[Tex/LaTex] customizing TEXMFHOME

texmf

I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 (not sure if it makes a difference) and I'm trying to change $TEXMFHOME to a custom directory. Currently it is $HOME/texmf, which I believe is the default, but even when I put .sty files in there the compilation of the .tex file cannot find it. And more so, when I change the directory of $TEXMFHOME to something else and move the .sty file there, it still can' find it. However, if I put the .sty file in the same directory as the .tex file it works perfectly (not what I want though). I am changing $TEXMFHOME in /etc/texmf/texmf.d/05TeXMF.cnf and using sudo update-texmf to generate the texmf.cnf file. Is this the correct way? What am I doing wrong?

If it's helpful, I am using emacs with auctex as my editor.

I have found other threads on here and other sites that are very similar, but none of the solutions for those worked for me.

Best Answer

Why change it at all? I think what you're missing is that you should make your personal texmf-tree mimic that of the installed version. This is easily remedied.

In a terminal:

mkdir -p ~/texmf/{doc,tex}/{context,eplain,generic,latex,lualatex,plain,xelatex,xetex} # for example
mkdir -p ~/texmf/bibtex/bib # put your bib file in here

(You should / will need to make the appropriate sub-directories for bibtex and doc if you want to put things in there.)

Now you can test whether things are found:

touch ~/texmf/tex/latex/myfakefile.sty
kpsewhere myfakefile.sty

The last command should return:

/home/<user>/texmf/tex/latex/myfakefile.sty

Note also that the command

kpsewhich --var-value TEXMF

should return a list of places that will be searched in the order (I believe) they are searched. Your personal tree is probably listed first, which means that in a race between, e.g., the 'system' myfakefile.sty and your 'personal' myfakefile.sty, the personal one will win.

Finally, I should point out that your attempts at modifying texmf.cnf may have made this answer not work (I'm not sure what you did). I would revert your changes to the default set-up as it will be easier to maintain.

Related Solutions

Beamer – Where to Place Custom Beamer Themes

You should copy the first two folder levels of the main tree (in your example tex/latex). Everything below this point is optional. You can use additional subfolders and name them at your liking. Use your sense of order. I would certainly make at least a subfolder "beamer".

[Tex/LaTex] How to add an extra searchable dir with personal style files to TeXLive, NOT under ~/Library/texmf

Reading through the TeX Live manual, the best way to achieve what you want seems to be to alter where TEXMFHOME points to. This is where TeX looks for your personal files, and has standard setting ~/Library/texmf, as you probably know!

At the Terminal, typing

sudo tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME "~/texmf"

will alter the location to ~/texmf, which would be the normal setting on Unix systems other than a Mac. Note that this alters the setting system-wide, but I'm guessing that for most people this will be acceptable.

If you want to have more than one possible location (say retaining the standard setting and adding another one), then a colon is used to separate the list:

sudo tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME "~/Library/texmf:~/texmf"

By the way, for recent releases of TeX Live you don't need to run texhash for your local tree. The database is only required for the 'big' installation tree, while the local tree will be scanned when TeX runs. The assumption is that the local tree will always be relatively small, so this is an acceptable performance hit.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Beamer – Where to Place Custom Beamer Themes

[Tex/LaTex] How to add an extra searchable dir with personal style files to TeXLive, NOT under ~/Library/texmf

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