[XeTeX] Working directory?

[Gareth Hughes]

Tony Hellmann wrote:
> Forgive the noob question, but where is my working directory? I've installed
> TeXLive 2008, and did a search for book.cls, and can't find it. Assumed it
> would be in the working directory (that's how I was going to identify which
> directory is the working directory) but it didn't find the file and thus I
> don't know.
> 
> --Tony

Your working directory is the directory with which you're working. On
Linux machines the command pwd will tell you where you are. In TeX
terms, the compiler searches the working directory first for its input.
So, if you're compiling mydoc.tex, you will want to run it in the same
directory, or TeX will tell you it can't find the file.

Files that are used by a number of documents, like book.cls, are kept in
texmf directories. You can use the command kpsewhich book.cls to find
out exactly where that is on your installation, mine is
/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/book.cls.

When you start a .tex file with the line \documentclass{book}, it will
load book.cls, and TeX will know where to find it. On my installation,
there's a document called
/usr/share/texmf-texlive/doc/english/tds/tds.pdf that describes the
directory structure. You can call it with the command texdoc tds &.

I hope that helps,

Gareth.

-- 
Gareth Hughes

Department of Eastern Christianity
Oriental Institute
Pusey Lane
Oxford
OX1 2LE

+44 (0)1865 610227