[OS X TeX] Textures -> TeXShop migration

[Peter Vamos]

Dear List,

While upgrading to Tiger I decided to say good-bye to OS 9 and so to 
Textures, the only application I was still using under OS 9 and 
Panther. It was a sad moment for me, Textures was a great programe 
and I was using it since it wasn't even called Textures and was sold 
by Addison-Wesley.

I am now writing to tap into the collective wisdom of this list to 
find answers to a number of problems which cropped up. Maybe some 
other migrants will also find my experiences useful. But first an 
acknowledgement: I want to thank RichardK, GerbenW and the other 
contributors for making TeXShop and i-Installer available free to the 
Mac OSX community. My installation went fine. I thought that I might 
loose some functionality and easy of use in this transition, but did 
not expect problems with my files. It turned out to be the other way 
round! I was tempted to make this move by the new version 2.xx of 
TeXShop promising new syncronization with Tiger: this in fact works 
OK (not quite as well as Textures though) but TeXShop gives a lot 
more extras and so many things to customize! I haven't tried iTeXMac 
yet, I notice that this, too leapt to version 2.xx.

So here are my questions, all arising from trying to run my existing 
files. Setup: OS 10.4.1 TeXShop 2.03 i-Installer v2 Full 2005 install.

1. PdfLaTeX could not handle landscape in my seminar documentclass 
files (but see for a patch below). In fact I now find that many other 
presentation packages suffer from the same problem e.g. prosper, 
foil. This is a pity since presentation (which are usually in 
landscape mode) and pdf are made for each other. I would appreciate 
recommendations of packages which work with landscape mode, PdfLaTeX 
and can handle seminar files with little alteration.

2. \marks seems to be a primitive of pdfLaTeX but not of LaTeX. 
Anyone knows what it does? And are there any other commands 
introduced by PdfLaTeX? I had to use \renewcommand to get back the 
\marks I had defined, but it is not good practice to do this 
especially if you don't know what the original does.

3. Is there a 'LaTeX mode' of typesetting in TeXShop or an add-on? 
(i.e. run typesetting twice, 3-times etc automatically until all 
references, indices are done. I know  that there is a (paid for) 
`Flash Mode' available.)

4. (Sorry, generic not Mac OSX question) Any views on the relative 
merits of using, for frequently used preambles, use a file to \input 
or make a package and  \usepackage or compile your on  LaTeX? Books 
tell you that the last one has the advantage of running much faster, 
but can it be done for PdfLaTeX?

If you are not interested in the background you can stop reading here.

1. My files in document class 'seminar' are in landscape mode. These 
would typeset OK but not preview and print properly with PdfLaTeX, 
all content are pushed up and to the left, the same effect described 
by someone here trying to use \magnification in PdfTeX. Tried 
typesetting with 'TeX and Ghostscript' and got error messages! 
Changed Distiller to Apple and it worked. OK, turns out Full install 
does not install Ghostscript, installed and this works OK as well. 
However, doing things this way one loses syncronicity or has to 
change typesetting at the end, not a very convenient mode of 
operation.

Searching the internet resulted in a work-around, one needs to add a 
few lines of code, enclosed at the end of this message. There is also 
a package 'fixseminar.sty' but this didn't work for me, maybe this 
only works as part of the TeXPower package.
[Minor suggestion to RichardK: make Apple the default Distiller in 
versions 2.xx, since basic/full is recommended to first timers by 
i-Installer, this would save some time and head scratching to 
newcomers.]

2. Another batch of my files would produce the error message that 
\marks was already defined + subsequent errors. Fortunately, \marks 
was in a custom .sty file, after changing to \renewcommand all was 
well. On investigating, PdfLaTeX reports: *\show \marks
	>\marks=\marks
indicating that this is a primitive. But it isn't in LaTeX. Hence my 
question 2. what is the meaning of \marks ?

3. Yet another batch of my files would give strange errors but they 
work OK for me in Textures. Not a question of new primitives or eps 
files. This paradox wasted more of my time than it should have. At 
the end I had to change only a few characters of code in a macro. It 
is a bit TeX-ish so I put it in a different message: 'Textures 
TeXShop paradox'.

4. My experiences with problems 1. and 3. made me realize that I had 
some bad habits, I would generate 'like' files by the Save As ... 
method. I would tell my students to use macros for often used 
constructs but would not myself use \input or construct a package for 
frequently used preambles. Now I will have to change individual files 
instead of just one input file or style file. This is behind my 
question 4.

Sorry for the long post, thanks for your attention if you read so far.

		Peter Vamos
		=================
To use landscape mode in seminar with PdfLaTeX put the following code 
in your preamble and all will be OK. Thanks to the pdftex
mailing list on de.comp.text.tex and to Christian Schlauer who posted it.

%%%%%%% modification to work with PdfLaTex %%%%%
\makeatletter
\newif\ifpdf
\ifx\pdfoutput\undefined
\pdffalse % we are not running PDFLaTeX
\else
\pdfoutput=1 % we are running PDFLaTeX
\pdftrue
\fi
\ifpdf % set correct page sizes for pdfTeX
\AtBeginDocument % makes the settings hyperref-proof
{%
   \setlength{\pdfhorigin}{1truein} % define page origin
   \setlength{\pdfvorigin}{1truein} % define page origin
   % class option portrait set?
   \@ifclasswith{seminar}{portrait}
   {% then page dimensions portrait
     \setlength{\pdfpagewidth}{\strip at pt\paperwidth truept}%
     \setlength{\pdfpageheight}{\strip at pt\paperheight truept}%
     }
   {% else landscape
     \setlength{\pdfpagewidth}{\strip at pt\paperheight truept}%
     \setlength{\pdfpageheight}{\strip at pt\paperwidth truept}%
     }
   }
\fi
\makeatother
%%%%%%%  end modification to work with PdfLaTex %%%%%
--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>