I am trying to install just pdfLaTeX without the rest of the stuff that comes in packages such as MacTeX. All I want to be able to do is convert LaTeX source files into pdf's. I downloaded the pdfTeX package from http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/ and followed the directions to install it, but I couldn't do it properly. Can I create pdf files out of LaTeX source files with just pdfLaTeX? Also how do I install it?
[Tex/LaTex] How to install just pdfTeX and pdfLaTeX without additional stuff on a mac
installingpdftex
Related Solutions
A trustworthy source is CTAN. There's a system directory, and a win32 directory below that. There you can choose your executable.
http://ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/win32
An obvious choice is
http://ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/win32/w32tex
where you can find pdftex-w32.tar.bz2. This is the engine (binary), then you need a LaTeX format file, and I guess you would like to have the base classes and styles too, so download latex.tar.bz2 as well.
The windows version is a self-extracting zip file. You can get the files by:
unzip ti83pkeys.exe
Archive: ti83pkeys.exe inflating: Ti83keys.txt inflating: TI83____.PFB inflating: TI83____.PFM inflating: TI83____.TTF inflating: README.TXT
You can then use your favourite way of using fonts in latex to include the True Type or the Postscript Type 1 font.
This answer may help you for PDFLaTeX
Edit 1:
I have to say I am getting puzzled.
using the following code with LuaLaTex should work but somehow, despite the fact that the font is seen and loaded by lualatex, the tex itself does not appear in the resulting pdf nor is the font embedded.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontfamily{\TIfont}{TI83____.TTF}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\tifont}{\TIfont}
\begin{document}
\tifont{A}
\end{document}
Not all characters are defined in this font but A is and should display something like [TAN⁻¹].
looking at the logs, you get the following when the font is loaded:
fontspec info: Font TI83____.TTF does not contain any OpenType `Script' information.
\g_fontspec_family_TI83____.TTF_int=\count363
fontspec info: Defining font family 'TI83____.TTF(0)' for font 'TI83____.TTF'
with options [].
\g_fontspec_TI83____.TTF(0)_prop=\toks38
fontspec info: Defining shape 'normal' with NFSS spec.:<br>
(fontspec) <->"file:TI83____.TTF:mode=node;"
I have tried adding [Script={Latn,Common}] to the \newfontfamily call and although the warning disappear, it doesn't change anything to the output.
I'll keep looking but if @khaled-hosny feels like shading some light...
Edit 2:
I tried the same code with XeLaTeX, which gave a bit more info. The code compiles, with the font embedded but the characters appear as rectangles, with the following note in the log:
Missing character: There is no A in font [TI83____.TTF]/ICU:!
Now I guess it is a question of finding the characters and their encodings which have data. I thought that A was one of them but LaTeX does seem to think so.
Edit 3: This one is the last!
Thanks to this question and this question I think I have solved it. The problem comes from the fact the the font does not have UTF-8 characters so you need some other ways to get to them.
this can be done with XeLaTeX using the \XeTeXglyph command, or with a bit more hackery with lualatex by define a command of the form \def\fontchar#1{\directlua{fonts.otf.char("#1")}}
The following code will work on both XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX and defines the command \TI which takes for argument the name of the glyph (if you use the glyph number, although \XeTeXglyph<number> will work as expected, the lua fonts.otf.char("<number>") will revert back to the TeX \char which in this case doesn't work.
\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{ifluatex,ifxetex}
\newfontfamily{\TIfont}{TI83____.TTF}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\tifont}{\TIfont}
\ifluatex
\def\TI#1{\tifont{\directlua{fonts.otf.char("#1")}}}
\fi
\ifxetex
\def\TI#1{\tifont{\XeTeXglyph\the\XeTeXglyphindex"#1"}}
\fi
\begin{document}
A sample text \\
\TI{A}\TI{B}\TI{C}\TI{D}\TI{E}\TI{F}\TI{G}\TI{H}
\end{document}
Which gives:
if you use LuaLaTex, a file will be created in ~/.texlive2011/texmf-var/luatex-cache/generic/fonts/otf/temp-ti83-.lua, or something similar, which will detail the font and its characters. if you looks in it(it is plain text) you can find the names of each characters. Ido not know how to get this information otherwise.
Best Answer
The binary (pdfTeX) alone is not enough to compile a LaTeX document: it alone is not even enough for a plain TeX document. TeX needs for example a format file, fonts, and a way to find these. If you want something smaller than MacTeX, BasicTeX is probably the place to look. It is a 'minimised' version of the same system, so can be expanded as needed (say it turns out you need one or two more packages than BasicTeX supplies). Another alternative is KerTeX, although this means a more restricted set of binaries (no pdfTeX as KerTeX's licensing approach means no GPL software).