[OS X TeX] A problem with TeXShop and pTex.

[Andrzej Kozlowski]

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I am having a rather strange (at least to me) problem with TeXShop  
and Japanese TeX. I have found a workaround, which means that finding  
a better solution is not not a matter of life or death, but with my  
workaround some of the nicer features of TexSHop (actually everything  
related to the preview) become unusable. So I would very grateful to  
anyone who could suggest a better solution. Unfortunately I do not  
understand what is going on well enough to describe anything but the  
most visible symptoms of the malfunction I am struggling with.

I am translating a mathematics book form Japanese. The book  
(published in Japanese by Iwanami)  is written using pTex on a PC,  
and uses macros for indexing etc that I do not understand. My  
approach to the translation is simply to write in English on top of  
the Japanese, trying to preserve all the symbols and formulae  
(although inevitably shifting them around a bit). This makes it  
necessary to use pTex as engine  instead of tetex, which is my normal  
choice when I write something of my own.

The problem is that when I choose pTex in the TeXShop preferences (in  
the Engine panel) and attempt to typeset something I get the message:

/Users/andrzej/Library/TeXShop/bin/platex2pdf-sjis does not exist.  
Perhaps teTeX was not installed or was removed during a system  
upgrade. If so, go to the TeXShop web site and follow the  
instructions to (re)install teTeX. Another possibility is that a tool  
path is incorrectly configured in TeXShop preferences. This can  
happen if you are using the fink teTeX distribution.

I am confused. Why does this say "perhaps teTex was not  
installed ..." if I am using pTex? Actually tetex is installed and I  
am not using the fink teTex distribution. Also, I have never been  
able to find platex2pdf-sjis anywhere, neither on my computer nor on  
the Internet.

The alternative approach, which is a part of my workaround, is to  
enter altjpdflatex as the Latex program in the Tex + dvips +  
distiller pox. When I do that and try typesetting my file I get the  
following warning:

LaTeX Warning: You have requested package `./amsthm',
                but the package provides `amsthm'.

but the typesetting continues without any other visible problems.  
However, at the very end there appears the message:

TFM file error (ec < bc)

Output file removed.

start.dvi -> start.pdf
### FAILED to generate start.pdf (1)

As a result no pdf preview is created. Nevertheless, I can open the  
dvi file start.dvi with Norihito Koiso's PictPrinter and then I can  
use the print menu to create a pdf file. So that is how I have been  
doing this now for over a year. It works but seems hardly the ideal  
way to go about it. Any ideas?

Andrzej Kozlowski

Tokyo, Japan


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