[pdftex] no room for a new dimen ... !?

[Hans Hagen]

At 02:20 PM 12/5/2001 +0100, Erwin Achermann wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>Miktex allows to install and update packages from CTAN very comfortably,
>this is why i update all the packages and install new packages quite
>often in recent times. So often that i cannot remember what newly added
>or updated package broke my pdflatex version of my book. However i'am
>now facing the error:
>
>(C:\Program Files\MiKTeX\tex\context\base\supp-mis.tex
>loading : Context Support Macros / Missing
>! No room for a new \dimen .
>\ch at ck ...rrmessage {No room for a new #3}
>                                           \fi
>l.165 ...extdepth \do \newdimen \nextdepth
>                                            \fi
>)
>
>This is not one of those infamous 'TeX-capacity exceeded' incarnation,
>is it? I don't think either that this is a problem of supp-mis.tex,
>right?  However, where and how do i increase the room for new dimens, or
>what could be a feasible reason why pdflatex uses more dimens than good
>old latex, which digests the file without any problems?

There used to be such problems with using ppchtex and pictex in latex; 
there a trick is used:

\def\newskimen#1%
   {\ifx#1\undefined
      \csname new\ifnum\count11>\count12 skip\else dimen\fi\endcsname#1%
    \fi}

\def\LoadSkimedFile#1%
   {\let\normalnewdimen\newdimen
    \let\newdimen\newskimen
    \input #1 \relax
    \let\newdimen\normalnewdimen}

if this fails (because \newdimen is still outer):

\def\LoadSkimmedFile#1%
   {\let\normalnewdimen\newdimen
    \expandafter\let\csname newdimen\endcsname\newskimen
    \input #1 \relax
    \expandafter\let\csname newdimen\endcsname\normalnewdimen}

should work with \LoadSkimmedFile{The dimen hungry file}

problematic \dimens can be predefined with \newdimen\ProblematicOne 
beforehand.

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma at wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------