[tex-live] problem with fonts -- how do i debug this?

Bob Plantz plantz at cds1.net
Wed Jun 10 02:31:12 CEST 2009


Jim,

I was having some similar problems trying to install LuxiMono in my
texlive on my Mandriva installation. I had done it successfully several
times over the past few years on my Ubuntu.

As near as I can tell, there are some problems with path names in the
texmf.cnf file in the Mandriva texlive port. For example, it uses

     TEXMFLOCAL = $SELFAUTOPARENT/../texmf-local

When I ran

     kpsewhich -expand-var=\$SELFAUTOPARENT

I think I got /. I can't imagine that the local texmf directory should
be at /texmf-local/.

I am a Windows newbie so can't be of much help with it. But I concluded
that the port of texlive to Mandriva is "immature." Perhaps it's the
same situation with Windows. Ubuntu, and by implication Debian, uses a
somewhat different means of specifying path names. The important thing
is that it works!

I never resolved the issue in Mandriva. My Ubuntu texlive works great,
and I need to get some work done.

Off the topic: My font adventures led me to rethink the fonts I had been
using. I'm writing an assembly language textbook and had been using
Palatino for proportional text and LuxiMono for mono text. I decided
that the bera family provides a more readable mono spaced font. It's
easier to distinguish lower-case el from one, and zeros are dotted. So I
stopped using LuxiMono anyway.

Bob


On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 13:11 -0600, Jim Young wrote:
> Hi all,
>   I have a problem with fonts and  I am not sure where to start. Here
> is the rundown
> 
> I have two texlive installs on different machines. On a linux (debian)
> machine I have texlive-2007 and i can get everything to work without
> any problems. It is my windows machien running texlive-2008 that
> causes my problems.
> 
> I am installing the MinionPro font package, which is where the problem
> happens.
> 
> I followed the CTAN directions for installing MinionPro and it works
> seamlessly on my linux machine, and has for a while. But I cannot get
> it to work on the windows machine.
> 
> When I use the minionpro package in a document, it compiles fine until
> the last moment:
> 
> ----   
> !pdfTeX error: pdflatex.exe (file MinionPro-It-Base-ab): Font
> MinionPro-It-Base-ab at 545 not found
>   ==> Fatal error occured, no output PDF file produced!
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode / --bdpi 600 --mag 0+545/600 --dpi
> 545 MinionPro-It-Base-ab
> kpathsea: Appending font creating commands to missfont.log.
> ----
> 
> if i run the mktexpk command myself 
> ----
> C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32>
> mktexpk --mfmode / --bdpi 600 --mag 0+545/600 --dpi 545
> MinionPro-It-Base-ab
> Cannot find MinionPro-It-Base-ab.mf .
> I try ps2pk --> gsftopk --> ttf2pk --> hbf2gf.
> ps2pk cannot be used.
> I try gsftopk.
> gsftopk.exe MinionPro-It-Base-ab 545
> gsftopk cannot be used.
> Next I try ttf2pk.
> ttf2pk.exe -q MinionPro-It-Base-ab 545
> ttf2pk failed.
> Finally I try hbf2gf.
> hbf2gf.exe -q -p MinionPro-It-Base-ab 545
> All trials failed.
> -- 
> 
> Now, there are no minionpro .mf files /anywhere/ on my system. they
> also do not exist on my linux texlive2007 system, but it still works
> fine. what is an mf file, and where does it come from? is there a
> script i need to run specifically for texlive 2008 to generate these?
> 
> also, check out:
> 
> ---
> C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32>kpsewhich
> MinionPro-It-Base-ab.tfm
> c:/Program
> Files/texlive/2008/../texmf-local/fonts/tfm/adobe/minionpro/MinionPro-It-Base-ab.tfm
> C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32>kpsewhich
> MinionPro-It-Base-ab.mf
>   <empty result >
> ---
> 
> Whats /really/ causing this mf problem? the tfms i generated ages ago
> before i switched to texlive, i think i used tetex at the time but it
> has been years. do i suddenly need to regenerate these for 2008?
> 
> any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jim
> 
> ---
> James Young, B.Sc.
> Ph.D. Candidate
> Interactions laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of
> Calgary
> 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N 1N4
> Phone: +1.403.210.9502
> E-mail: jim.young at ucalgary.ca
> URL: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~jyoung/



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