[XeTeX] using xetex in make

[Jonathan Kew]

On 16 Aug 2007, at 3:35 am, Mike Maxwell wrote:

> I have a makefile that is supposed to automate a lot of the process of
> producing a .pdf file (out of a DocBook file, but that's a long story;
> suffice to say that by the time of the problem, the file exists in the
> appropriate format for xetex).  For some reason xetex works fine if I
> run it directly from the command line, but won't work if it's run  
> inside
> of make.
>
> Here's the make recipe:
> -----------
> %.pdf: %.xetex
> 	pwd ; \
> 	ls -l $^ ; \
> 	$(XETEX) $< -o $@
> -----------

Does xetex support a "-o outfile" argument? (I don't think so!) The  
output file will be named \jobname.pdf, so if you want to control  
that from the command line you'll need to use the -jobname option.  
(And any options would have to come before the input filename, I think.)

Your "-o $@" may be harmless, as the input file presumably ends with  
\end or similar, and so the rest of the command line won't actually  
be processed. But in principle it becomes part of TeX's first line of  
input, following the filename (with its implied \input command). I'm  
sure that's not what you intended.

(This doesn't explain why it's not finding the input file, obviously.)

JK