[XeTeX] How to make some pdf with xetex from commandline?

[Wilfred van Rooijen]

When using Kile, it is likely that the default built-in command to compile a .tex to .pdf is either pdftex or pdflatex. Thus the xelatex is not used.

1. Make a simple test.tex file. Make sure it has some xelatex-specific commands and/or packages, so use \usepackage{fontspec} or something similar. Then open a terminal and run

name at computer > xelatex test.tex

2. If that succeeds, try the same from Kile or other "front end" you want to use. If that fails, then you know that xelatex is not being used.

I don't know Kile, but I use gedit + latex plugin, which allows to set up customized compilation chains, so I made my own setup with a special short-cut for xelatex. I think the same is possible in any other "tex-capable" editor.

See you,
Wilfred

--- On Sun, 29/11/09, Joe Pleso <joe.pleso at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Joe Pleso <joe.pleso at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] How to make some pdf with xetex from commandline?
> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> Date: Sunday, 29 November, 2009, 5:50 AM
> if you are using xelatex, you shouldn't
> load pdftex as xelatex will take care of the output itself.
> if you remove
> \usepackage{pdftex}
> from main.tex, which i assume is the line that
> is causing the problem, it should work. if you could post
> the first couple lines of main.tex, we could probably help
> you more.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 9:06 AM,
> Kārlis Repsons <karlis.repsons at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> just installed all of the latest texlive tree and now find
> myself in confusion
> 
> about how to actually use xetex?! Perhaps it would be
> better to first make it
> 
> work from console and then with Kile?
> 
> Maybe its really just simple, but, for example, $ xelatex
> main.tex outputs
> 
> lots of text including:
> 
> 
> 
> "
> 
> ! Package pdftex.def Error: Option `pdftex' requires
> pdfTeX,
> 
> (pdftex.def)                but pdfTeX features are
> missing.
> 
> (pdftex.def)                Loading of this driver
> file is abort
 
> "
> 
> 
> 
> Its on default install, I've updated $PATH to include
> texlive/2009/bin/x86_64-
> 
> linux (absolute path of course!)... Couldn't figure out
> any soon... Isn't
> 
> pdftex part of texlive file tree?
> 
> Anyone willing to help me out with this?
> 
> 
> 
> 


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