Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!fub!opal!unido!pbinfo!nick
From: nick@uni-paderborn.de (Martin Koch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Problems with PasTex
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.111708.19313@uni-paderborn.de>
Date: 28 Jan 91 11:17:08 GMT
References: <8056@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Uni-GH Paderborn
Lines: 62

mfg@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Gordon) writes:

>I am having great problems with PasTeX and, being a total novice when it
>comes to TeX, have no idea what may be wrong.  I have assigned TeX: to the
>top of the directory tree, set the environment variables TEXINPUTS etc but 
>the example command in doc/short_reference (virtex &plain story.tex) dies
>immediately with the incredibly helpful error message `fatal format file
>error; I'm stymied`.  Does anyone know which file this is refering to and
>does it mean it couldn't find the file, the file is corrupted or what?

The Problem is, that the TeX.mem File in DVI-configs doesn't match to the
.fmt File You are using. You have to recompile the Formatfile with initex.
Or copy it from a friend, whose version is working. To work with initex you 
need at least 1.5MB Main Memory. You also need a good Book about TeX.
To get the formatfile You need the Files:
hyphen.tex
plain.tex
tex.mem
no invoke initex with
initex
type \input plain.tex
\dump
this crates a formatfile named plain.fmt.Now You can use this fomatfile.

To crate a LaTeX fmt-File, you need
tex.mem
lplain.tex
lfonts.tex
hyphen.tex

You invoke initex again and you type:
\input lplain.tex
\dump.

>Also, does anyone know of any reasonable documentation for setting up and
>using PasTeX?

If You can read German, Try TeX- eine Einfuehrung from N.Schwarz.
otherwise try D.E. Knuth --- The TeX-Book (This is the Author of the Programm!

>Thanks
>Michael
>-- 
>							 _   _   _    _   _	
>Michael Gordon - mfg@castle.ed.ac.uk OR ee.ed.ac.uk	| |_| |_| |__| |_| |   
>							| . . . .      . . |    
>I spilt spot remover on my dog and now he's gone! 	|_________|~~|_____|    


-- 
Bye ;-)
       //\      Martin Koch ---  email to: nick@uni-paderborn.de
      //__\
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   Earth; planet 
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-- 
Bye ;-)
       //\      Martin Koch ---  email to: nick@uni-paderborn.de
      //__\
     //----\UGUP  --- Amiga User Group Uni Paderborn