[texhax] Diagrams in tex

Uwe Lück uwe.lueck at web.de
Fri Feb 27 11:34:47 CET 2009


At 12:38 25.02.09, Michael Barr wrote:
>Incidentally, the requester seems to be under the impression that these
>packages are specific to windows or to linux; they are not.  The
>underlying tex engine has to be compiled for every OS, but the packages
>are simply text files that work on everything.

The main difficulty seemed to have been where to put the files:

At 23:20 24.02.09, David Romano wrote:
>Her operating system is Windows XP and she uses WinShell as a front
>end.  She tried to follow directions for the diagrams package by Paul
>Taylor, which says to copy the macros on his website into her TeX macros
>directory, but she doesn't know where that would be, and I can't help her
>because I know absolutely nothing about Windows or how TeX is ported to
>it.

and this may be system-dependant, indeed. There is no drive C: on UNIX. 
Working with WinShell, using MiKTeX would be natural indeed, already 
because the student can then find help online very easily:

At 10:27 25.02.09, Philip G. Ratcliffe wrote:
>Well, assuming she's using the MiKTeX distro (and if she isn't, she ought to
>be and I can't help her otherwise,), then the manual explains this all
>rather clearly; see section 6. Integrating Local Additions.
>
>In short, she should create a directory called, say, c:\localtexmf.
>
>After which she should open the MiKTeX Options wizard and, on the "Roots"
>tab, add c:\localtexmf as a root.
>
>She should then create a subdirectory, say,  c:\localtexmf\tex\latex\taylor
>and place the package files there.
>
>The final, mandatory, step is to refresh the filename database using the
>button "Refresh FNDB" on the "General" tab of the wizard (this must be done
>*every* time a change is made to the localtexmf structure).

Isn't Taylor available as a MiKTeX package? On CTAN it seems: not indeed. 
How come? Maybe the license is not clear.

At 10:27 25.02.09, Philip G. Ratcliffe wrote:
>BTW, this is a very, very, FAQ.

Indeed, but once it was very difficult to answer, there seemed to be 
hundreds of different kinds of TeX directory structures. It seems to be 
much easier today:

     http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=wherefiles

"Use texlive or MiKTeX". However, quite recently PCTeX versions have been 
used which is able to recognize about 6 directories, so you made one folder 
TeXinput "for all the rest". Similar on a UNIX network at the university 
... once I made a TeXinput for packages that were not installed on the 
network ... it may be easy to use a localtexmf on such networks too 
nowadays ...

... and as Axel recently answered this question: if you put the .sty into 
the same directory as your .tex, you can at least be sure that it works for 
this .tex.

Cheers,

     Uwe.



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