Re: So what is the point of darwinports then?

Andy Hewitt <wildrover.andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Andy Hewitt <wildrover.andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If you think that's bad, then you should see what you have to do to
install a Fink system!

All the substantial Unix-type installations I've installed have caused
me trouble. And that includes MacTeX - which provides a pukka Mac
installer...

If it weren't for the fact that MacTeX is the easiest route to power
that I have documentation to teach me how to use, and I have a use for,
I wouldn't have persevered. I have had to write my own installation
manual. One of these days, I might re-write it so someone else could
use it - at the moment, all it does is provide a recipe to follow to
give me what I want. It's not useful in the general case.

I installed TeXLive here, and it works a dream.

MacTeX gives you TeXLive fully configured with a full set of supporting
apps, and with all the Unixy stuff fully configured to `just work' right
out of the box.

It's great, but:

The big problems for me are that the directory structure supplied does
not have a guaranteed safe place for system-wide local additions, and
the supplied LaTeX formats come with Babel set up.

I've found a work-around for the first problem that doesn't involve
major surgery (which was required with MacTeX 2006, but not with the
2007 version), and managed to figure out how to set things up so I could
build LaTeX formats with my local hyphen.cfg file rather than Babel's
version.

Most people won't want to unplug Babel, but - well, I want UK
hyphenation as standard, y'know? (you get US English hyphenation as
standard, and it is different). Babel didn't exist when I started using
LaTeX, and Babel wasn't included as a standard fitment with the two pre
OS X Mac TeX ports I used so all my old documents rather assume it's not
there.

I can't see any obvious way to do that with Babel, although I'm told
that people do set up LaTeX formats using their particular language as
the default.

Well, I have to say thanks for pointing that out, I had installed it,
and wasn't aware that it worked that way. Might have to look into that.

Mind you, my use of LaTeX has just taken a downturn. I recently produced
an AGM report booklet for my sister's church, and made a couple of
monumental ***-ups, neother of which would have happened if I was using
Pages.

I copied and pasted all the report articles into TeXShop, added the
sections, title page, and text formating as necessary. However, I forgot
I had to edit *all* the bloody quotes and apostrophes, as some had be
sent as 'smart' quotes. I printed a document with almost *no*
apostrophes at all - along with a few missing intraword dashes.

I'm not sure what you mean by `some had to be sent as `smart' quotes'.
No such concept in TeX.

But: I think I've met that problem. One of the downsides of OS X is
that I've yet to find a tool to let me do that sort of search+replace
job as easily as with the pre OS X tool I have. Automated search and
replace - that's the standard way to deal with that sort of thing (if
it's what I think).

If the trouble is what I think, you need some kind of pre-processing via
a search and replace thingy. I wrote my own some years ago. I need to
learn how to use sed or Perl or something so I can move to an OS X
native tool, but you know what? The pre OS X tool I use was really well
documented... There's probably Perl stuff on CTAN to do the job that's
needful in this case, mind.

If you've got a file with pukka (non-ASCII) quote marks in it and
they're correct, it'll work via TeX if you put this in your preamble:
\usepackage[applemac]{inputenc}

If you've got a file with normal `unsexed' ASCII quote marks in it, TeX
won't play automagical games to sort 'em out - was the problem?

As far as the dashes go, if you've got correct dashes,
\usepackage[applemac]{inputenc} sorts TeX out to know what to do with
'em.

I gather that there's no need to use that package if you're using XeTeX.

And automated search and replace is how to deal with any remaining
issues.

I also forgot I was printing an A5 booklet, so the standard output got
reduced again, and was rather small.

Erm? Eh? How do you mean? I don't get output reduced in size if I'm
printing an A5 booklet from a (La)TeX source. I can't think of any
reason why you would.

(Not that I've tried doing the job since I got OS X. I had a much
better documented (i.e., it had a manual) TeX installation back then. I
don't even know where to start looking for the info and tools to do it
now - well, aside from `ask on comp.text.tex')

Rowland.

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