[OS X TeX] Why is cmr10.tfm not being used?

[Herbert Schulz]

On Sep 7, 2012, at 5:52 PM, Doug McKenna <doug at mathemaesthetics.com> wrote:

> All -
> 
> I'm running:
>  TeXLive 2010
>  TeXShop 2.36
>  MacOS 10.6.8
> 
> My entire MWE source file (FontTest.tex) is:
> 
> \tracingassigns=1
> \tracingonline=1
> \font\fontname=cmr10.tfm
> \fontname
> \bye
> 
> Runnnig TeX under either plain or LaTeX format, or with DVI output or 
> not, the log file is
> 
> This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.11 (TeX Live 2010) (format=pdftex 
> 2011.2.17)  4 SEP 2012 21:27
> entering extended mode
> \write18 enabled.
> file:line:error style messages enabled.
> %&-line parsing enabled.
> **FontTest.tex
> (./FontTest.tex{into \tracingassigns=1}
> {changing \tracingonline=0}
> {into \tracingonline=1}
> {changing \fontname=\fontname}
> {into \fontname=select font nullfont}
> {reassigning current font=\fontname}
> )
> No pages of output.
> PDF statistics:
> 0 PDF objects out of 1000 (max. 8388607)
> 0 named destinations out of 1000 (max. 500000)
> 1 words of extra memory for PDF output out of 10000 (max. 10000000)
> 
> My question is: Why is it defining \fontname to be "select nullfont"?  I 
> thought "cmr10.tfm" was pretty basic and always available.  And if not, 
> why isn't it telling me it's not finding what I thought I wanted it to 
> use?
> 
> Here's the search for the TFM file, which finds it here:
> 
> find /usr/local/texlive -name cmr10.tfm -print
> /usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/fonts/tfm/public/cm/cmr10.tfm
> 
> Thanks in advance for any info or explanation of a misunderstanding on my 
> part. 
> 
> 
> 
> Doug McKenna


Howdy,

First cmr10.tfm is NOT a font, just use cmr10.

Second, why would you expect a pdf file to be produced when there is nothing in the file. Try

%%!TEX TS-program = pdftex
%%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
\tracingassigns=1
\tracingonline=1
\font\fontname=cmr10
\fontname
Hello World
\bye

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)