[OS X TeX] A proper place to install a newer package

[Norman Gray]

Greetings,

On 2006 Jan 24 , at 15.24, Herbert Schulz wrote:

> The order of search is ~/Library/texmf (personal tree), /usr/local/ 
> teTeX/share/texmf.local (local changes), ...; so changes in the  
> personal tree take precedent over the texmf.local, etc.
>
> You might want to take a look at /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.gwtex/ 
> README.howtexfindsfiles (/usr/local/teTeX can be gotten to via / 
> Library/teTeX, a symbolic link).

Good advice, but howtexfindsfiles is a overpoweringly complicated  
document (because it describes a complicated process,  
unfortunately).  My own feeling, from painful experience, is that one  
should only edit texmf.cnf if one is managing a TeX tree in a non- 
standard place, for multiple users.

Here's the short version:

The completely reliable way of doing this is to use the (command- 
line) tools kpsepath and kpsewhich.

% kpsepath tex

will print the search path that all the TeX applications will use to  
find TeX input files (and 'kpsepath bib' will do the same for .bib  
files -- run 'kpsepath' with no arguments for the full list).

% kpsewhich file.sty

will show exactly which file called 'file.sty' will be picked up.   
Since these tools use the same library and configuration as the TeX  
applications themselves, this is reliable.

You can most straightforwardly add another entry to the path with the  
TEXINPUTS (say) environment variable: 'TEXINPUTS=/my/extra/dir:' --  
note the null path element, at the end, which inserts the default  
path at that point.

See you,

Norman


-- 
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----
Norman Gray  /  http://nxg.me.uk
eurovotech.org  /  University of Leicester, UK



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