[tex-live] MacTeX -- xpdf

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2013-04-23 at 08:37:45 -0300, George N. White III wrote:

 > Adding more parts to MacTeX should only be done when there aren't
 > satisfactory alternatives.  The MacTeX wiki already mentions
 > Poppler as the source of those utilities
 > <http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php/Viewers#Poppler>.

Hi George,
I asked because I don't know much about OS X and MacTeX.  I know
that MacTeX comes with additional software but I didn't know whether
the xpdf utilities are included.

 > On OS X, you can install those utilities using the macports poppler
 > package.  The macports xpdf package prefixes the names of the
 > utilities with "xpdf-".  I'm not sure what is available from other
 > OS X open source packaging systems (homebrew, fink).  I rely
 > heavily on macports to support scripts that are used on OS X and
 > linux -- if you are going to be doing much scripting then it may be
 > worthwhile setting up one of the open source packaging systems.

Well, the very first thing we did after he bought the laptop was to
install macports in order to get a recent release of subversion.
Collaboration would be very difficult without access to the SVN server
on my Raspberry Pi at home.

I already installed xpdf, created a symlink pdftops -> xpdf-pdftops, but
got errormessages about missing fonts when running my script.  Because
he needs his machine in order to write his thesis and I can't login
remotely ATM, I couldn't investigate and I simply ran the script on my
machine.  Maybe we have to install ssh as well.

Anyway, trying poppler instead of xpdf is certainly worthwhile, thanks
for the hint.

Thanks also to all the others who replied.

Regards, 
  Reinhard


 > On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 7:56 PM, Reinhard Kotucha
 > <reinhard.kotucha at web.de>wrote:
 > 
 > > Hi,
 > > a friend of mine installed MacTeX (TL-2012) recently.  Everything
 > > works like a charm.  However, I wrote a script for him (on Linux)
 > > which depends on pdftops (part of xpdf).  It turned out that this
 > > program didn't exist on his system.
 > >
 > > Aren't the xpdf support programs part of MacTeX or is his installation
 > > incomplete?
 > >
 > > I don't think that xpdf itself is needed because TeXShop and TeXworks
 > > are excellent previewers, but the accompanying commandline tools
 > > like pdftops, pdffonts, pdfinfo, pdfimages... are extremely useful.
 > > Not to mention that they are extremely reliable.
 > >
 > > BTW, Akira provides the xpdf commandline tools for W32TeX and TeX Live
 > > on Windows already, hence I assume that there is a way to compile
 > > xpdf --without-xpdf  :)
 > >
 > > Unless my friend's installation is incomplete, Dick, what do you
 > > think?
 > >
 > > Regards,
 > >   Reinhard
 > >
 > > --
 > >
 > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > > Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone:
 > > +49-511-3373112
 > > Marschnerstr. 25
 > > D-30167 Hannover                              mailto:
 > > reinhard.kotucha at web.de
 > >
 > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > > Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is
 > > NO.
 > >
 > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > >
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > -- 
 > George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
 > Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

-- 
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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                              mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------