4 Post-installation

After the main installation is done, for any operating system, the remaining steps are to configure the system for your local needs, and perform some basic tests.

Another sort of post-installation is to acquire packages, fonts, or programs that were not included in TeX Live. The basic idea is to install such additions in the TEXMFLOCAL tree (if you installed to disk), or VARTEXMF (if you are running live). See “Installation directories” on p. 24.

Unfortunately, the details can vary widely, and so we do not attempt to address them here. Please see http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/beginlatex/html/chapter5.html#pkginst for a good description, and http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/Type1fonts for font creation and installation information in particular.

4.1 The texconfig program

At any time after installation, you can and should use the program texconfig to configure the system to fit your local needs. It is installed in the architecture-specific subdirectory TEXDIR/bin/arch along with everything else.

If you run it without arguments, it will enter full-screen mode and allow you to view and change options interactively.

You can also run it with various command-line options. Here are some of the most commonly used:

texconfig dvips paper letter
Set default paper size for dvips to be letter-size.
texconfig xdvi us
Likewise, for xdvi.
texconfig rehash
Update all the TeX system filename databases.
texconfig faq
Show the teTeX FAQ. (See also the main TeX FAQ in the FAQ subdirectory of TeX Live.)
texconfig help
Output help information.

Of course, texconfig only supports changing a few of the many options and configuration parameters in a TeX system. The main configuration file for the base Web2C programs is named texmf.cnf. You can find its location by running ‘kpsewhich texmf.cnf’; it contains many comments explaining the default settings and useful alternatives.

4.2 Testing the installation

After installing TeX Live as best you can, you naturally want to test it out, so you can start creating beautiful documents and/or fonts.

This section gives some basic procedures for testing that the new system is functional. We described the Unix commands; under Mac OS X and Windows, you’re more likely to run the tests through a graphical interface, but the principles are the same.

  1. Make sure that you can run the tex program in the first place:

    > tex --version
    TeX (Web2c 7.5.2) 3.141592
    kpathsea version 3.5.2
    Copyright (C) 1997-2003 D.E. Knuth.
    ...
    If this comes back with ‘command not found’ instead of version and copyright information, most likely you don’t have the correct bin subdirectory in your PATH. See the environment-setting information on p. 20.
  2. Process a basic LaTeX file:

    > latex sample2e.tex
    >TeX (Web2c 7.5.2) 3.141592
    ...
    Output written on sample2e.dvi (3 pages, 7256 bytes).
    Transcript written on sample2e.log.
    If this fails to find sample2e.tex or other files, perhaps you have interference from old environment variables or configuration files. For a deep analysis, you can always ask TeX to report on exactly what it is searching for, and finding; see “Debugging actions” on page 80.
  3. Preview the result online:

    > xdvi sample2e.dvi
    Under Windows, the analogous command is windvi. You should see a new window with a nice document explaining some of the basics of LaTeX. (Well worth reading, if you’re new to the system.) You do have to be running under X for xdvi to work; if you’re not, or your DISPLAY environment variable is set incorrectly, you’ll get an error ‘Can’t open display’.
  4. Create a PostScript file for printing or display:

    > dvips sample2e.dvi -o sample2e.ps
  5. Create a PDF file instead of DVI; this processes the .tex file and writes PDF directly:

    > pdflatex sample2e.tex
  6. Preview the PDF file:

    > gv sample2e.pdf
    or:
    > xpdf sample2e.pdf
    Unfortunately neither gv nor xpdf are currently included in TeX Live, so you must install them separately. See http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv and http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf, respectively.
  7. Other standard test files you may find useful:

    docstrip.tex
    Produce TeX source or documentation from a ‘.dtx’ file.
    small2e.tex
    A simpler document than sample2e, to reduce the input size if you’re having troubles.
    testpage.tex
    Test if your printer introduces any offsets.
    nfssfont.tex
    For printing font tables and tests.
    testfont.tex
    Also for font tables, but using plain TeX.
    story.tex
    The most canonical (plain) TeX test file of all. You must type ‘\bye’ to the * prompt after ‘tex story.tex’.

    You can process these in the same way as we did with sample2e.tex.

If you are new to TeX, or otherwise need help with actually constructing TeX or LaTeX documents, please visit http://tug.org/begin.html. We especially recommend the Formatting Information manual by Peter Flynn, available at http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/documentation/beginlatex.