Re: pdflatex not found?

["Charles C. Berry" <ccberry@ucsd.edu>]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2015, Nick Dokos wrote:

> Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> writes:
>
>> Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>> Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> I'm trying to export PDF from org, but I'm getting the error:
>>>>
>>>> pdflatex: Command not found. [3 times]
>>>>
>>>> I've checked the definition of exec-path, and it includes
>>>> "/usr/texbin", which is where tcsh tells me the executable is.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Backtrace?
>>
>> Sorry. Here's the backtrace:
>>
>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "PDF file ./test.pdf wasn't produced")
>>   signal(error ("PDF file ./test.pdf wasn't produced"))
>>   error("PDF file ./test.pdf wasn't produced")
>>   org-latex-compile("./test.tex")
>>   #[(file) "\301\b!\207" [file org-latex-compile] 2]("./test.tex")
>>   org-export-to-file(latex "./test.tex" nil nil nil nil nil #[(file)
>> "\301\b!\207" [file org-latex-compile] 2])
>>   org-latex-export-to-pdf(nil nil nil nil)
>>   (org-open-file (org-latex-export-to-pdf nil s v b))
>>   (if a (org-latex-export-to-pdf t s v b) (org-open-file (org-latex-export-to-pdf nil s v b)))
>>   (lambda (a s v b) (if a (org-latex-export-to-pdf t s v b)
>> (org-open-file (org-latex-export-to-pdf nil s v b))))(nil nil nil nil)
>>   org-export-dispatch(nil)
>>   call-interactively(org-export-dispatch nil nil)
>>   command-execute(org-export-dispatch)
>>
>> This seems less useful to me than the *Messages* buffer:
>>
>
> Yes, probably, but if I can get people to submit backtraces when getting
> an error, we can cut down the email volume by a factor of 2.43 (making up
> fictitious data to bolster my case...) In all seriousness, at least it
> shows that you are not going down some strange path.
>
> It's not clear to me why the error message in the message file is different
> from the error message above though.
>
>> Debug on Error enabled globally
>> org-babel-exp processing...
>> executing Dot code block...
>> Wrote /var/folders/d4/xb7t0gbd0f97p6494kz5xzdnmlncz8/T/babel-2213VOW/ob-input-22136yU
>> Code block evaluation complete.
>> Saving file /Users/davisp/Dropbox/HMH/test.tex...
>> Wrote /Users/davisp/Dropbox/HMH/test.tex
>> Processing LaTeX file ./test.tex...
>> pdflatex: Command not found. [3 times]
>> Entering debugger...
>> Mark set
>> End of buffer
>>
>> I did verify that the shell, my default of tcsh, does show pdflatex at
>> the right location, /usr/texbin/pdflatex
>>
>
> In combination, this pretty much says that org-latex-pdf-process was
> called (by examining the code for org-latex-compile) and it is set to
> the default value of invoking pdflatex three times (hence - probably -
> the "command not found 3 times" error), so as I said the standard path.
>
> As others have pointed out, your emacs does not know where to find
> pdflatex, even though your tcsh might. If your emacs is started from a
> tcsh that can find pdflatex, that would be strange; if it is started
> from your desktop environment/window manager, not so much (there are
> many things that could go wrong).
>
> OTOH, if exec-path contains the directory where pdflatex resides, then
> things are a bit screwy: exec-path is used by call-process, which is
> used by shell-command, which is used by org-latex-compile: so pdflatex
> should be found - that's a bit of a mystery.

shell-command (and call-process, I guess) seems not to use exec-path -
at least not always.

For example:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :results output
(shell-command "which ebrowse")
#+END_SRC

fails to find ebrowse even though exec-path leads to it.

And

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(shell-command "echo $PATH" "*path*")
#+END_SRC

shows what (getenv "PATH") yields - not exec-path

Give `setenv' a try.

Best,

Chuck

>
> What happens if you say M-x shell-command RET pdflatex RET?
>
> Somebody suggested running "which pdflatex" in your shell - what does
> that say?
>
> And you say it should be in /usr/texbin - what happens if you invoke
> it with an absolute path: "/usr/texbin/pdflatex" in your shell?
>
> --
> Nick
>
>
>
>