[XeTeX] How to finish the installation of XeTeX 0.99993 (on MacOS)?

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Nov 13, 2016, at 4:16 PM, George N. White III <gnwiii at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 2:33 PM, Christian Boitet <Christian.Boitet at imag.fr> wrote:
> Dear TeX fans,					13/11/16
> 
> it is the first time I post anything on this list: I have used LaTeX for lectures, slides, conference papers, etc. for many years, I have a complete reference book, and always found answers in it or on the Web.
> This time, I am quite stuck! One Japanese colleague has used XeTeX on her Mac and passed me her files to do some debugging concerning the bibliography.
> 
> I am using TeXShop (latest version), I reinstalled MacLive, and then MacTeX-2016, which are supposed to come with XeTeX. No way.
> The message is always the same. Trying to complie from TeXShop:
> 
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt xelatex.fmt
> warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
> /opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
> Trying to proceed...
> /opt/local/bin/mktexfmt: line 336: /texconfig/tcfmgr: No such file or directory
> fmtutil: config file `fmtutil.cnf' not found.
> I can't find the format file `xelatex.fmt'!
> 
> These messages are from macports' texlive.  Macports somewhat selfishly puts itself to the 
> front of the PATH variable.  I routinely adjust this to put the MacTeX path in front of the 
> macports' entry.  Macports texlive is required to support building docmentation of packages
> installed from source, but when installing from source, the PATH variable is set to ignore
> MacTeX, so this works well form most users.
> 
> Or, trying xelatex directly:
> 
> ...Mutsuko-Cogalex-20161112-rvCB: xelatex CogCog-Alex-20161112-rvCB.tex
> warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
> /opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
> Trying to proceed...
> This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592-2.2-0.996-patch1 (Web2C 7.5.6)
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt xelatex.fmt
> warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
> /opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
> Trying to proceed...
> /opt/local/bin/mktexfmt: line 336: /texconfig/tcfmgr: No such file or directory
> fmtutil: config file `fmtutil.cnf' not found.
> I can't find the format file `xelatex.fmt'!
> 
> 
> I then tried to reinstall separately XeTeX (version 0.9993). 
> The build (using build.sh) was quite successful, and created after a quite long process a directory named "build-x86_64" and apparently correctly built.
> But I DON'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO FINISH THE INSTALL, which should place the files where expected.
> The INSTALL file (inside build-x86_64) says somewhat cryptically:
> 
> INSTALL for XeTeX Snapshots
> 
> This distribution is essentially a stripped-down version of 
> the TeXlive distribution with some additional libraries.
> 
> All source code is in the directory source; the build.sh
> scripts will generate and populate a directory build.
>  
> The actual code of XeTeX is in source/texk/web2c/xetexdir
> and its subdirectories.
> 
> * build.sh         builds a native xetex on your system
> * build.sh --ppc   crosscompiles for osx-ppx from osx-intel
> * build.sh --mingw crosscompiles xetex for mingw32 on i686-linux
> 
> XeTeX does not need a run-time pool file, and it locates
> texmf.cnf based on its relative position in the TeX tree.
> 
> Post-compilation installation should be a simple matter 
> of copying the executable to a normal place for web2c 
> binaries and generating the desired formats.
> 
> What is "the executable"? The complete directory (transformed in an .app file -- a "package")? Some of the executables in the texk>kpathsea directory?
> And what is "a normal place for web2c" ???
> 
> I tried hard but did not find any tutorial or online discussion on that matter. Please help!
> 
> Thanks in advance, 
> Xan
> 
> This all has to do with the bash shell configuration -- something many macOS users 
> rarely encounter.  You need to look into the startup configuration for bash in a bash 
> manual.   The macports changes are clearly marked, and the manual will explain
> how to adjust them for your needs.

Howdy,

If all this is true place the line

export PATH=/Library/TeX/texbin:$PATH

as the very last line in your ~/.profile (and/or ~/.bash_profile).

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)