<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"><div dir="ltr">Good Luck,<div>Herb Schulz</div></div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Oct 23, 2023, at 11:49 AM, Tom Sgouros <tsgouros@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Thank you Herb, that's what I was after. And I understand your point about updates, but I prefer to make my choices when I understand the options rather than because one of them remains clouded in mystery.<div><br></div><div>Thanks!</div><div><br></div><div> -Tom</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 12:42 PM Herbert Schulz <<a href="mailto:herbs2@mac.com">herbs2@mac.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
<br>
> On Oct 23, 2023, at 8:39 AM, Tom Sgouros <<a href="mailto:tsgouros@gmail.com" target="_blank">tsgouros@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> Hi Herb:<br>
> <br>
> By "my files" I mean the packages and fonts I've written and accumulated over the past thirty years of using LaTeX. Yes, it seems kind of improbable to me, too.<br>
> <br>
> The problem with a link is that by the next time I upgrade or change machines, I'll forget what it's doing there. I was hoping that someone here would have some insight into how the "~" comes to have a different meaning inside the texlive texmf.cnf than it does in the shell. Why is one "/Users/tom" and the other is "/Users/tom/Library" and can I change that? <br>
> <br>
> Thanks,<br>
> <br>
> -Tom<br>
> <br>
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 8:54 AM Herbert Schulz <<a href="mailto:herbs2@mac.com" target="_blank">herbs2@mac.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> > On Oct 22, 2023, at 10:22 PM, Tom Sgouros <<a href="mailto:tsgouros@gmail.com" target="_blank">tsgouros@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> > <br>
> > Hello all:<br>
> > <br>
> > I recently installed TexLive 2023 on my Mac (Macos13.2), and it seems like variables like "TEXMFHOME = ~/texmf" defined in the system-wide texmf.cnf resolve to /Users/tom/Library/texmf instead of "Users/tom/texmf". How can I make them resolve to where my files are? <br>
> > <br>
> > Thank you,<br>
> > <br>
> > -Tom <br>
> <br>
> Howdy,<br>
> <br>
> What do you mean by `my files'? The personal tree is really meant for peersonal packages and possibly personal fonts. You can put your source files anywhere.<br>
> <br>
> One thing you can do is to make a symbolic link in ~/Library to your files: run<br>
> <br>
> ln -s ~/texmf ~/Library/texmf<br>
> <br>
> which will produce a small file that points to your files.<br>
> <br>
> There are other things you can do but I suggest this is the simplest.<br>
> <br>
> Good Luck,<br>
> <br>
> Herb Schulz<br>
> <a href="mailto:herbs2@mac.com" target="_blank">herbs2@mac.com</a><br>
<br>
Howdy,<br>
<br>
It's possible to override the default. For the TeX Live installed by MacTeX there is a file in the root of the yearly distribution (/usr/local/texlive/2023/ for TeX Live 2023) called texmf.cnf that contains overrides including<br>
<br>
TEXMFHOME = ~/Library/texmf<br>
<br>
and you could change that. Note: those files are owned by root so you need to use `sudo` when editing the file.<br>
<br>
HOWEVER, I don't recommend doing that because if you update to next year's TeX Live the override file will be back to the changes used by MacTeX and I can almost guarantee the change will be forgotten and that happens more often than changing computers, etc.<br>
<br>
Good Luck,<br>
<br>
Herb Schulz<br>
<a href="mailto:herbs2@mac.com" target="_blank">herbs2@mac.com</a><br><br>
</blockquote></div>
</div></blockquote><br><div>Howdy,</div><div><br></div><div>Of course you could simply move ~/texmf to ~/Library/texmf and be done with it once and for all. </div></body></html>