[OS X TeX] Latex Editor review!

Fri Apr 29 08:50:28 CEST 2011

Hello Everyone,
I use texmaker as my  primary latex editor and sometimes dabble with texshop, emacs....

I am curious if there are any new editors that come highly recommended... The deciding criterion are 

1. It should be cheap preferably open source...
2. The learning curve shouldn't be too steep and yet all the functionality be available to an expert. 

On a different note, has anyone here used latexian ? Any opinions?
http://tacosw.com/latexian/

Thanks,
Shom

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Pandoc (Rob Rye)
   2. Re: Pandoc (Alain Schremmer)
   3. Latex tree (soumya dipta)
   4. Re: Latex tree (Alan Munn)
   5. pdf compare (George Gratzer)
   6. Re: pdf compare (M. Tamer Özsu)
   7. Re: pdf compare (George Gratzer)
   8. Re: pdf compare (Berend Hasselman)
   9. Re: pdf compare (Peter Dyballa)
  10. Re: Latex tree (Peter Dyballa)
  11. Re: Latex tree (Herbert Schulz)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:09:24 -0800
From: Rob Rye <rowenrye at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] Pandoc
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <454E7D79-73BC-48D4-B122-BC0AADA65DE3 at gmail.com>
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On Feb 26, 2011, at 7:04 AM, Alain Schremmer wrote:

> Has anyone had experience with Pandoc? <http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/>
> 
> I just found out about it: "If you need to convert files from one markup format into another, pandoc is your swiss-army knife. [...] Pandoc is free software, released under the GPL. © 2006–2011 John MacFarlane."
> 
> I tried it on the site and it was impressive enough that I wanted to download it to give it a real try BUT:
>> Pandoc is in the MacPorts, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Arch, Fedora, NetBSD, and FreeBSD ports repositories. Note that the version of pandoc in these repositories may not be the most recent. There is also a Windows installer.
>> 
>> If an up-to-date package is not available for your system, an excellent way to install the latest release of pandoc is to install the Haskell platform on your system, then use the cabal tool:
>> 
>> cabal update
>> cabal install pandoc
>> This will download and compile pandoc and all of its dependencies. If you want syntax highlighting support, add the flag -fhighlighting. If you do not want to install the wrapper script markdown2pdf, add -f-wrappers.
>> 
>> 
> 
> So, it is not for me but since there have been threads about conversion, I thought I might mention it.
> 

Alain,

Your note regarding pandoc intrigued me. I would love to have such a tool at my fingertips. I have downloaded and installed everything and run an extremely simple test converting a brain dead simple .tex article file to a .html file. The conversion looked fine, but I have no idea how well things will go if I push it with more complex files.. When I get time to do so, I intend to report on its efficacy. As noted in the original post, pandoc does appear to be extremely versatile, what I don't yet know is whether each sort of conversion is also extremely finicky. 

For those interested in trying it out, it is remarkably simple to install the Haskell platform and to then install pandoc. The Haskell Platform, is available for download at:

http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html

The pair of .dmg packages that comprise the download will install everything you need to have in place in order to download and install pandoc (following the commands copied above). Note that documentation for other modes of installation for the Haskell platform (e.g. installing GHC, etc. piecemeal) indicated that XCode was required for GHC...

Iif you want to have pandoc "globally" available you will need to use

cabal install --global pandoc

This will put pandoc in /usr/local/bin. Otherwise the executable will end up on ~/.cabal/bin and you will need that folder in your path to be able to use pandoc.

I will stop for now for fear I may be straying off-topic for this list, but, I the threads Alain mentioned suggest I am not the only one with interest in being able to convert .tex files into other formats for various and sundry reasons. 

