SGF2DG (Formerly SGF2TEX)

We (Daniel Bump and Reid Augustin) wrote a system for typesetting Go games and diagrams using TeX. This system may be used with either plain TeX or LaTeX. It includes the Metafont sources for a new set of Go fonts, and a Perl script called Sgf2dg (formerly Sgf2tex) that translates files in ``Smart Game Format'' (SGF) into TeX.

For Sgf2dg, Reid has completely rewritten the perl script that is the heart of the program. There is now support for Postscript, PDF and Metapost, and sgf2mpost is included. Check it out!

We envision at least two potential classes of users for this software. On the one hand, it is capable of producing camera-ready copy for books or magazines, and of duplicating the typography of existing go publications.

On the other hand, you can run Sgf2dg on your internet Go games, or on SGF files from any source. Thus the average user can obtain attractive printouts on a laser printer.

A partial list of the features of this system include:

• High quality, book- or magazine-quality diagrams.
• Sgf2dg allows you to enter your data with a mouse, using your favorite SGF editor (cgoban, xgoban or xmgt), or to process your games from the Go servers.
• It's free---Sgf2dg, the accompanying metafont sources, and other materials are published under the GNU General Public License. TeX and Perl are also freely available, and are already installed on a large percentage of existing UNIX machines.
• Support for variations. It's fun to try Sgf2dg on the Joseki variation trees at Jan van der Steen's site.
• Numerous options allow Sgf2dg to be used in a variety of different ways.
• Twenty page user manual.
• User-configurable fonts. The numerals on the Go stones are based on the Computer Modern numerals which come with TeX. The metafont sources for the Computer Modern Fonts designed by Donald Knuth to generate a variety of different fonts from the same metafont sources. We settled on numerals in a sans serif style that look good to us, but if you don't like them, you can change them by adjusting the parameters.

Download

The latest version of sgf2tex is 3.3, released June 17, 2001.

The latest version of sgf2dg is 4.211, released July 5, 2007.

• Here is Sgf2Dg-4.211.tar.gz.
• Here is sgf2dg-4.026.tar.gz. It should also be available in the CPAN archive as Games-Go-Sgf2Dg-4.026.
• Here is sgf2tex-3.3.tar.gz. Note that it is superceded by sgf2dg but is still linked for nostalgia buffs.

Screen Shot

The above image was made by previewing a diagram from the manual using xdvi, then capturing the image as a grayscale gif. Here's a larger example:

• Page 10 of the manual.

LaTeX

Links

• jujo_naiwei2.sgf to test http serving of the x-go-sgf mime type.
• Smart Go Format specification
• Commented Games of Go Seigen using sgf2tex or sgf2misc.
• Go Diagrams in Postscript by Stijn van Dongen.

Local News (Bay Area)

Here's the Palo Alto Go club. Here's the San Francisco Go Club and the Ing GOE Foundation. Last modified: Fri Jul 1 15:08:01 PDT 2005