[XeTeX] making a format file of ConTeXt using XeTeX

[Jonathan Kew]

On 5 Mar 2005, at 11:01 am, Charles Doherty wrote:

>
> On 4 Mar 2005, at 13:55, Dalyoung wrote:
>
>> Dear Jonathan and Hans,
>>
>> Thanks for XeTeX and the file, "syst-xtx.fmt".
>> After replacing the file with the new one, I am able to make a format 
>> file.
>> By the way, the new format file's name is also cont-en.fmt.
>> I have tested some files under the new installation.
>>
>
> Dear Daylong,
>
> I had upgraded as you have done some time ago and had the same 
> problem. I didn't have enough time to pursue it then. But now that 
> Jonathan and Hans have kindly given advice I also successfully created 
> a cont-en.fmt. I placed it in 
> /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/web2c/ where it replaced the old 
> file there and I could process XeTeX documents successfully but when I 
> attempted to process  a ConTeXt document it could not use the format. 
> My problem is if it now has the same name as the cont-en.fmt in Web2c 
> where should it be placed? I use a G4Mac OSX 10.3.8 and most recent 
> ConTeXt. Any advice would be appreciated.

I think you should put the xetex-generated formats in a "xetex" 
directory inside .../web2c. The following entry from texmf.cnf 
indicates that this should be searched by xetex:

TEXFORMATS = .;$TEXMF/web2c/{$engine,}//

In experimenting just now, I note that kpathsearch doesn't seem to 
handle the $engine variable here, so it doesn't confirm the path 
setting properly, but using the -kpathsea-debug option with xetex 
itself shows that the xetex subdirectory under web2c is indeed checked 
first.

JK