Cheers,

Rob

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:48:08 -0500
From: Alain Schremmer <schremmer.alain at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] Pandoc
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <04183790-B00D-4277-B302-064D8950A0A7 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

On Feb 26, 2011, at 6:09 PM, Rob Rye wrote:

>
> On Feb 26, 2011, at 7:04 AM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>
>> Has anyone had experience with Pandoc? <http://johnmacfarlane.net/ 
>> pandoc/>
>
> Your note regarding pandoc intrigued me. I would love to have such  
> a tool at my fingertips. I have downloaded and installed everything  
> and run an extremely simple test converting a brain dead  
> simple .tex article file to a .html file. The conversion looked  
> fine, but I have no idea how well things will go if I push it with  
> more complex files.. When I get time to do so, I intend to report  
> on its efficacy. As noted in the original post, pandoc does appear  
> to be extremely versatile, what I don't yet know is whether each  
> sort of conversion is also extremely finicky.
>
> For those interested in trying it out, it is remarkably simple to  
> install the Haskell platform and to then install pandoc. The  
> Haskell Platform, is available for download at:
>
> http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html
>
> The pair of .dmg packages that comprise the download will install  
> everything you need to have in place in order to download and  
> install pandoc (following the commands copied above). Note that  
> documentation for other modes of installation for the Haskell  
> platform (e.g. installing GHC, etc. piecemeal) indicated that XCode  
> was required for GHC...
>
> Iif you want to have pandoc "globally" available you will need to use
>
> cabal install --global pandoc
>
> This will put pandoc in /usr/local/bin. Otherwise the executable  
> will end up on ~/.cabal/bin and you will need that folder in your  
> path to be able to use pandoc.
>
> I will stop for now for fear I may be straying off-topic for this  
> list, but, I the threads Alain mentioned suggest I am not the only  
> one with interest in being able to convert .tex files into other  
> formats for various and sundry reasons.

One reason is that the way to epub is paved with html. So, I may bite  
after all.

Best regards
--schremmer

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:04:07 -0800 (PST)
From: soumya dipta <soumyadiptabanerjee at yahoo.com>
Subject: [OS X TeX] Latex tree
To: macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu
Message-ID: <90777.69021.qm at web120613.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hello,
I am trying to install some new packages in my system Mac OSX. 
I will like to know what are the possible ways to do it. I also do not 
understand the local versus global tex tree structure and would like to know 
more about it.
Any reference will be great!
Thanks,
Shom

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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:33:58 -0500
From: Alan Munn <amunn at gmx.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] Latex tree
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <EDA1C984-BBA5-47E5-AFC7-239E545CEE4D at gmx.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Feb 27, 2011, at 12:04 AM, soumya dipta wrote:

> 
> Hello,
> I am trying to install some new packages in my system Mac OSX. 
> I will like to know what are the possible ways to do it. I also do not understand the local versus global tex tree structure and would like to know more about it.

On a Mac, the local texmf folder  is located in the Library folder  of your Home directory.  This is usually notated as "~/Library/texmf", where the "~" means "your home directory" (i.e. what you get when you click on the Home icon in a Finder window.).

Unless there are multiple accounts on your machine that all need access to the same local files, this is the folder you should use.

When should I put things in the local texmf ?

Before putting anything into the local texmf folder, you should check that the relevant package isn't already part of TeXLive, and therefore included in the MacTeX distribution.  The easiest way to do this is to use the TeXLive utility.  This is especially true of packages on CTAN, most of which are included in TeXLive, and should already be available to you.

If you know that a package is not available as part of TeXLive, then you should put it into your local texmf folder.

What goes where?

The texmf folder contains a number of folders, and these folders themselves contain other folders.  For most users, the three top-level folders that are most important are the following:

Folder    What goes in it 

bibtex    This is where bib files and bst files go. 
    It should contain at least the following folders: 
bst        Put bst files here. 
bib        Put bib files here.

tex    This is where new packages go. 
    It should contain the following folders:

latex    Put latex packages here (also biblatex styles) 
plain    Put plain tex files here. 
xelatex    Put xelatex specific packages here.
xetex    Put plain xetex files here.
context    Put context files here.
generic    Put files that are usable with any TeX flavour here. 

doc        Put documentation files from packages installed in the tex folder  here.  Putting the documentation files here allows them to be found by the texdoc system (or the "Show Help for Package" function in the Help menu of TeXShop).

Other top-level folders in include fonts, scripts, and source.

