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

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 28, 2005, at 10:52 AM, Christopher Allen wrote:

>
> I did that. But there must be more than that. I've copied files  
> other people have posted to test my installation, and they won't  
> compile properly. I keep getting:
>
> (pdftricks)                No \write 18 capability.
> (pdftricks)                You'll have to run a script by yourself!
>
> I've tried to follow a number of different suggestions posted  
> around the web to fix this; it seems I'm far from the first to  
> encounter this problem. Clearly there is something more I need to  
> do, but I don't understand at all what I'm supposed to do, even  
> after reading pages of suggestions.
>
> Thanks!
> Chris

Howdy,

Ok... It looks like you have the shell escape turned off (security  
reasons? I thought it was turned on by default). Go to TeXShop- 
 >Preferences Engine tab and make the pdftex line

pdftex --shell-escape

and the pdflatex line

pdflatex --shell-escape

i.e., add the --shell-escape option to the lines.

As an alternative, if you are very security conscious, I also  
supplied a Dropscript, DropPDFt-fig2Pdf.app, for the conversion of  
the the figure files (if you are compiling the tex file file.tex the  
figure files generated by pdftricks are called file-fig1.tex, etc.,  
and there will also be a tmp.inputs file that is needed for the  
figure processing) separately; just drop them as a group onto the  
Dropscript and, once they are compiled (lots of intermediate files  
appear and disappear, etc. - look at the log file once things quiet  
down), recompile the original file using pdflatex.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


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