MEMO.STY

This is a LaTeX style that is used at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory to format memos in accordance with rules established in
the Laboratory's "Office Procedures Manual."  There is a choice of
Computer Modern fonts or PostScript fonts.  Memos can be printed
in Roman or typewriter typefaces.  A "THRU" or a "THRULESS" header
can be called for.  The following features can be included in a
memo: a subject line, a reference line, a signature line, an
approval line, an enclosures list, an attachments list, a copy
list, or a distribution list.

For more information read the "1989 Conference Proceedings" issue
of "TUGBOAT."  Or read the accompanying "LaTeX Memo Reference"
in the file memo.ref.


THE FILES

There are four files that have to do with the LaTeX memo style
at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

memo.doc	is the commented style file.
memo.sty	is the uncommented style file.
memo.ref	is an ASCII version of the memo manual.
memotest.tex	is a test file for memo.sty that can also be used
		as a template for users' own memos.


ALTERING THE STYLE FILE

If you need to adapt the style file to your own institution's
memos, you should first run memotest.tex through latex and print
the dvi file.  Then read memo.ref to get a feel for the variety of
output that can be expected.

The easiest way to change the header is to design a memo header
for your organization that will fit in place of

  Los Alamos
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

You can then alter the commands that change the fonts (search for
\@latwentyeight and \@spectwelve), and alter the \put commands in
\@printletterpaper that print out the header.

Your company's style may demand that you alter the part of the
header that prints the date, mail stop, telephone, and so forth.
In that case you will have to change the relevant \put statements
in \@printmemopaper, as well as those in
\@printfirstpageheaderinfo. 

The numbers in the parentheses in the \put statements are in
points to the right from the left edge of the paper and down from
the top edge of the paper.

You may need to mess around with the value of
\@dimenspacetosubject.  This is the distance between the top of
the page and the bottom of the SUBJECT line.

Hopefully, you can live with most of our memo's style, such as the
way initials and distribution lists are done.  I tried to make the
code as modular as possible for the sake of my own sanity, but I'm
sure that I missed a lot of opportunities to make it easy to alter
the style for new stylistic requirements.

To use PostScript fonts with memo.sty, you must be using
ArborText's DVIPS.  If you are using another PostScript device
driver, you will have to alter the appropriate \font commands in
\@chooseheaderfonts and \@choosebodyfonts.  You will have to make
fancier changes if you are using classification labels.  

At the end of memo.doc, there is a list of all the variables and
macros used in memo.sty that are not defined in LaTeX.  Search for
"END OF MEMO.DOC".  There are also two lists of the more important
macros defined in memo.doc.  One is sorted alphabetically, and the
other is sorted by line number.


CHANGING THE .DOC FILE INTO A .STY FILE

I use sed (a UNIX utility) to turn my memo.doc file into a
memo.sty file.  If you put the commands below into a file
named sedfile, run 
  
  sed -f sedfile memo.doc > memo.sty

s/%.*/%/g
s/[ 	][ 	]*/ /g
s/^ //
/^[ 	]*%/d
/^[ 	]*$/d
//d

The parts of the lines that read [ 	] are actually square
brackets enclosing a blank and a tab character.

Line 1 removes everything that follows %s.
Line 2 converts multiple blanks into single spaces.
Line 3 gets rid of blanks at the beginning of lines.
Line 4 gets rid of lines containing only blanks and comments.
Line 5 gets rid of lines containing only blanks.
Line 6 gets rid of lines containing Control-L characters.

This script only works because I follow certain conventions when I
write TeX code.  For example, if you use a blank line instead of
an explicit \par token, the sed script will fail.

\def\x{abc

def}

  is NOT the same as

\def\x{abc
def}

There may be other constructions that don't work with this sed
script, so be careful.  It IS really nice to have a commented doc
file as well as its quicker running sty file, so it may be worth
the extra care that it takes.


WHERE I AM

Feel free to write e-mail (sxs@lanl.gov) or phone (505-667-5460)
or write a letter:

  Steve Sydoriak
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Group C-2, MS B253
  Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

I might be able to help you stumble through some awkward piece of
code.