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LaTeX
- Thread starter mikebeam
- Start date
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There are a few caveats to using the TeXshop and teTeX. Both work great (i.e. as expected). However, there are a few strange limitations.
First, Apple's support of PDF in the Quartz layer seems to be, let us say, incomplete. So if you (La)TeX your file involving heavy mathematics, the preview will probably be unreadable. Using the times package will afford you readability for your text, but that's about it. Viewing your file in Acrobat Reader or some other reader with complete PDF support will show you the missing characters. (I'm not sure about all the technicalities of this, but it seems that Quartz substitutes Helvetica for embedded fonts that are not yet supported.)
So, the PDF file is correct, but not viewable in the TeXShop viewer or the Apple viewer at this time. Hopefully Apple will correct this oversight.
Second, if you use bibtex, things become more difficult. You will have to use the terminal to bibtex a file after latexing it the first time. But, if you are converting from a classic MacOS, the linefeeds are CRs instead of the Unix linefeeds. This causes bibtex to get confused and stop processing. I had to write a perl script to convert the linefeeds, after which bibtex did ok. Maybe bibtex support will be added to TeXShop if the prof. has any interest in keeping it up.
Other than those issues, TeXShop/teTeX is quite a usable system on OSX beta. I hope when OS X final ships, the PDF oversights will be addressed, and that TeXShop adds some support for bibtex (and, while we're at it, makeindex).
First, Apple's support of PDF in the Quartz layer seems to be, let us say, incomplete. So if you (La)TeX your file involving heavy mathematics, the preview will probably be unreadable. Using the times package will afford you readability for your text, but that's about it. Viewing your file in Acrobat Reader or some other reader with complete PDF support will show you the missing characters. (I'm not sure about all the technicalities of this, but it seems that Quartz substitutes Helvetica for embedded fonts that are not yet supported.)
So, the PDF file is correct, but not viewable in the TeXShop viewer or the Apple viewer at this time. Hopefully Apple will correct this oversight.
Second, if you use bibtex, things become more difficult. You will have to use the terminal to bibtex a file after latexing it the first time. But, if you are converting from a classic MacOS, the linefeeds are CRs instead of the Unix linefeeds. This causes bibtex to get confused and stop processing. I had to write a perl script to convert the linefeeds, after which bibtex did ok. Maybe bibtex support will be added to TeXShop if the prof. has any interest in keeping it up.
Other than those issues, TeXShop/teTeX is quite a usable system on OSX beta. I hope when OS X final ships, the PDF oversights will be addressed, and that TeXShop adds some support for bibtex (and, while we're at it, makeindex).
Here are a few more experiences with MacOS X beta and TeX.
- if you use the sketch app that comes with OS X beta, it will save graphics as a pdf that pdftex cannot understand (says it is trying to read a 1.3 version pdf while it supports a 1.2). There is apparently a very recent snapshot of pdftex (9/12) that may support it, but I haven't tried it yet. So I'm back to the old way.
- if you want to do the traditional unix-latex type thing, this is possible after the installation of teTeX. However, you must dvips with the -f flag or you will get some error about lpd not being up. So dvips -f <dvifile> > <somefile>.ps should do the trick.
- I found a version of ghostscript for OS X beta, but it doesn't work very well. It works for the examples, but nothing produced by dvips. It's basically useless. Now, the version of ps2pdf (Classic app) that comes with the CMacTeX distribution will convert dvips output to pdf just fine, but it is still unreadable with the built-in incomplete support of pdf.
So right now I can go TeX -> dvi -> ps -> pdf in the traditional way, but I have no way to view it without going to some other computer or printing on a PS printer. For really simple files (no math or graphics) I can go TeX->pdf quickly with TeXShop and be able to view.
Boy, I'll be glad when pdftex and MacOS X support for pdf are finally done.
- if you use the sketch app that comes with OS X beta, it will save graphics as a pdf that pdftex cannot understand (says it is trying to read a 1.3 version pdf while it supports a 1.2). There is apparently a very recent snapshot of pdftex (9/12) that may support it, but I haven't tried it yet. So I'm back to the old way.
- if you want to do the traditional unix-latex type thing, this is possible after the installation of teTeX. However, you must dvips with the -f flag or you will get some error about lpd not being up. So dvips -f <dvifile> > <somefile>.ps should do the trick.
- I found a version of ghostscript for OS X beta, but it doesn't work very well. It works for the examples, but nothing produced by dvips. It's basically useless. Now, the version of ps2pdf (Classic app) that comes with the CMacTeX distribution will convert dvips output to pdf just fine, but it is still unreadable with the built-in incomplete support of pdf.
So right now I can go TeX -> dvi -> ps -> pdf in the traditional way, but I have no way to view it without going to some other computer or printing on a PS printer. For really simple files (no math or graphics) I can go TeX->pdf quickly with TeXShop and be able to view.
Boy, I'll be glad when pdftex and MacOS X support for pdf are finally done.
Here are a few more experiences with MacOS X beta and TeX.
- if you use the sketch app that comes with OS X beta, it will save graphics as a pdf that pdftex cannot understand (says it is trying to read a 1.3 version pdf while it supports a 1.2). There is apparently a very recent snapshot of pdftex (9/12) that may support it, but I haven't tried it yet. So I'm back to the old way.
- if you want to do the traditional unix-latex type thing, this is possible after the installation of teTeX. However, you must dvips with the -f flag or you will get some error about lpd not being up. So dvips -f <dvifile> > <somefile>.ps should do the trick.
- I found a version of ghostscript for OS X beta, but it doesn't work very well. It works for the examples, but nothing produced by dvips. It's basically useless. Now, the version of ps2pdf (Classic app) that comes with the CMacTeX distribution will convert dvips output to pdf just fine, but it is still unreadable with the built-in incomplete support of pdf.
So right now I can go TeX -> dvi -> ps -> pdf in the traditional way, but I have no way to view it without going to some other computer or printing on a PS printer. For really simple files (no math or graphics) I can go TeX->pdf quickly with TeXShop and be able to view.
Boy, I'll be glad when pdftex and MacOS X support for pdf are finally done.
- if you use the sketch app that comes with OS X beta, it will save graphics as a pdf that pdftex cannot understand (says it is trying to read a 1.3 version pdf while it supports a 1.2). There is apparently a very recent snapshot of pdftex (9/12) that may support it, but I haven't tried it yet. So I'm back to the old way.
- if you want to do the traditional unix-latex type thing, this is possible after the installation of teTeX. However, you must dvips with the -f flag or you will get some error about lpd not being up. So dvips -f <dvifile> > <somefile>.ps should do the trick.
- I found a version of ghostscript for OS X beta, but it doesn't work very well. It works for the examples, but nothing produced by dvips. It's basically useless. Now, the version of ps2pdf (Classic app) that comes with the CMacTeX distribution will convert dvips output to pdf just fine, but it is still unreadable with the built-in incomplete support of pdf.
So right now I can go TeX -> dvi -> ps -> pdf in the traditional way, but I have no way to view it without going to some other computer or printing on a PS printer. For really simple files (no math or graphics) I can go TeX->pdf quickly with TeXShop and be able to view.
Boy, I'll be glad when pdftex and MacOS X support for pdf are finally done.