[XeTeX] Re: [MacTeX] XeTeX

[Ross Moore]

On 13/04/2004, at 3:31 AM, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>
> Aside: I think this step too will create problems with Gerben's 
> install.
> The directory /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf/ inside which texmf.cnf 
> lives
> (inside web2c) is erased in the process. Actually, if I remember
> correctly, Gerben's installer warns that texmf.cnf will be replaced by 
> a
> newer version, and asks whether the former version should be saved on 
> the
> Desktop (default answer is yes) so that the user can inspect it later 
> and
> merge his/her changes with the newer version.

Yes.
Gerben just wrote saying that he *does* rewrite complete directories.

I knew there was a reason why I do *not* run his installers on my 
laptop.
Instead I use and maintain my own teTeX installation, updating packages
only when I have a specific need for them, using the latest TeXLive
or CTAN.

This could be related to why I'm having trouble with the CM-test.tex
example; but if so, it must mean that XeTeX has some paths hard-coded
into it, where it looks for the OTF fonts. That's surely a bad thing.


>>   5.  make sure to run:  sudo texhash
>
> Sorry, I wasn't clear in my cry for help: I did not have problems with
> creating the format with initex (I did this routinely at the time I was
> running OzTeX), my problems were about adding this format to the list 
> of
> available formats (Plain, LaTeX, ConTeXt) in TeXShop.
> The ideal solution would be that it behaves as Textures, i.e. you 
> create
> the .fmt (or here .xfmt) file and put it where it belongs, and then the
> format becomes automatically one of the available formats in TeXShop.
> As I understand it, the above isn't possible, the only possibility is 
> to
> create an executable file or script calling the new format, and define 
> it
> as the personal script in TeXShop, and set TeXShop to use the personal
> script by default. A drawback of this method is that you can only have 
> one
> personal script for Plain and another for LaTeX.

I've already written to Richard Koch on exactly this issue.
I'll forward you his reply.


> I tried the newer method and it seems to work:
>
> 1. Run "xeinitex -jobname=xelatex latex.ltx".
>
> 2. Move the created xelatex.xfmt to
> /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/web2c/.
> 3. Move to /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current and run 
> "ln
> -s xetex xelatex", to created a symlink xelatex to xetex.
> 4. Run "sudo texhash".
>
> 5. In TeXShop, define xelatex to be your personal LaTeX script.

That sounds right.
Glad to hear that it works properly.

> I tried it with Bob's letter, it works. Two worries though: (i) the 
> colour
> lines don't show up, because of course there is no color driver for

Yep.

> xdv2pdf yet; (ii) the margins seem to be different from those with 
> pdfTeX
> or TeX + dvips, possibly because my setup is made for A4 paper (a 
> choice
> during Gerben's install) and the same has probably not been applied to
> xetex.

xdv2pdf has a papersize option.
However, with no help-file available for it, I don't know how to make
use of it automatically from an XeTeX job.
  One way would be to do something like:
    xelatex -no-pdf  document.tex
    xdv2pdf -p a4  document.xdv
(I've not tested this yet.)


Now that you have a working xelatex as well as xetex, would
you please do the short test that I gave in a previous message:

[glenlivet:] rossmoor% more mtest
\mathchardef\tmp\mathcode`\(
\show\tmp
\bye

Check the result of processing this with:
   tex,  pdftex,  etex,  pdfetex  and  xetex .

If they are all the same, then that's good.
But I get  xetex  producing the following:

This is XeTeXk, Version 3.14159-2.1-0.3 (Web2C 7.5.2)
  %&-line parsing enabled.
entering extended mode
(./mtest
! Bad mathchar (67108904).
l.1 \mathchardef\tmp\mathcode`\(

?
 > \tmp=\mathchar"0.
l.2 \show\tmp

?
  )

which indicates that \mathcode data hasn't been set
correctly, thereby killing much of the mathematics
support in XeTeX, and also killing some of the methods
used by AMS packages for creating and using math-struts
in the typesetting of not-obviously-math constructions.
(In short, XeTeX has big problems with many documents.)


Of course, it could be my personally-maintained setup
that is faulty, which is why I want confirmation from
elsewhere.


All the best,

	Ross


> Cheers,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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