[OS X TeX] Status of TeX Live 2012… Relax...

[Herbert Schulz]

Howdy,

It appears that the TeX Live 2012 pretest will be completely frozen this weekend for final testing before being released. I'd expect MacTeX-2012 to be released shortly after that.

Those of you that were disturbed by a previous e-mail of mine about two major changes introduced with TeX Live 2012 can learn a bit more about them. 

The --shell-escape issue is, as I explained before, still there but there is a safer way to get around not using it for many, but not all, folks that ``need it''.

Now for the biggie... The ``problem'' of having fonts installed in the personal tree (~/Library/texmf/...) I noted in the previous message is there but it certainly isn't as ``bad'' as I originally believed. If my previous message made you already move your fonts to the system-wide, texmf-local, tree I still think you did the right thing! (I've been a proponent of using that tree for fonts since the early days of gwTeX. And I believe there still are advantages for using that tree.) However, it appears that the work necessary to maintain a personal tree can be minimized but not completely eliminated. Some of that work can even be automated in an upcoming version of TeX Live Utility. (Note: if you use tlmgr manually there will still be an extra step necessary after each update to make your personal fonts be in sync with updates to the system's fonts.)

Also, the procedure for automating the inclusion of fonts placed in the texmf-local tree has been updated and made more consistent. The one noted in my previous e-mail about this will be deprecated although it will still work with TeX Live 2012.

I've turned that first e-mail into a document (much more easily maintained --- and I'm sure there will be occasional updates) with the most up to date information about those two changes coming in TeX Live 2012 (MacTeX-2012). Download the `TeXLive2012Changes.pdf.zip' from my download site, <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10932738/index.html>.

In addition, for those interested in how, in many cases, one can live without --shell-escape and still be able to do conversions on the fly, etc., under TeX Live 2012 take a look at `Eps-Tiff-Conversions2012.pdf.zip' also available at my download site.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)