General ⇒ Problem with fonts - I can't seem to get them installed

[Spectrum]

Hello. I have the following problem:

I want to use the TIPA package for phonetic characters in LaTeX. I am follwing the installation guide in the TIPA manual, and it looks to me like I am doing it correctly, but it sure as hell doesn't work. The fonts don't display like they're supposed to. No matter what I type in a \textipa command (used for displaying phonetic characters), I just get what looks like an apostrophe and a lambda.

I apologize for the poor description, but it's hard for me to provide more info, because I really don't know what I am doing. I am just following the installation guide. At least I think I am. I've placed a bunch of STY and FD and MAP and MF and DEF and TFM and PFB files in my TeX folder, but it doesn't work.

Can anyone help?

[balfonsi]

Did you refresh the file name database?

B.A.

[Spectrum]

I don't know. How do you do that?

I did apply the "mktexlsr" command (as the guide said), but I don't know exactly what it does.

[countbela666]

Quote of the UK TeX FAQ:

The final stage is to tell LaTeX that there is a new file, or files, that it should be able to go and find. Most free LaTeX systems maintain a database of the names and locations of latex-related files to enable faster searching. In these systems the database must be updated, using the script or program provided with the distribution for this purpose.

teTeX
Run: texhash

web2c
On a current web2c distribution, texhash ought to work; if it doesn’t, run mktexlsr

MiKTeX
On a MiKTeX distribution earlier than v2.0, click Start-> Programs-> MiKTeX-> Maintenance-> Refresh filename database

or get a DOS window and run:
initexmf --update-fndb

On a MiKTeX distribution v2.0 or later, do:
Start-> Programs-> MiKTeX 2-> MiKTeX Options, and press the Refresh now button (Update filename database in earlier versions of MiKTeX).

As you see a "mktexlsr" should work if you use a web2c distribution. IMHO running the command "texhash" should work for nearly all distributions.

Regards
Marcel

[Spectrum]

I solved my problem. It turns out that the fonts were installed correctly, there were just errors in my TeX-code. (That's what I get for relying on user-defined commands. I always make errors in the command definition, errors which are damn hard to track afterwards. )

But thanks for the replies anyway.