[OS X TeX] viewer, configuration

[Maarten Sneep]

On 29 jun 2004, at 13:03, Frans Goddijn wrote:

> 1) Can I tell TeXshop to use the Acrobat Reader instead of its own 
> primitive viewer and if so, where? In the beginning I was often 
> startled to see how bad a document looked (bitmap fonts looking 
> terrible!) or how interactivity suddenly failed to work (works fine in 
> the real reader). I want to show what I do with TeXshop to other Mac 
> users that I know and I like to impress them. I succeed so far but 
> only when I hide such 'features' as the partially blind viewer.

(You shouldn't be using bitmap fonts anyway ;)

The trouble with Acrobat is that its support for AppleEvents is 
limited, making it hard to integrate it into the workflow (the only way 
to update its display is to close and reopen the file, this is a manual 
operation). The full acrobat may have more support, and the Macros menu 
might be used to add such functionality. iTeXMac allows you to specify 
Acrobat as its preview application.

Personally I use PostView, which has partial support for the 
interactive features, and supports a re-open command (when asked to 
open a file that is already open, it re-opens the file, showing the 
changes. This is not yet in the released version, but in a 1.5 beta).

> 2) In TeX manuals one can read about files like texmf.cnf and 
> texexec.ini.  On my system I can load them in the text editor but I 
> can't save them! Overwrite is forbidden. Why? It is MY computer!

Security. I use bbedit for these files, and it will ask for an 
administrator password when saving the file. You might try pico from 
the command-line (sudo pico file-name, type your password, and edit, 
the commands are displayed at the bottom of the screen). By using this 
editor, chances of inadvertently breaking stuff are minimised.

> 3) If I use the i-installer to make sure I have Metafun, and I first 
> select TeX, then Formats, then Metafun, then when the installer runs I 
> see that it is first disabling all other formats.

??? Never seen this. Did you copy some configuration files to you 
home-texmf dir. If so remove them. The configuration file for the 
formats is never overwritten, and that is what remembers all selected 
formats.

> So every time I just want to add one, I must also select every one I 
> already had. That's puzzling for me. Why would that be so? And if 
> Metafun is installed properly in this way, why is it so hard to 
> actually *use* it because \write18 remains as disabled as it was?

Running i-Installer on the TeX package will re-install texmf.cnf 
(installing the default version). The old version is time-stamped and 
copied to the /use/local/teTeX directory. You could do a diff with the 
freshly installed version to see whether Gerben changed something. If 
not, just copy it back and run sudo fmtutil --all. I have to do this 
every time, as the default memory is far too ssmall for me: I have some 
ludicrously large metapost figures -- some even too larg to be handled 
by pdftex, even when maxing out the memory...

Maarten

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