[OS X TeX] perils of sty file locations

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 27, 2007, at 7:09 AM, David Oliver wrote:

> Installation via MacTeX on a new computer. Personal sty files (not  
> part of the distribution) in ~Library/texmf/tex/latex on previous  
> machine moved to identical location on new machine. Under TeXShop on  
> the new machine, the files can't be found..
>
> Diagnosis?
>
> Suggestions for good locations under MacTex install for personal sty  
> files?
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Oliver
>


Howdy,

Does a file that doesn't use your personal packages compile correctly?  
Just to make sure you have a working TeX distribution.

I assume you mean ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/ (note the slash after the  
~) and ~ is your home directory. That IS where TeX installed using  
MacTeX will look for your personal files. If that isn't working there  
is something interfering with its normal behavior. Do you have  
something (e.g., a ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file) that is setting  
some TeX related environment variables? Run the command

kpsepath -n pdflatex tex

in Terminal and fairly early in the list should be

:/Users/YOURSHORTNAME/Library/texmf/tex/latex//:

where YOURSSHORTNAME is your short user name. Is that there?


Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)