Alan

-- 
Alan Munn
amunn at gmx.com

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:40:32 -0500
From: George Gratzer <gratzer at me.com>
Subject: [OS X TeX] pdf compare
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <06BA1CA5-31BC-449B-91AC-254C3E9D331C at me.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I have two pdf files, a book as submitted, the same book formatted.
Both from tex sources, unavailable.

Is there is utility comparing the text of the two? Acrobat Pro
gets confused because of font changes.

GG

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:51:28 +0800
From: "M. Tamer Özsu" <ozsut at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] pdf compare
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <DC99E432-BC51-4635-9CC0-664DF95B83B4 at mac.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII

I think pdfdiff can do what you want -- it may be worth a try:

http://people.inf.ethz.ch/cremersc/misc/pdfdiff.html

==Tamer

On 2011-02-27, at 1:40 PM, George Gratzer wrote:

> I have two pdf files, a book as submitted, the same book formatted.
> Both from tex sources, unavailable.
> 
> Is there is utility comparing the text of the two? Acrobat Pro
> gets confused because of font changes.
> 
> GG
> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Reminders and Etiquette: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
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> List Info: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex
> 

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 01:00:15 -0500
From: George Gratzer <gratzer at me.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] pdf compare
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <22811E5A-A5E6-4B48-A8AF-B8E95B6007FE at me.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

This is certainly beyond my technical abilities...

GG

On 2011-02-27, at 12:51 AM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote:

> I think pdfdiff can do what you want -- it may be worth a try:
> 
> http://people.inf.ethz.ch/cremersc/misc/pdfdiff.html
> 
> ==Tamer
> 
> On 2011-02-27, at 1:40 PM, George Gratzer wrote:
> 
>> I have two pdf files, a book as submitted, the same book formatted.
>> Both from tex sources, unavailable.
>> 
>> Is there is utility comparing the text of the two? Acrobat Pro
>> gets confused because of font changes.
>> 
>> GG
>> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
>> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
>> List Reminders and Etiquette: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>> List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
>> TeX on Mac OS X Website: http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/
>> List Info: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex
>> 
> 
> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Reminders and Etiquette: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
> List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
> TeX on Mac OS X Website: http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/
> List Info: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex
> 

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:11:37 +0100
From: Berend Hasselman <bhh at xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] pdf compare
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <FC77C1C6-A86E-4F15-B026-15F80B06ECDE at xs4all.nl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

On 27-02-2011, at 07:00, George Gratzer wrote:

> This is certainly beyond my technical abilities...
> 
> GG
> 
> On 2011-02-27, at 12:51 AM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote:
> 
>> I think pdfdiff can do what you want -- it may be worth a try:
>> 
>> http://people.inf.ethz.ch/cremersc/misc/pdfdiff.html

In response to a query I made recently on this list about finding out the fonts used in a pdf,
Michael Ummels sent a link to a disk image with the xpdf tools.

The link is:
http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/xpdf-tools-3.dmg

A utility pdftotext amongst others will be installed in /usr/local/bin.
Just run the installer.

I have just tried to run pdfdiff.py and it works on my Mac OS X 10.6.6 provided you specify
the diff program to use (if you don't it tries to find a diff but appears to hang).

./pdfdiff.py -d opendiff  A.pdf B.pdf

You need to have Xcode installed. And make pdfdiff.py executable with chmod +x pdfdiff.py.
If you don't have that, try -d diff instead.
All of this in Terminal!

Berend

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:11:50 +0100
From: Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa at Web.DE>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] pdf compare
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <0D60EB26-1BE3-447A-B7FA-5A0FFCE870CF at Web.DE>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

Am 27.02.2011 um 06:40 schrieb George Gratzer:

> Is there is utility comparing the text of the two?

Last year we had a thread on this topic.

--
Greetings

   Pete

What is this talk of 'release?' Klingons do not make software  
'releases.'  Our software 'escapes,' leaving a bloody trail of  
designers and quality assurance people in its wake.

------------------------------

Message: 10
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:51:08 +0100
From: Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa at Web.DE>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] Latex tree
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <D2D2B17D-D81E-4057-B6BB-7EB020C076A4 at Web.DE>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed;
    delsp=yes

Am 27.02.2011 um 06:04 schrieb soumya dipta:

> I am trying to install some new packages in my system Mac OSX.

