[texhax] \underarc

[Rodolfo Medina]

"Uwe Lueck" <uwe.lueck at web.de> writes:

> On Dienstag, 08. September 2015 um 12:16 Uhr, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
>> I want to put a small arc under a letter or a group of letters, like a
>> smile.  I see that `arcs' package can do what I want with the \underarc
>> command; but don't know how to install and use it with plain TeX instead of
>> LaTeX. Is it possibile, and how?
>
> Maybe I did not deny this explicitly enough previously, while I wrote that 
> the `arcs' package heavily uses LaTeX's font selection scheme. But I thought 
> that NFSS can be loaded with plain TeX. More about something like this:
>
>     http://www.tex.ac.uk/FAQ-fonts-pln.html
>
> which is too much for me. Still, you could not directly use the `arcs'
> package, it has LaTeX commands like \newcommand and \symbol, and it 
> needs the `relsize' package which has commands like \DeclareRobustCommand. 
> Well, maybe after
>
>     \def\newcommand#1[1]{\def#1}
>
> and \DeclareRobustCommand likewise -- and \def\symbol#1{\char#1} ...
> you can load arcs.sty. For me it is not obvious.
>
> \bye,
>
>     Uwe.

Thanks indeed!  Maybe much too difficult for me.  For now, I'll use your very
useful definition.  I love using plain TeX, but something it is discouraging to
see how most of TeX system new utilities are thought and written only for LaTeX
(not always, fortunately...).

Regards,

Rodolfo