From: John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com>
To: Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>
Cc: emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Publish to PDF on Linux: An impossible task?
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2019 18:54:24 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CA+M2ft8XTsMcJKhkKSh5y8WEtFRn9=KftZ_bJ_41WW17ixmN6Q@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87ftiv5joy.fsf@mbork.pl>
On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 6:41 PM Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
>
>
> On 2019-11-11, at 01:25, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 6:01 PM Nathan Neff <nathan.neff@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> After using org-mode for 10 years, I run for the doorway when
> >> I even think about trying to convert an org-mode file to PDF.
> >>
> >> *** I quiver when I see errors such as:
> >>
> >> warning: kpathsea: configuration file texmf.cnf not found in these directories: /usr/bin:/usr/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/bin/share/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf/web2c:/usr:/usr/share/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/share/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/texmf/web2c://texmf-local/web2c:/://share/texmf-local/web2c://share/texmf-dist/web2c://share/texmf/web2c://texmf-local/web2c://texmf-dist/web2c://texmf/web2c.
> >> This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019/Arch Linux) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
> >>
> >> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdflatex.fmt
> >> mktexfmt: No such file or directory
> >> I can't find the format file `pdflatex.fmt'!
> >
> > These look like latex errors to me, nothing to do with Org. Guessing
>
> These are not LaTeX errors, they are lower-level ones.
By "LaTeX" I mean "that which is necessary to have a functioning latex
system." If by lower-level you mean the ecosystem itself vs. compiling
errors, completely agree. Clearly some core components are missing.
For example, the texmf.cnf file is provided by the arch package
texlive-core (assuming a package was used), so that's potentially not
even installed.
- https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/texlive-core/
> > you used the arch package? I'm on arch myself, but after getting
> > bitten by package mismatches and things being hopelessly broken, I
> > switched to just using texlive directly:
> > - https://www.tug.org/texlive/
> >
> > It's not that bad. There's even a quick guide to walk you through the
> > tl-install script. If you'd rather troubleshoot what you have going on
> > now, here's some places to start:
> > - you're missing files... figure out which package is supposed to
> > provide them and install it
>
> He misses LaTeX format file itself, and apparently mktexfmt (which
> should create it) cannot be found. This seems more serious than what
> you write.
I would divide "serious" into "major but simple" and "complicated." In
easily 90% of cases with error output like this, it's going to be a
missing package, not some intricate system glitch that requires
troubleshooting. Indeed, my guess is exactly that: there are "serious"
errors because nothing resembling a functioning latex system exists.
The root cause is probably very simple.
> > - check your paths
>
> Agreed, but this may be quite subtle...
Again, I suspect much simpler. When using texlive directly, for
example, one has to set paths correctly. This If it's looking in
system paths vs. a user path (e.g. I install to ~/.texlive, not /usr)
and this was not set via .bashrc, that's what I mean one should check.
This presumes the expected packages are installed at all.
I would start with simply:
$ pacman -Q |grep tex
and
$ which pdflatex
John
>
> Best,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://mbork.pl
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-11-11 0:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-11-11 0:00 Publish to PDF on Linux: An impossible task? Nathan Neff
2019-11-11 0:19 ` Marcin Borkowski
2019-11-11 0:25 ` John Hendy
2019-11-11 0:40 ` Marcin Borkowski
2019-11-11 0:54 ` John Hendy [this message]
2019-11-11 20:12 ` Jack Kamm
2019-11-11 20:24 ` Alan E. Davis
2019-11-11 23:45 ` Alan Tyree
2019-11-11 0:56 ` Tim Cross
2019-11-11 1:52 ` Samuel Wales
2019-11-11 8:36 ` Diego Zamboni
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