They should be kept outside the "regular" distribution, outside the  
area managed by tlmgr/TLU. So it's either /usr/local/texlive/texmf- 
local for a system-wide or ~/Library/texmf for a personal  
installation, if you're using MacTeX.

If you don't have a "global" file system, then you don't have a  
"global" TeX tree. Besides, tlmgr and TeX have no idea of "global",  
they make a distinction between system-wide, as managed by tlmgr/TLU,  
and personal. The system-wide trees have a release specific branch ( / 
usr/local/texlive/20XY) and an independent branch (/usr/local/texlive/ 
texmf-local), for example for additional font support or to serve a  
particular direction in science or to allow use of some non-Latin  
script and a language that makes use of it. Other TeX distributions  
for UNIX systems support this for personal trees as well  
(~/.texlive20XY) while MacTeX does not and puts the whole mix into one  
~/Library/texmf tree. The system-wide trees necessitate to run 'sudo  
texhash <optional directory>" after each change – and this change can  
only happen with elevated privileges.

Details are described in the TeX Directory Structure (TDS)  
description. Many packages follow this "format" and can easily be  
installed in the branch's root.

If you could tell us what you intend to install we could give less  
general annotations.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Clovis' Consideration of an Atmospheric Anomaly:
         The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated than  
by the fact that, when exposed to the same atmosphere, bread becomes  
hard while crackers become soft

------------------------------

Message: 11
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 06:35:16 -0600
From: Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com>
Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] Latex tree
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <0E6F9FF8-FA6E-4BED-9A6F-7CBA9C24856D at wideopenwest.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Feb 26, 2011, at 11:33 PM, Alan Munn wrote:

> On Feb 27, 2011, at 12:04 AM, soumya dipta wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Hello,
>> I am trying to install some new packages in my system Mac OSX. 
>> I will like to know what are the possible ways to do it. I also do not understand the local versus global tex tree structure and would like to know more about it.
> 
> On a Mac, the local texmf folder  is located in the Library folder  of your Home directory.  This is usually notated as "~/Library/texmf", where the "~" means "your home directory" (i.e. what you get when you click on the Home icon in a Finder window.).
> 
> Unless there are multiple accounts on your machine that all need access to the same local files, this is the folder you should use.
> 
> When should I put things in the local texmf ?
> 
> Before putting anything into the local texmf folder, you should check that the relevant package isn't already part of TeXLive, and therefore included in the MacTeX distribution.  The easiest way to do this is to use the TeXLive utility.  This is especially true of packages on CTAN, most of which are included in TeXLive, and should already be available to you.
> 
> If you know that a package is not available as part of TeXLive, then you should put it into your local texmf folder.
> 

Howdy,

Let me add that my method for finding out if I need to install a package is to simply try to use it.  If the package is not present you'll get an error message. The TeX Live distribution (what is installed by MacTeX) is so complete that I rarely have to install any extra packages.

> What goes where?
> 
> The texmf folder contains a number of folders, and these folders themselves contain other folders.  For most users, the three top-level folders that are most important are the following:
> 
> Folder    What goes in it 
> 
> bibtex    This is where bib files and bst files go. 
>     It should contain at least the following folders: 
> bst        Put bst files here. 
> bib        Put bib files here.
> 
> tex    This is where new packages go. 
>     It should contain the following folders:
> 
> latex    Put latex packages here (also biblatex styles) 
> plain    Put plain tex files here. 
> xelatex    Put xelatex specific packages here.
> xetex    Put plain xetex files here.
> context    Put context files here.
> generic    Put files that are usable with any TeX flavour here. 
> 
> doc        Put documentation files from packages installed in the tex folder  here.  Putting the documentation files here allows them to be found by the texdoc system (or the "Show Help for Package" function in the Help menu of TeXShop).
> 
> Other top-level folders in include fonts, scripts, and source.
> 
> Alan

Also note that this set of folders inside folders is NOT created by default. You need to create the texmf folder and it's sub-folder tree inside ~/Library/ and then fill it as noted above.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)

------------------------------

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