[OS X TeX] Format declarations?

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jan 26, 2010, at 12:46 AM, david craig wrote:

> What's the difference, though, between, say
> 
> %&latex
> 
> and
> 
> %!TEX latex
> 
> The latter syntax (which I copied from a TeXShop version history page) doesn't seem to have an effect.  (It still produces a pdf and not dvi.) Am I interpreting that page incorrectly?

Howdy,

The first is a directive to the processor itself about the format to use. The second, which should be written

% !TEX TS-program = latex

(note the extra space to remove a very remote bug when printing to PostScript printer) is a directive to TeXShop itself as to which engine to use. This directive tells TeXShop to use latex->dvips->distiller processing (via a script called simpdftex written by Gerben Weirda).

TeXShop ``understands'' the first type of directive also but the second kind allows it to use custom engines for specialized processing .

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)