[OS X TeX] TeXShop and .cfg configuration files

[Herbert Schulz]

On Sep 26, 2006, at 3:14 PM, AES wrote:

> This note is to pass along another "solved" gotcha that I recently  
> encountered in using LaTeX on TeXShop, just for the benefit of  
> other newcomers and/or for any educational responses for my benefit  
> that others may want to post in reply.
>
> I started by creating a vanilla LaTeX "article" class source file  
> for most of a document I was preparing, including the insertion of  
> figures using graphics or graphicx, and everything worked as  
> expected, including figures -- except typeset document was not in  
> the desired final journal format I needed to end up with.
>
> To get the desired final style (and a submittable electronic ms) I  
> needed to use the RevTeX package mentioned in an earlier post from  
> me; and so I copied over all the RevTeX .cls, .sty, .rtx, .bst  
> and .cfg files I had used when preparing earlier manuscripts with  
> Textures under OS 9 and put them into the texmf >> tex >> latex  
> directory as instructed in the "Adding Personal Files" section of  
> the TeXShop Help files.  (I knew that the RevTeX distribution had  
> not changed since the version I had.)
>
> After converting a few things to RevTeX syntax, everything went  
> fine, document formatted beautifully, except no figures -- only  
> captions under blank spaces, no actual figures.
>
> After a lot of hassle and digging into confusing documentation,  
> eventually figured out that there was a graphics.cfg file in the  
> RevTeX folder which, when opened, turned out to point to "textures"  
> and some driver gibberish.  Trashed it, and everything worked fine.
>
> Observations:
>
> 1)  Spent years with Textures and never had to learn (or worry)  
> about .cfg files.  They're not mentioned in the Textures manual.
>
> 2)  No mention of .cfg files in TeXShop Help files.  Apparently  
> they're not needed -- but since there are multiple other  
> discussions of "configurations" in these Help files (and multiple  
> discussions of the alleged *need* for .cfg files in the  
> documentation for the Graphics and Graphicx packages), might want  
> to add a warning note that they (apparently) *shouldn't* be  
> added . . . ?


Howdy,

Did you try to use the ReVTeX before copying it over, etc? It is  
already part of gwTeX (in texmf.tetex). I think you'll be amazed by  
how much is already there!

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/