[XeTeX] XeLaTeX aborts without proper notification for large files

[Wilfred van Rooijen]

Well, I still think it's easier to split the thing up into smaller parts. Yes, xelatex is *technically* capable of doing everything, but in practice apparently *not* ;-)). But there are still options:

- organize the fonts per chapter (maybe alphabetically) and generate an index per chapter (similar to chapterbib or something - I am sure there are packages to do this). Then concatenate resulting PDFs.

- organize everything into chapters, include only one chapter at a time in a master tex file, manually set the page number, chapter number etc for the chapter, generate an index file. Then concatenate all 'chapter index' files and use that for makeindex. As far as I know, latex doesn't make the index, but some other program. Thus, all you need is to make an adequate file for makeindex :-))

- Same for the TOC, make TOCs per chapter and concatenate into one 'master-TOC'.

I agree with JK that even if you manage to somehow make this mother-of-all-PDFs, you're not doing a service to most users, because the file will be gigantic and may cause problems.

Cheers,
Wilfred


--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> From: Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net>
> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] XeLaTeX aborts without proper notification for large files
> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:55 AM
> Hi Wilfred, Jonathan, others,
> 
> Well, I'm going to generate an index and table of
> contents. So splitting
> it up is not an option, unless someone knows a way to do
> the splitting
> with correct index and toc.
> 
> But, if I choose to, I can configure it to use ten times as
> many fonts,
> just for this special document. ''Free as in
> beer'' ;) Only question is how.
> 
> As someone already guessed it, I'm making a very
> interesting font
> catalogue which will be going into print. Also, the only
> way to find out
> what the maximum is the printer can handle, is to find its
> limit by
> increasing font_max. So any extra information on what other
> constants to
> increase is very welcome.
> 
> As background information, first I tried the approach of
> including PNGs
> rendered via command line Inkscape. This was working, but
> since XeLaTeX
> can do 'everything' and I prefer doing all in TeX,
> I ran into this obstacle.
> 
> So, which packages do I need to rebuild? Only texlive-xetex
> or also others?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Pander
> 
> Wilfred van Rooijen wrote:
> > Hey Pander,
> > 
> > Why trying so hard to do something xelatex is
> apparently not supposed to do? Is there any reason to have
> all fonts in only one input file? You could also cut the job
> into several pieces (maybe even using a master tex file and
> appropriate \input{}), then later concatenate the
> resulting PDFs to make one document.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Wilfred 
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Tue, 2/3/09, Pander
> <pander at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> > 
> >> From: Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net>
> >> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] XeLaTeX aborts without proper
> notification for large files
> >> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other
> platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> >> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 8:07 AM
> >> Jonathan Kew wrote:
> >>> On 30 Jan 2009, at 17:56, Pander wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Peter Dyballa wrote:
> >>>>> Am 30.01.2009 um 17:39 schrieb Pander:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> If this error is related to some
> maximum
> >> memory sizes of XeTeX,  
> >>>>>> where
> >>>>>> and how do I change these?
> >>>>> First show us how you manage to define
> and use
> >> 1,000 different fonts!
> >>>>> This is an impossible task.
> >>>> Make a python script that iterates over
> all the
> >> fonts and generates a
> >>>> TeX file using all those fonts. It works
> fine, but
> >> only up to a  
> >>>> certain
> >>>> file size.
> >>>>
> >>>> What parameters do I need to tweek in
> order to be
> >> able to successfully
> >>>> run xelatex?
> >>> There's a font_max parameter (see
> texmf.cnf) that
> >> is probably set to  
> >>> 5000; this is the maximum number of separate
> \font
> >> definitions that  
> >>> TeX can handle in a job.
> >> in /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf is
> >>
> >> % Total number of fonts. Must be >= 50 and
> <= 2000
> >> (without tex.ch changes).
> >> font_max = 2000
> >>
> >> How do I increate this over 2000 since my Ubuntu
> system
> >> does not have a
> >> tex.ch?
> >>
> >>> Note that if you load a font family with
> fontspec it
> >> will use up  
> >>> several \font definitions per family, as
> it tests
> >> for various styles  
> >>> and features, so the practical limit on font
> families
> >> defined via  
> >>> fontspec will be several times smaller.
> >>>
> >>> I can't imagine any good reason to require
> 1000
> >> fonts in a single job.  
> >>> If you're trying to produce a font
> catalogue,
> >> simply do it in several  
> >>> parts.
> >>>
> >>> JK
> >>>
> >>>
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