[OS X TeX] typesetting engines in TeXShop

[Herb Schulz]

On 11/10/04 2:57 AM, "Tom Koornwinder" <thk at science.uva.nl> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 "Herb Schulz" <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
>> On 11/9/04 2:32 AM, "Tom Koornwinder" <thk at science.uva.nl> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thisa is nice, but writing such a script requires advanced knowledge of
>>> Unix programming. For instance, I added a file pdfetex.engine
>>> with the lines
>>> 
>>> #!/bin/sh
>>> test -f "`kpsewhich pdfetex.fmt`" || fmtutil --byfmt pdfetex
>>> exec pdfetex -fmt=pdfetex -progname=pdfetex "$@"
>>> 
>>> which I copied from a posting by Ros Moore.
>>> ...
>> 
>> Assuming you're careful enough to only use valid commands (i.e., commands
>> that work directly from the terminal and substituting "$1" for the file name
>> passed on to the engine (only that is passed by TeXShop) you don't have to
>> do the check.
>> 
>> Take a look at the xetex.engine and xelatex.engine files as examples. If you
>> have Gerben's i-Installer version of TeX you may not even need to set the
>> path.
> 
> Actually, the xetex.engine and xelatex.engine files give
> 
> xetex "$1"
> 
> resp.
> 
> xelatex  "$1"
> 
> i.e, without the flag
> 
> -fmt=formatfile
> 
> Just an example added to TeXShop with this flag would be helpful for some
> users.
> 
>                            Tom Koornwinder
> 

Howdy,

Here's a line from an engine I defined for a custom format I call tmm:

pdftex -shell-escape -fmt tmm -progname pdftex -output-format pdf "$1"

The '-shell-escape' option lets me do external processing from within
pdftex; the '-fmt tmm' option tells it to use the tmm.fmt file I've put into
~/Library/texmf/web2c/; the '-progname pdftex' option tells pdftex (actually
pdfetex) to behave as pdftex (probably not necessary); the '-output-format
pdf' option forces pdf output rahter than dvi output; the "$1" is the file
name passed to pdftex.

Hope that helps.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)

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