Re: Documentation (was Re: [OS X TeX] Kanbun (漢文) and French...)

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:42 AM, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:

>>
>> These are not _MacTeX_ choices at all.
>
> Then what is the point of MacTex at all ? If MacTex is made for the  
> OSX, then I can't see how changing the TeX default font to use a  
> font provided by default by the OS is a problem ?
>
>
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary
>


Howdy,

The point of MacTeX is to provide an easy, one click method of  
installing TeX Live as well as some GUI applications, Ghostscript, the  
convert utility used by tex4ht and a simple way to choose between  
installed TeX distributions (e.g., TeX Live 2007 and 2008). It will  
also optionally install Latin Modern Open Type Fonts in /Library/ 
Fonts/ so they can be used in other applications.

It is NOT meant to be a customized set of programs just for Mac OS X  
since one of the wonderful things about TeX is that it is platform  
independent. (By the way, using some of the neat fonts available on  
the Mac via xelatex or purchased fonts, like my favorite Lucida  
Bright, with (pdf)latex does break this somewhat.) I'm amazed that  
files I wrote back in the late 1980's under MSDOS still compile  
without error although much has changed and advanced (especially  
graphics) with the distribution.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)