[OS X TeX] Pre-compiled custom formats for PDFTeX

[Ludger Hentschel]

I am struggling with the switch from Textures to teTeX. After much 
help from searching the various TeX groups and lists, I seem to have 
solved most of my problems. One remaining annoyance is that teTeX 
cannot reliably find pre-compiled custom formats for pdftex.

I mostly run tex/pdftex via the Terminal window using scripts from 
BBEdit. Issuing the commands directly in the Terminal or from the 
scripts produces identical results.

I have successfully compiled my preferred macros for pdftex. When I 
place the format and a copy of pdftex.cfg in the same directory as 
the document, everything runs fine if the document starts with 
%&myformat. In other words, "pdftex document.tex" produces the 
expected results without error messages.

If, instead, I place myformat.fmt in a convenient folder like 
library/texmf/tex/formats/myformat.fmt, pdftex apparently does not 
find the format file, defaults to plain, and chokes on the first 
"undefined control sequence."

I have other input files stored in library/texmf/tex/... that tex and 
pdftex find without incident.

I have tried "sudo texhash" without improvement. (texhash seems to 
operate only on the tree in \usr\local\teTeX..., so I did not expect 
much from this.)

Also, if I don't place a copy of pdftex.cfg in the same directory as 
the document, pdftex says "Error: pdftex (file pdftex.cfg): cannot 
open config file." This occurs even though pdftex does not complain 
that it cannot find pdftex.cfg when I use the plain format with 
pdftex. (The default copy of pdftex.cfg appears to be located at 
\usr\local\teTeX\share\texmf.local\pdftex\config\pdftex.cfg.)

My format files contain extensions of plain TeX and do not rely on LaTeX.

Ludger
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Ludger Hentschel
William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration
Box 270100, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627--0100
Phone: (585) 275--1058, Fax: (585) 273--1140
E-mail: mailto:hentschel at simon.rochester.edu
Web: http://www.simon.rochester.edu/fac/hentschel
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