[texhax] installation of TEX

Thu Feb 8 11:09:48 CET 2007

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>>>>>> "Denofs6" == Denofs6  <Denofs6 at aol.com> writes:
>>>>>>             
>
>   > windows XP won't read the documentation files--wants to know what
>   > program they were written in, TEX is not on their list, and
>   > Windows can't find out from the internet.  <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
>   > "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META
>   > http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
>   > <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1264" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY
>   > id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY:
>   > Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT
>   > id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV>windows XP
>   > won't read the documentation files--wants to know what program
>   > they were written in, TEX is not on their list, and Windows can't
>   > find out from the internet.</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>
>
> Usually the filename extension gives you a hint.  It does not matter
> which program produced the files but which output format had been used.   
>
> Since you didn't tell us which TeX distribution you have and about
> which files you are talking it's not easy to be more precise.
>
> Regards,
>   Reinhard
>   
I suspect the answer may be quite simple.  Windows is infuriatingly 
literal about suffixes, and never bothers to read the first ten or so 
bytes of a file (used by the Linux/Unix "file" command) to determine the 
type and content.  For example, a TIFF file with a suffix .tiff, will be 
rejected as unreadable until you rename it as .tif.  Any suffix unknown 
to Windows will be rejected as unreadable.  A file with the .tex suffix 
or the .ltx suffix will almost certainly be rejected; .dvi even more so. 
The original query does not suggest that the correspondent would be 
comfortable reading a .tex or .ltx source file, and a .dvi file would be 
hopeless in that context. 

If you are condemned to work in a Microsoft environment, an investment 
in ConversionsPlus is probably worth the moderate expense.  
ConversionsPlus seems to make use of the initial ID bytes in files in 
order to make intelligent judgements about what Microsoft utility can 
read them.  It is far from comprehensive, but it works most of the 
time.   ConversionsPlus would probably determine that a .tex source file 
was a .txt file and open it in notepad.  A pain in the neck, but at 
least a first approach.

Vista is likely to be twice as restrictive and unresponsive!

Pierre MacKay