[tex-live] updmap.cfg query

Rowland McDonnell rjmmnet-lists at yahoo.co.uk
Sun Jul 26 18:56:45 CEST 2009


>    > Could anyone give me a hint as to where I might look to find out
>    > about the process of tlmgr installing a fount?
>
>I doubt it will help, but FWIW, I (with the help of many others)
>recently wrote a web page on font installation:
>http://tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html.

Thank you for that - I think I already understood everything that page
has to say, except that it was useful for me to discover the following
incantation:

kpsewhich --var-value TEXMFLOCAL

(I can't remember things like that; I have to make written notes in
places that I'll find them at a time when they'll be useful.  This is
not easy to do.  I did mention that I'm a Mac user.  I'm not scared of
command lines, but I usually can't remember command line incantations.
I don't use the command line much and - well, my mind just isn't set up
for keeping track of the required information.  Just bear that in mind.
I think most users will be like me, unable to remember all the command
line incantations in the way you wizards seem able.  The available
documentation needs to take this into account and provide more
cross-referencing.)

The following description/explanation is here to try to be helpful, to
try to teach you, one of the gods of the TeX world, what it's like for
us mere mortals struggling to work with what you have given the world.

The page you've pointed me at does not tell me all the things I need to
know to install founts the proper official TeX Live way.

I know how to install founts but not the standard TeX Live way.

I've added 'em to my TeX Live installation from my old OzTeX setup and
they work.  I've not worked out the `proper offical TeX Live way to do
it', but I've got something that works and I think I understand it.

The problem for me is working out what directories to use.  Other people
will have other problems.  This is the problem I personally see when I
read that page.

<http://tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html> contains a link to
<http://docs.miktex.org/manual/localadditions.html>, which has a concise
and useful listing of where to put various types of file relating to
founts:

*.afm go in root\fonts\afm\supplier\font
*.dvi, *.ps or *.pdf go in root\doc\latex\package
*.enc go in root\fonts\enc\syntax\bundle
*.map go in root\fonts\map\syntax\bundle
*.mf go in root\fonts\source\supplier\font
*.pfb go in root\fonts\type1\supplier\font
*.sty, *.cls or *.fd go in root\tex\latex\package
*.tfm go in root\fonts\tfm\supplier\font
*.ttf go in root\fonts\truetype\supplier\font
*.vf go in root\fonts\vf\supplier\font

which is very useful - but it would be much more useful if accompanied
by a single specific example of exactly where specific files are put in
a single specific case.  Always, always, /always/ provide a concrete
specific example - basic teaching...

And I do worry that putting additional files into any part of the TeX
Live `official' directory trees will result in them being wiped out by
some automation (I've had that sort of thing happen to me in the past).
Since I do not understand the automation, I will not use the standard
TeX Live directories for local additions.

So what I've got is this set of directories:

/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/fonts/afm/
/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/fonts/map/
/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/fonts/tfm/
/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/fonts/type1/
/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/fonts/vf/

into which I place the appropriate files.  The strange path
(/Users/Shared/texmf.rjmm/) is so that I've got a system-wide accessible
local texmf tree that is not under any form of automated management.  In
earlier versions of MacTeX, there were no `standard' texmf trees free
from automated management and the automation was inclined to delete data
at what seemed to be random whim.

(Which is why I want to find out how tlmgr works.  With the old-style
gwTeX MacTeX 2006 I was told to `just use i-installer, it'll all work
out fine'.  And that was /bullshit/ - it did not work out fine at all,
all was chaos and confusion until I finally got the information I needed
to install and configure my TeX installation manually from someone even
more unhelpful and upsetting that Norbert.  So I'm not going to trust
tlmgr either until I've figured out what it does and how it does it.
Why?  Because I want a working TeX installation!)

I've not yet found out whether MacTeX 2008 has a place that's safe for
local system-wide additions and I cannot trust that future versions will
have a safe place like that - so I'm sticking with what I know works.

So: do you see why I'm using a very dodgy ad hoc home-grown solution to
the problem of being unable to figure out how to use the `proper'
methods?

Yes, my solution is iffy - but it works, and it won't get broken by
anything done by MacTeX 2008.  My experience of having my TeX
installation broken by the automation is why I won't use the automation,
not unless I understand how it works.

>The steps described there are what tlmgr does, as Norbert reported.

Thank you for trying to help.

But I'm afraid I can't see an explanation of what tlmgr does from
Norbert.  Really I can't.  He mostly gives me useless snippets of
information (along with a lot of upsetting sneering at me personally),
claiming that they're supplied in the tlmgr man page.  But you know,
mostly what he says is there in the docs is in fact not there.

Thank you once more,
Rowland.


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