[tex-live] TEXINPUTS on windows

Karl Berry karl at freefriends.org
Sat Nov 6 23:04:03 CET 2010


Hi Lars,

    telling them to set an environment variable is an almost impossible task.

Yes, I understand.  They don't have to set an environment variable.  And
in fact we always recommend against setting (any) environment variables,
especially for new users.

What they have to do is use the predefined tree for this, which is
~/texmf, where ~ on Windows is $USERPROFILE, the usual place for such
things (as I understand it).

However, as I explained in my previous message, they do have to use
subdirectories, and I completely understand that that is a significant
barrier for these "naive" users.  All I can say is, perhaps it will be
supported in the future.  I hope my message was clear as to why it is
not trivial to do so.

Expecting to be able to use your own arbitrary directory to find
arbitrary things is already a nontrivial task, and if "naive" users
expect to be able to do so, well, sorry, their expectations are
unrealistic.

karl


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