Re: jadetex error (babel related?)

["D. Michael McFarland" <mcfarlan@xxxxxxxx>]

Paul Prescod wrote:
>I don't know a lot about TeX packaging. I'm wondering if there is a way
>to make a single package file that includes everything JadeTex depends
>upon. I wouldn't personally care if it was 500K or 5MB if it allowed me
>to set up a system without chasing all over the Internet and issuing
>cryptic commands. Of course for the TeX experts a "standalone" JadeTex
>would probably continue to be most appropriate. But I think that there
>are a lot of mere mortals who just want to print on Unix and would
>rather spend an afternoon downloading redundant code in the background
>rather than actively chasing down components.

I started this thread with my question about a JadeTeX error, to which
Sebastian's response, essentially "upgrade hyperref", was just what I
needed to hear.  I must admit, though, that to those who want to use
TeX only as a back end to jade it might have seemed terse.

At least under Unix, the teTeX package provides a very good starting
point for setting up JadeTeX, and I suggest that any comprehensive
JadeTeX package would do better to add to teTeX than to duplicate
(big) parts of it.  What seems to be lacking is documentation on how
to get JadeTeX going.  For example, once I understood that my goal
should be the production and use of the TeX format file jadetex.fmt, I
was off and running, but without this list and its archives I don't
know where I would have found this basic information.  As I suspect we
too often do, I assumed there was some fundamental piece of
documentation everyone but me knew about, so I beat my head on the
installation longer than I'd like to admit.  If anyone can assure me
that no detailed JadeTeX installation instructions exist, perhaps I'll
try to put something together--a "JadeTeX HOWTO", if you will.

Please note that I don't mean this to be critical of JadeTeX in any
way; I'm very glad to have it available.  I'd like to make it more
accessible to my colleagues, who are just coming to realize the
limitations of MS Word.

Enough of my rambling....

Michael

--
    D. Michael McFarland
    <mcfarlan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
    http://www.creativedestruction.com/


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