TeX 1995 July/TeX CD-ROM July 1995 (Disc 1)(Walnut Creek)(1995).ISO/tex-k/tex-k-archive.past/tex-k-archive.gz/tex-k-archive/[e-mail]_Mon May 16 14:13:53 1994.msg

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Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 21:13:53 -0700
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To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re:  aaagghhh --- all my error --- everything works fine
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Hi,

Last week, I reported what I thought were some problems with the new
kpathsea on a DEC alpha.  Finally, I figured out that kpathsea was
*fine*.  My problem: I still had a TeX environmental variable set in
my shell --- I thought I had gotten rid of all of them, but TEXFONTS
was still being set --- and that screwed up everything.  This was
confounded with a separate set of errors due to my not having pk files
installed.  After I finally got everything sorted out (with many
thanks to Pierre MacKay, Elizabeth who works with him (what's your
last name?), and Karl Berry), Karl Berry responded to me:

-> I'm glad all is ok -- though all this means *something* in
-> the documentation has gotta be improved!

So, here are my suggestions for improvements, stemming from my
experience. Thanks so much to all involved in creating and maintaining
the distribution!  Hope you find some of these suggestions helpful.

Ken

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have two suggestions to avoid this problem in the future:

(1) Explicitly mention the problem in the documentation, e.g.:

    Make sure that you do not have any TeX environmental
    variables set in your environment (e.g. TEXFONTS, etc --- try
    "set | grep -i tex" and "setenv | grep -i tex" to check).

    Should you find that tex, dvips, or xdvi cannot find
    relevant files, one of the following two problems
    exists: (a) the programs are searching in the wrong
    directories; (b) they are searching in the right
    directories, but the files are not there.
    To troubleshoot (a), try running xdvi and/or dvips with -d
    127, so that it reports to you what it thinks it is looking
    for.  Compare this with the paths in the corresponding
    kpathsea/paths.h, which should be identical. If these are not
    identical, the programs are searching for a path set by a TeX
    variable in your environment; modify your environment to get
    rid of all such variables and try again.
    To troubleshoot (b), look in the directories in which the
    programs are searching, and in their subdirectories.  Xdvi
    and dvips look for pk font files (not mf or tfm).  If you do
    not have any pk files, you probably forgot to unzip and install
    the pk300.zip file.  If you have some pk files, xdvi or
    dvips may be looking for fonts not included with that
    distribution.  Dvips will make and save fonts that it cannot
    find; xdvi will do so also, *if* you set the flag -DMAKETEXPK
    before compiling (see instructions). Thus, after enough use,
    you should accumulate a nearly complete set of fonts for your
    site.  Alternatively, additional fonts can be ftped from __________.

(2) Change the behavior of kpathsea so that environmentally-set paths
    do not *override* the default paths, but rather insert
themselves *in front of* the default paths.  This might be a good
idea; on the other hand, it could also condemn some people to looong
searches.  So, if this were implemented, the idea of weeding out bad
paths from one's environment should nonetheless be well documented.

I also have several other suggestions:

(1) include the tex font Makefile from Pierre MacKay and Elizabeth ?
    ([e-mail]) in the $(fontdir)/public/cm/src
directory;
(2) include the latex font Makefile from Pierre MacKay and Elizabeth
    in the $(fontdir)/public/latex/src directory;
(3) include a full set of latex pk fonts as part of the default
    distribution (I can supply a zipped tar file of these if you like)
(4) include the pk300w.zip file as part of the default distribution,
    with instructions for where to install it;
(5) include Pierre MacKay's .TeXrc file as part of the distribution,
    point people to it in the instructions as a suggestion for how to
set one's environment and organize the fontfiles; and note explicitly
that the write-white files make xdvi much crisper and so it is good to
set them first in xdvi's path, as in the .TeXrc.

My reasons: (a) many or most people use latex, so perhaps latex fonts
should be a basic part of a distribution; (b) the makefiles are
invaluable in showing you how to make fonts on your own, and yet take
up almost no space; (3) for me, at least, the write-white files
produce a much crisper xdvi, and I never would have found this out
without communicating directly with Pierre MacKay; and (4) the .TeXrc
was a terrific help in allowing me to see what was going on with the
fonts and searchpaths, and to organize appropriately including
figuring out how to get xdvi to find the write-white fonts first.