[texhax] \gg in TeX?

[Uwe Lück]

At 14:37 19.12.06, Uwe Lück wrote:
>At 05:16 19.12.06, Micha Hofri wrote:
>
> >That sent me to look again at the file I received.  It had
> >the line
> >\font\gg=cmr8
> >when that was commented out, everything reverted to normal.  I suppose it
> >defines the glyph to a size it is not normally available...
>
>I don't suppose this ... being to lazy to work myself through
>the TeXbook here, it seems to me that \font\gg is something
>very nonsensical.

\font\gg=cmr8 renders \gg a command \gg that switches to the
cmr8 font, rather than get a small version of \gg.
For doing the thing correctly, you better read the
TeXbook than ask me. It may be helpful to note the
New Font Selection Scheme (NFSS) that LaTeX2e
provides can be used with Plain TeX as well.
I knew better once; now I found

   ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/macros/plain/plnfss/README.txt

However, \gg usually needs math mode. Your friend may
have tried to get the french quotation marks. german.sty
(the version I know) does something similar for french quotation marks
-- and it works (\flqq, \frqq or "<, ">). If my guess is correct, your friend
should chose this way (german.sty is compatible with Plain TeX).
-- However this only /resembles/ guillemets -- I don't know how
to get "real ones".

HTH -- Uwe.