[tlu] installing new packages

[Bruno Voisin]

> Le 26 janv. 2015 à 15:27, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> a écrit :
> 
>> On Jan 26, 2015, at 6:48 AM, Sebastian <sebastian.beckhaeuser at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> i am using the latest mactex and the tlmgr on my mac osx 10.10
>> for my document i need the “picins” package, but unfortunately i don’t find it in the manager to install and also trying to install it manually won’t work.
>> do you have any suggestions how i can install this package.
> 
> The picins package has been archived and was meant to be used with the ancient LaTeX 2.09. You can still get it from CTAN and you simply unzip it and place it in ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex. Note: ~/Library is the Library folder in your HOME folder, NOT the one at the root of your Hard Drive. By default it is hidden under Yosemite (actually OS X 10.7 and later). To Open that Folder hold down the option key while clicking on the Go menu in Finder; a new Library item will appear and click on that. If you've never done that before you will need to create the folder hierarchy texmf/tex/latex (first make texmf then make tex inside that and finally latex insidde that) and finally place the unzipped folder inside that latex folder.

It seems the picins package isn't in TeX Live because of licensing restrictions. Namely, picins.sty contains

%       !!!  Dieses Style-File ist urheberrechtlich geschuetzt  !!!
%       !!!  Aenderungen nur mit Zustimmung der Autoren         !!! 

My German is very far away, but according to <http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=61960> this means more or less the file is copyrighted and can only be modified by authorization of the author. This contradicts TeX Live's licensing philosophy, and may explain why it's only on CTAN.

Hence you can get it from CTAN at <http://www.ctan.org/pkg/picins>. Then it seems the various pieces could be installed as

~/Library/texmf/doc/latex/picins/LIES.MICH
~/Library/texmf/doc/latex/picins/mpic.dvi
~/Library/texmf/doc/latex/picins/picins.txt
~/Library/texmf/doc/latex/picins/README.1st

~/Library/texmf/source/latex/picins/mandel.msp
~/Library/texmf/source/latex/picins/mexhat1.msp
~/Library/texmf/source/latex/picins/mexhat2.msp
~/Library/texmf/source/latex/picins/picins.doc

~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/picins/extpic.sty
~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/picins/picins.alt
~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/picins/picins.sty

mpic.dvi is the doc, opening it in TeXShop will create a matching PDF file. It's in German though. picins.txt is an English summary.

picins.doc is documented source code (in German).

An English documentation is provided in section 6.4.2 of the LaTeX Companion 2nd edn.

> More modern versions for inserting pictures in paragraphs are wrapfig and floatflt both of which are part of TeX Live, installed by MacTeX. I'd suggest learning how to use those packages.

I would have thought so, especially since it's only in the LaTeX 2.09 CTAN repository (and for a start, the package dates back to 1992!). But it's been described as current in the LaTeX Companion 2nd edn, that is in 2006, alongside wrapfig, by the LaTeX grandmasters themselves. Hence I don't know what to think of it.

Bruno