[OS X TeX] Fonts and PSNFSS

Alain Schremmer Schremmer.Alain at verizon.net
Sat Jun 12 13:44:48 EDT 2004


Thanks very much.

Please don't bother with this any further. (I would hate to see how much 
you would be able to write were you /not/ short of time.)

The reason is that I do not really need pifont in my writing (or will 
I?) and that I did this mostly as an exercise because I hate to be 
helpless. Certainly not because I wanted to upgrade from 9.0a. What must 
really have happened can only be due to my general incompetence (can't, 
won't, use the term I used previously as it got me, privately, berated). 
In fact, I had suspected that the package must have been i-installed but 
I had no idea how to go about checking whether it had and what had 
happened to it.

When I wanted to typeset the file I had been given as a sample for my 
instruction, I got

    !Undefined control sequence <recently read> \c at lor@to at ps
    1.41 \psset at bordercolor(white)
    ?

and when I did goto error the following was highlighted. 

    \usepackage{pifont} %%for the dingautolists and the proofsymbol

Hence my "conclusion". But when I first got the file, it worked. So, the 
question is, what idiotic thing did I do?

I will look up TDS. (Thanks for spelling out "TeX directory system"). 
Actually, I did read Wierda's two readmes in teTeX but I didn't study 
them as they seemed way beyond what my comprehension of what the problem 
seemed to be to me. Now I will, along with your explanations.

While I have little trouble reading the Companion, well I do, sort of, 
but like it a lot, /this/ is where I find the steep learning curve 
really to be. I was reassured to read Wierda's "TeX's way of finding 
files is quite rich and complicated and at certain points counterintuitive."

While I appreciate your help--you have no idea how much, I absolutely do 
not want you to cut into more of your time than you can throwaway at me.

I would also take the opportunity to thank again Will Robertson and to 
apologise to him for refraining from following his instructions. But I 
will go look at the folder structure some more.

Regards
Schremmer


P. S. In looking up things, I found a folder that seems to have remained 
from my ill-fated attempt to command Fink to install iTeXMac, before I 
i-installed TeXshop.
It is called sw, right next to the system, and contains  bin, etc, fink, 
include, lib, sbin, share, src, var. Is it harmless or should I do 
something about it?

Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 12 juin 04, à 07:48, Alain Schremmer a écrit :
>
>> Somebody on wintel gave me a file which, when I tried to typeset it, 
>> required pifont. After doing a bit of homework, I downloaded all that 
>> was required by *PSNFSS 9.1b -- Installation instructions*. Then I 
>> came to the following
>>
>> [...]
>
>
> You shouldn't follow the instructions that you reproduced in your 
> message, they assume the TDS (for a description of the TDS see 
> /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/doc/help/tds.dvi, drag this file onto 
> the Desktop, this will create a copy there, and drag the copy onto 
> TeXShop to have it converted to PDF and displayed) variant used in the 
> TeXLive CDs, but not to the TDS variant used in teTeX (upon which the 
> TeX i-Package is based). For exemple there is no "source" folder, 
> "pub" is "public" instead, and many more of the same.
>
> If that's really needed I can try to find time later this weekend 
> (though I'm really short of time) to write detailed instructions, but 
> I don't think that's the case: PSNFSS 9.0a and it component pifont.sty 
> are indeed included in the TeX i-Package. For example the package 
> pifont lives at 
> /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/tex/latex/psnfss/pifont.sty, and the 
> various files from lw35nfss*.zip live inside:
>
> .map files: /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/dvips/psnfss/
> .afm files: /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/fonts/afm/adobe/
> .tfm files: /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/fonts/tfm/adobe/
> .vf  files: /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/fonts/vf/adobe/
> .fd  files: /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/tex/latex/psnfss/
>
> In my opinion, doing a reinstall would be more harmful than 
> beneficial. Plus you could get a system that is not homogeneous: 
> PSNFSS9.1b possibly relying on more recent versions of other LaTeX 
> packages than those included in the TeX i-Package. Gerben Wierda has 
> explained in other occasions why he won't update this i-Package right 
> now (TDS -- the TeX directory system -- is in the middle of a major 
> reorganization, as a consequence it is pretty unstable for the moment, 
> and Gerben is waiting for the distributions his TeX i-Package is based 
> on -- teTeX and TeXLive -- to reach a stable state themselves before).
>
> Below I have included the list of changes to PSNFSS from 9.0a to 9.1b 
> (taken from the file changes.txt from 
> tex-archive/macros/latex/required/psnfss/ on CTAN). Do you really and 
> absolutely need one of them?
>
> To use the package pifont you should just write in the preamble of 
> your LaTeX document:
>
> \usepackage{pifont}
>
> The documentation for PSNFSS is 
> /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/doc/latex/psnfss/psnfss2e.pdf.
>
>> (4) Fonts required for PSNFSS
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> (5) Type1 Font files
>>
>> [...]
>
>
> All these fonts are already there, you shouldn't need to install them. 
> See:
>
> /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/fonts/type1/bitstrea/charter/
> /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/fonts/type1/urw/
>
>> I read the TeXshop help but it doesn't seem to be involved with 
>> fonts. What is? All I care is pdf.
>
>
> TeXShop doesn't deal with font itself, it's the content of the TeX 
> i-Package, installed inside /Library/teTeX/, that does. The help for 
> it lives in various "doc" subfolders inside.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
>
> From changes.txt
>
> 2004-01-26 PSNFSS 9.1b
>
>         * freenfss.zip with fixed VFs and metrics for the Bitstream
>         Charter fonts:  New kerning pairs Y-g and Y-s; corrected
>         \fontdimen1 of the italic shapes; improved italic Euro symbols
>
>         * helvet.sty:  Fixed implementation of the key-value interface.
>
>         * Warning messages added to obsolete packages.
>
> 2003-11-17 PSNFSS 9.1
>
>         * Updated VFs for all Adobe text font families, except Utopia:
>         Added \texteuro, fixed zdot and \textasteriskcentered.
>
>         * Courier: normal asterisk (*) is now vertically centered.
>
>         * New VFs for Bitstream Charter with revised kerning data and
>         faked \texteuro.  In particular, the overly tight kerning
>         between L  and quoteright has been abolished.
>
>         * The Pazo doublestroke font is now assigned the encoding U,
>         rather than T1 and OT1.  The files t1fplmbb.fd and ot1fplm.fd
>         are replaced by ufplmbb.fd.
>
>         * The Utopia fonts are no longer regarded as "required"; the
>         package utopia.sty is marked as "obsolete".
>
>         * Documentation psnfss2e.* updated accordingly.
>
>         * Test files enhanced to test the Euro symbols and the Pazo
>         doublestroke font, while Utopia is omitted now.
>
>
> 2003-03-02 PSNFSS 9.0c
>
>         * mathptmx,sty, mathpazo.sty:  \upOmega and \UpDelta are of
>         type \mathord now, to make sure that they are always upright
>
>         * pifont.sty:  \Pifill and \dingfill should no longer fail at
>         the beginning or end of a paragraph. (Bug fix suggested by FMi.)
>
>         * mathptm(x).sty:  \jmath, \coprod, and \amalg will now generate
>         error messages rather than print black squares.  (Suggested by
>         FMi.)
>
>         * Small changes to the documentation psnfss2e.*.
>
>         * Enhanced test0.tex to test also the math alphabets.
>
>         * 8r.enc:  version 2.0, comprising all of the Mac Roman
>         character set, too.
>
>         * The *.map files and the file 8r.enc have been moved out of the
>         ZIP archives, since their final location in the texmf tree may
>         vary wrt/ changes in the TDS specs.
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