Re: Advice on WinEdt/MiKTeX on a Windows 7?

David Allsopp wrote:
 >> I am looking for advice on how to set up WinEdt/MiKTeX on a Windows 7
 >> system. I have had it running for a while, but there is something peculiar
 >> about the directory structure.

 > What is peculiar about it?

I have a number of my TeX files in a folder. Any one of these files 
can be compiled by plain TeX with no difficulty.  But if I use WinEdt 
to create and edit a new file in the same folder, when I run the TeX 
compiler via WinEdt, TeX says "I can't find file newfile.tex", even 
though that very file is open in WinEdt.

I tried using "maintenance" to refresh FNDB, and still get the same error.

 >> I need to be able to run either TeX or LaTeX. I'd like to keep macro
 >> packages (e g, amsmath) in one directory,

 > This would happen by default, assuming you're installing MiKTeX's 
amsmath package? MiKTeX
 > will install all of its packages into its installation directory 
(or one in your profile,
 > if you're not installing as Admin)

Yes, I believe this has happened. My directory structure looks like
C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\
       bibtex
       doc
       dvipdfm
       dvips
       fontconf
       fontname
       fonts
       ghostscr
       hunspell
       makeinde
       metafont
       metapost
       mft
       miktex
       pdftex
       poppler
       psutils
       scripts
       source
       tex
       tpm
       ttf2pk
and C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\plain\base contains plsin.tex, etc.

 > Create a directory (say "texmf") somewhere and create a directory 
in that called "tex".
 > Place your macros either in the tex directory, or in a new 
directory inside tex.
 > Then add the "texmf" directory as a root in the "Roots" tab of the 
MiKTeX Settings.
 > MiKTeX will refresh the FNDB at this point for you.

Maintenance/Options/Root shows no directories, unless "Show 
MiKTeX-maintained root directories" is checked. Then it shows my TeX 
file directory (that containing the TeX documents I have written). It 
also shows 4 directories created by the install: 
C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Roaming\MiKTeX\2.9
C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\MiKTeX\2.9
C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9
C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9

 >> and my TeX sources in several others (I organize them by project).

 > As long as all the files for each document are in the same 
directory, this is fine.

But I don't want this, because I have a set of macros that I have 
written which are to be used in different projects. The common macro 
files should be alone in a single directory, so I don't have to 
replicate them in every project directory.

 >> It's important to me that I do not have to refresh the filename database
 >> or change root directories except occasionally.

 > You will only need to refresh the FNDB when you add or delete a 
file from your texmf
 > directory (if you edit a file, this doesn't matter - the FNDB 
already knew it was there).

I want to never (or almost never) need to refresh FNDB; certainly not 
when creating a new TeX file in an existing project directory. I 
can't believe the authors of WinEdt/MiKTeX intended to have such a 
cumbersome UI, so I assume I have done something wrong.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, sponsored
by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all
things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to
news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the 
conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/