4 Configuration

4.1 Intended use

There is a dialog based texconfig tool being devised. But it is not yet usable. I hope it will help in configuring various parts of the system. In the mean time, here are some piece of advice in making fpTeX more usable and easily upgradable.

4.2 Local stuff

So, the best place to keep your additional stuff is the local texmf tree, which is <root>/texmf-local by default, and which value you can retrieve by typing in a command prompt:

There are two conditions to fulfill :

1. your files must be set up in a way that is TDS compliant. See the tds document for more details. If you want to add local LaTeX classes, you must put them under $TEXMF/tex/latex/myclasses/ because the default search path for LaTeX is set up this way. And please, do not edit the texmf.cnf file to change the search paths: it is risky business;
2. you need to rebuild the ls-R databases, either by running mktexlsr on a command prompt, or by choosing the appropriate menu from Start->TeXLive->Maintenance.

If you have a look at the definition of $TEXMF, you will find something more or less like:

This setting means, that Web2C will first look for files in your home texmf tree, then in your variable texmf tree, then in your local texmf tree and then in the main texmf tree. The exclamation marks (!!) indicate that Web2C will use the file database for this texmf tree to find files. For this reason, don't forget to run mktexlsr to update the file database if you install additional files in your local texmf tree.

4.3 Having multiple users

The best way is to have a home texmf tree for every user. Create a home texmf tree for the user, e.g. c:\donald\texmf for user Donald. Under Windows NT, it is assumed that c:\donald is user Donald's home directory. Windows 9x users usually do not have home directories.

Copy the file c:\Local\TeX\texmf\web2c\texmf.cnf into the web2c directory of the local texmf tree for the user, e.g. c:\donald\texmf\web2c.

Change this local copy of the file texmf.cnf to use the local texmf tree as explained in section 4.2. Uncomment the line setting the HOMETEXMF variable and set it to :

and modify TEXMF to reference it :

It is not mandatory to put !! in front of HOMETEXMF, because you are not supposed to store thousands of files there. Would you require that only ls-R database be searched, you will need to build it using either the mktexlsr command or the shortcut in the fpTeX menu.

Set the environment variable TEXMFCNF to the local texmf tree of the user, e.g.:

4.4 Configure the way web2c generates fonts

Let us first discuss where generated pk files are stored. By default, mktexpk stores the font in

where xxx is the resolution of the font and the values for supplier and typeface are taken from the path of the mf file that was used to generate the pk file.

Examples:

C:\TeX\texmf\fonts\source\public\cm\cmr10.mf
Supplier = public; typeface = cm

C:\TeX\texmf\fonts\source\jknappen\ec\ecrm1000.mf
Supplier = jknappen; typeface = ec

You can configure where the mktex programs will place the produced files by setting the MT_FEATURES variable in the file mktex.cnf. The following settings are allowed:

dosnames

The pk files are stored as dpixxx\fontname.pk instead of fontname.xxxpk. This setting is valuable on systems that have problems with long filenames or if you are using a DVI previewer that expects filenames in DOS like 8+3 syntax (e.g. dviwin) stripsupplier

striptypeface

Suppress the storage of the fonts in a subdirectory with the name of the supplier or the typeface, respectively.

varfonts

The pk files will be stored in the directory tree defined by the VARTEXFONTS setting in the file texmf.cnf instead of the texmf tree. This is the default if the font directory in the texmf tree is write protected.

Important note: Be sure to set the VARTEXFONTS variable to a proper setting if you use this feature. For this edit the file texmf.cnf (you can use kpsewhichtexmf.cnf to find out where it is located, normaly in ...\texmf\web2c), find the line where VARTEXFONTS is defined (VARTEXFONTS=...) and set it to the proper directory. One interesting directory to set VARTEXFONTS to is $TEXMFLOCAL/fonts. This way, all users at your site will share generated fonts files.

To change the MT_FEATURES setting proceed as follows.

1. Edit the file mktex.cnf (normally located in texmf-var/texmf/web2c, otherwise use
   kpsewhich mktex.cnf). The syntax for the MT_FEATURES setting is
   
       : ${MT_FEATURES=setting1:setting2:setting3}

   The line must begin with :.

2. Create a dummy file named mktexnam.opt. Open a command prompt window, change the current directory to c:\Local\TeX\texmf\web2c and type
   
     c:\Local\TeX\texmf\web2c> copy con mktexnam.opt
     ^Z

   Here the term ^Z means typing <Control>+Z.

3. Don't forget to rerun mktexlsr to update the file database.

4.5 Configure dvips

You should perform the following setting in config.ps:

Set up the METAFONT mode and the resolution of the default printer:

Just find these two lines in config.ps and set them to proper values.

Note: If you are using different printers you can simply create a file config.printer for each printer including the definition of METAFONT mode and resolution and call dvips by

what tells dvips to use the configuration file config.printer.

Find the line

This line means that dvips will generate a Postscript file by default. You can here specify UNC names for your printer in the form of

config.ps contains several definitions for paper sizes. For example, the definition for A4 reads as follows:

Dvips uses the first defined papersize as default (after unpacking the distribution files this will be letter). If you want to use A4 as default you have to move the definition for A4 before the definition of letter. If you want to add other papersizes you can do this by following the scheme given above. Note: You can dvips to use another papersize as the default by

(where papersize is the name of one of the papersizes defined in config.ps). You can also use

to switch to landscape mode.

You can also control which fontmaps are used by dvips. If dvips converts a DVI file to Postscript, it has to decide wether a font is a PS Type 1 font or not. If yes, dvips has to translate the name of the font used by TeX to the Postscript name–and to include the outline of the font (normally a pfb file) unless the font is resident to the printer as for various Adobe standard fonts; if not, dvips has to include a pk file for the font (this is why you should define the correct METAFONT mode and resolution for your printer in config.ps). To decide, wether a font is a PS Type 1 font, it will use by default the fontmap psfonts.map. If a font is included in psfonts.map, dvips knows that the font is a PS Type 1 font, if not it will use a pk file for the font–and call mktexpk to generate one from the METAFONT source, if it doesn't exist.

You can configure dvips to use another fontmap foo.map instead of psfonts.map by including the line

in config.map or to use foo.map additionally to config.ps by the line

4.6 Network installation

Applying the previous hints, you can devise your own network installation quite easily.

All the support files, everything except the files in the bin/win32 are shareable with a teTeX or Unix TeX-Live installation. That means you can use samba either to mount from a Windows NT server to a Unix workstation or the converse. Several strategies are possible:

• Put everything on the server. Just add each set of files for the os and architecture you want to use in the bin directory. That means for example bin/win32 and bin/i386-linux-elf. Next configure your main variables as explained previously. You can use UNC names to point to the right directories under Win32.
• Install a local copy for the binaries and format files. In this case, assign $TEXMFMAIN to the main texmf tree that will lie on the network.

These schemes should have been handled by the InstallShield installer. But so many problems rose up with this installer that these features have been delayed to the next version of the setup program.