfgang.ratzka@rphs1.physik.uni-regensburg.de>
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Underlining text
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 10:02:08 +0100
Organization: Info-Tex<==>Comp.Text.Tex Gateway
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List

There is also a LaTeX Style ulem.sty, which tries to do a pretty good
job on underining.
								Wolfgang
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: emTeX mf problem
From: Eric Schweitzer <ERSHC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Thursday, 31 Dec 1992 13:25:09 EST
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

I am just 'playing around' with METAFONT, and am having trouble getting
a look at what I've produced. I am using emTeX's METAFONT Ver. 1.7 [2g]
and have no trouble gettting io.dvi file and io.120. These seem fine,
as gftype io generates a file that 'makes sense' and
gftodvi io.120/ grayfont grayfx  responds by saying that it has generated
17 pages (this is the io excersize in the METAFONT Book on pgs 35 - 40).

The problem is that I know I need to turn the font into a 'local' thing,
but what I try to run gftopxl io.120 I get the following:
This is GFtoPXL, Version 2.1 [1d]
 Bad GF file: ID byte is 0!
run-time error R6001
- null pointer assingment

(Yet, no problem with this file with the other GFto... files)
Anyone know what my problem is? Will I really have to down load a newer
version? (The last link is at 2400 baud...I'd like to avoid that).

Thanks.
From: arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Canon bubblejet dvi drivers ?
Date: 2 Jan 93 14:33:11 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

Does anyone know if there is a .dvi driver available for the Canon
bubblejet series printers (e.g. BJ-20, BJ-200 and the like) for use
under MS-DOS?

I have tried to make a thorough search of the various .dvi repositories
but haven't found anything specifically for the bubblejets.  I have 
seen a few .dvi drivers for Canon laser printers but suspect the
BJ's need something different.  Thanks for any tips.
________________________________________________________________________
Raymond W. Arritt                     |  Dept. of Physics and Astronomy  
Assistant Professor                   |  University of Kansas 
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu             |  Lawrence, KS  66045  
Apr  1 12:29:21 timed[92]: THIS MACHINE IS A SLAVE
Apr  1 12:29:27 timed[92]: THIS MACHINE IS A CANDIDATE
Apr  1 12:29:31 timed[92]: This machine is master
From: kruel@wpcst1.phys-chemie.uni-wuerzburg.dbp.de (Thomas-Martin Kruel)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Organization: Institut f. Physikalische Chemie
Subject: booklet printing with dvips/psnup: poor output
Keywords: dvips, psnup, postscript
Summary: resizing A4 -> A5 using dvips/psnup gives poor output
X-Software: HERMES GUS 1.10 Rev. Dec  7 1992
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1993 14:59:26 MET
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear colleagues,

  I have a problem with printing a document in 2up style, i.e. two A4 
pages resized to A5 in landscape orientation on one A4 page.

I use `psutils', namely the combination:

   psbook doc.ps | psnup -2 > doc_2up.ps

  Everything works fine except that the output on a SUN SparcPrinter 
is very poor. The characters come out cribbled, e.g. you can't 
recognize the vertical bar of an `e' and so on.

  The PostScript file `doc.ps' has been produced by dvips (5.47) from 
an ordinary `doc.dvi' using 300dpi.

So here goes my question:

  What may be wrong ? How could I improve the resolution ? Should I 
get a newer dvips ? Or change the resolution to 400dpi ?  Is there any 
hidden feature in the `psutils'-code or even some better stuff to do 
that ?

Thanks for any help,
                    Thomas.
 
-- 
Thomas-Martin Kruel  Institut f. Physikalische Chemie / Universitaet Wuerzburg
                     Marcusstr. 9-11, D-8700 Wuerzburg, Tel. +49 931 31579
From: hafner@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Walter 'madhouse' Hafner)
Subject: Re: Latex: description enviroment
Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, TU Muenchen, Germany
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 14:40:13 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.172458.5692@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> totran@glider.lerc.nasa.gov (le tran) writes:

   \begin{descrition}
   \item[ this]     Description of 'this'
   \item{ is]       Description of 'is'
   \item{ a]        Description of 'a'
   \item{ test]     Description of 'test'
   \end{descrition}

   This can be done if I used the tabular enviroment, but my description
   list is longer than one page, and the tabular enviroment does not allow
   the page breaking in a middle of the tabular enviroment.

I tried this once, but when it worked, I found it didn't look good and I threw
it away. But out of memory ...

1) find the longest description, say "gnats and gnus" (Lamport-like :-)
2) \newlength{\mylength}
3) \settowidth{\mylength}{gnats and gnus}
4) \newsavebox{\mybox}

5) \savebox{\mybox}[\mylength][l]{Descr. test}
6) \item[\usebox{\mybox}] type whatever you want ...

Do steps 5 and 6 inside the description environment for every item you have.
Of course you can finetune theses steps, eg. defining a \newcommand for steps
5 and 6 or create a \newenvironment. As I say: I'm typing this from memory ...

I can't remember, but I think simple \makebox commands didn't work for me ...

-Walter
--
Walter Hafner,  Fichtenweg 10,  8901 Dinkelscherben,  Germany,  Tel: 08292/1436
hafner@informatik.tu-muenchen.de  (preferred address)           1|  /\ /\ /\
hafner@forwiss.tu-muenchen.de     (AI or Fuzzy related topics)   | /  X  X  \
hafner@dartpub.abg.sub.org        (private modem line)          0|/__/_\/_\__\_
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex