[OS X TeX] format

[Maarten Sneep]

On 18 jun 2004, at 16:59, Frans Goddijn wrote:

> This week I got my first Apple, a Powerbook G4 and I installed 
> TeXshop. Coming from XP I had to get used to the different look and 
> feel of an "installer".

You mean the TeXShop installer, yeah, it is a bit minimalistic :-)

> Yesterday I found out that the TeXshop install is successfful insofar 
> that I can compile a first LaTeX file successfully. A Dutch ConTeXt 
> file didn't compile because there was no format file to be found.

AFAIK the dutch context format is indeed off by default.

> ConTeXt man Hans Hagen happened to be around 
> (http://www.xs4all.nl/~fgoddijn/friends/ntgboys/) and he did some 
> daring things on a Linux type command line with SUDO in them. Then a 
> format file was created in my personal home directory.

Also known as manual format creation: change the texmf.cnf file, 
re-generate the format files, due to some ridiculously large metapost 
files, I have to do this after each i-Installer update.

> Then it took some complicated moves to find out where format files 
> need to be stored and to move them there.

The teTeX/gwTeX combination is a little tricky with respect to figuring 
out what goes where.

> Is this the right way? Or is there a menu somewhere where I can have 
> format files generated and have them end up in the proper locations 
> automatically?

How did you install TeX? i-Installer has an option to generate all 
formats[1] for you (behind the scenes it no-doubt issues the same 
commands that Hans Hagen issued for you).

If you did indeed use the i-Installer (highly recommended), you can 
just run it again (the configure stage is enough). Note that some files 
might be an older version than is available from TeXLive -- url.sty 
comes to mind.

Maarten

[1] i-Installer parses the file that controls which formats are 
generates and creates a UI on top of that. If you need to *add* new 
formats, you need to edit the right file. This is left as an exercise 
for the reader, as context-nl is already there.

-----------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.