[OS X TeX] Setting up PDFtricks on MacOS10.4

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 28, 2005, at 9:46 AM, Christopher Allen wrote:

> I now understand the path structure in MacOS much better and can  
> include .jpg's (thanks, Ross and Mortten!!!). Now, since I'm moving  
> to pdflatex, I'm in the process of moving from pstricks to  
> pdftricks. I find the documentation with pdftricks rather scanty  
> (vis-a-vis setting it up) for someone with minimal Unix knowledge.  
> I can see how to use it once it's set up, just not how to set it  
> up. I had no problem following the NewPDFtricks documentation; the  
> documentation told me exactly where to put the newpdftricks.sty  
> file. However, NewPDFtricks assumes I already have pdftricks  
> working. I've been googling in vain. Could someone point me to a  
> page that gives me step-by-step instructions for setting up  
> pdftricks on MacOSX10.4 for a Unix novice?
>
> Thanks!
> Chris

Howdy,

The original version of pdftricks is installed already. To use the  
``new'' version (which is still called pdftricks (I should have at  
least changed the internal name) is placed somewhere in ~/Library/ 
texmf/tex/latex/ and will be read before the original version.

Documentation and some sample files are in /Library/teTeX/share/ 
texmf.gwtex/doc/latex/pdftricks/. Basically, pdftricks allows you to  
use pstricks from within a pdflatex document. It does this by  
surrounding pstricks information within special environments. That  
information is written to external files which are then processed via  
latex->dvips->ps2pdf->pdfcrop (in the case of the ``new'' version of  
pdftricks) into individual cropped pdf figures and then included  
within the original document. The default setup for TeXShop should  
allow this processing to happen in the background so you needn't  
worry about it.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


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