[OS X TeX] Installing the powerdot and xkeyval packages - Mac newbie

[Hans Marius Eikseth]

Hi all,

let me just say thanks a bunch for the replies I've gotten to my question.
Quickly as well!

> > What I need, what I want, is a working installation of the Powerdot
> > package
> > in my MacTeX distribution. 'No problem' I hear the Mac savvy say,  
> > but I'm
> > drowning in documentation and uncertainty about when (if) I should  
> > override
> > read/write/permissions in my texmf.local tree - or if such 
> packages  
> > should
> > go elsewhere altogether.
> 
> What is even better, you are starting with TeX on the Mac at 
> the moment when it is in a state of flux. We'll try to keep 
> old instructions  
> somewhat valid,
> but that's not going to be easy.

Flux all right :)  I'm more than a wee bit confused about the triple(?)
distribution (teTeX, TeX Live, gwTeX) and associated trees.

I'll just stop issuing sudo's until I have a better grip of all things OS X,
and heed the good advice about ~/Library/texmf for now, realising that my
wife never will complain about missing powerdot package as she likely won't
pick up LaTeX in the first place :p

> > (I cannot use i-Installer, as this is based on teTeX, and 
> as such last 
> > release is from 2005 - and with a development lag, I don't believe
> > powerdot
> > made it in there. The TeX engine complained anyway ;) )
> 
> At this moment, if you use i-Installer, you'll get an up-to-date  
> install,
> based on TeXLive. However, since you installed MacTeX, you 
> may have installed the i-Installer TeX anyway, since one of 
> them is based on what i-Installer does. So, If you can 
> specify the exact name of the image you used for 
> installation, we will be able to be more specific.

Could well be, but even using the latest (19.01.) i-installer, and choosing
the gwTeXLive stuff, powerdot seems missing. But then again, I'm not
familiar with the i-Installer universe, and how it's boundaries are
expanded.

> PowerDot is a nice class for presentations, but has one 
> drawback: it needs latex + dvips + ghostscript. This is not 
> the default in most  
> Mac-TeX
> frontends. Again, please be specific: which front-end did you use,  
> and did you
> set it to use TeX + Ghostscript, rather than pdfTeX. 

I dont' see the dvips->ps2pdf as a drawback - why do you? (I'm curious
and/or ignorant).

> Step one is to see if the thing is 
> there already:
> 
> In the terminal:
> $ kpsewhich powerdot.cls
> For me this gives no response, and that indicates that TeX cannot  
> find it:
> we need to install.

Good advice, and I fiddled around discovering those latest updates (since
powerdot.cls didn't respond).

> In the terminal:
> $ kpsewhich -show-path=tex -progname=latex
> This will show the complete search path. After some minor cleanup,  
> this gives me:
> .
> /Users/maarten/Library/texmf/tex/latex//
> !!/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.local/tex/latex//
> !!/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.pkgs/tex/latex//
> !!/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.gwtex/tex/latex//
> !!/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex//
> !!/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf/tex/latex//
> 


I got a couple of paths more, which I guess is unimportant. That texmf.pkgs
is a mystery I'll dig into. What nags me about that local (Users) install,
is a scenario where updated/bugfixed packages from a regular update won't be
seen b/c of packages installed in that first path. Am I correct in my
understanding here?

> Unless you need to support more than one user on your 
> machine, I would recommend to stick to you Library/texmf tree 
> for private installs.
> 
> HTMH,
> 
> Maarten

Ok, I did this with both the powerdot and xkeyval package, and finally
typeset the lecture note I had lying about on my windows box.

Some minor migrational issues remain (aside from that flux issue to start
with ;) ):

Being Scandinavian, I get those æøå's messed up going from Windows Ultraedit
to Mac's TeXShop. And - that pdf Previewer, it has no full screen mode,
correct?
---

Again, thank you Maarten - and everyone else helping me out by answering.

Best regards,
Hans Marius Eikseth


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