fpTEX: a teTEX-Based Distribution for Windows

FABRICE POPINEAU
École Supérieure d'Électricité, Metz, France
popineau@ese-metz.fr

Abstract:  This is an announcement for a new free TEX distribution for Win32. It is based on the well-known, widely used teTEX distribution for UNIX environments. The adaptation to Win32 is described: what choices have been made, how it is intended to be used on personal workstations or networks, and the specific Win32 tools that have been designed.

Special thanks to: Karl Berry, Olaf Weber, Sebastian Rahtz and Thomas Esser (and probably many others!) for their wonderful work.

Why based on teTEX?

The teTEX distribution is based on Web2C, and most of the free developments around TEX are made on a Web2C basis. The teTEX distribution encapsulates Web2C into something very easy--albeit powerful--to install and use under UNIX. So naturally, I tried to replicate teTEX features under Win32. Here follows a brief description of what can be found in fpTEX, and some small differences with regard to the original version. It is interesting to note that all the source code is the very same. The difference in building the distribution lies mostly in Makefiles and tools. On other difference which merits special mention: the XDvi previewer provided with teTEX was not portable under Win32. However, all the core code has been reused in a new wrapper, and the result is Windvi.

The installer

An InstallShield-based installer is provided. It is devised to allow personal or network installations. The user is asked for some basic configuration date. Here are some predefined schemes:

• personal installation

• network installation, Win32 environment

• network installation, Win32 and UNIX mixed environment

The installer allows a selection of packages on a per-tool basis. That means if you ask for L^ATEX, you will get all the L^ATEX packages.

The configuration tool

The teTEX distribution provides a Swiss-army knife to do all the configuration management. This tool, called texconfig, has been adapted to the Win32 environment under the form of tabbed dialog boxes.