[OS X TeX] Building new formats (MacTeX)

[Gerben Wierda]

On Sep 16, 2006, at 12:22 , Maarten Sneep wrote:

> 2) copy that file to reside within the texmf.local tree, and try  
> (1) again to see if it is found instead.
> Now, depending on how exactly you are going to update your tex: i- 
> Installer will leave texmf.local alone. I don't know about MacTeX,  
> perhaps someone else can comment on this. You may want to copy your  
> fmtutil.cnf into the texmf.local tree as well. With the commands I  
> gave it is not possible to store the configuration the your home  
> directory.

I suspect that MacTeX overwrites texmf.local. The reason I do is that  
a few brave people tried my first attempt at a TL-instead-of-teTeX- 
for-the-main-texmf-tree i-Package and it went wrong because several  
hyphenation pattern and map files were missing. When they tried to  
reverse to a previous i-Package, the TeX i-Package had changed some  
files in texmf.local (e.g. commenting out unavailable language  
pattern files because having them active but unavailable makes  
fmtutil end up in an endless loop). When they returned to the  
original i-Package, the languages (and maps) staid inactive, because  
the i-Package leaves texmf.local alone. One person reported he was  
back to normal after installing MacTeX, hence my suspicion that  
MacTeX.pkg does clean up texmf.local. For a package that is meant for  
abslute non-techs, providing a basic working solution, this is  
probably a sound strategy, but some warning that your local changes  
are overwritten might be nice. I am guessing, though.

G

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