General ⇒ Problem with pdfjam

[mas]

I have the following file which compiles just fine under TeXLive 2015.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
%
\usepackage{pdfpages}

\begin{document}

\includepdf[scale=.2]{example-image-a.pdf}

\end{document}

When I try using pdfnup to create an nup file, I get the following error:

Code: Select all

$ pdfnup test.pdf
          ----
  pdfjam: This is pdfjam version 2.08.
  pdfjam: Reading any site-wide or user-specific defaults...
          (none found)
  pdfjam ERROR: LaTeX package pdfpages.sty is not installed

As is evident, pdfpages is installed as can be seen in the first step.

Code: Select all

$ tlmgr info pdfpages
package:     pdfpages
category:    Package
shortdesc:   Include PDF documents in LaTeX
longdesc:    This package simplifies the inclusion of external multi-page PDF documents in LaTeX documents. Pages may be freely selected and similar to psnup it is possible to put several logical pages onto each sheet of paper. Furthermore a lot of hypertext features like hyperlinks and article threads are provided. The package supports pdfTeX (pdfLaTeX) and VTeX. With VTeX it is even possible to use this package to insert PostScript files, in addition to PDF files.
installed:   Yes
revision:    38406
sizes:       src: 173k, doc: 349k, run: 97k
relocatable: No
cat-version: 0.5d
cat-date:    2015-09-18 22:35:18 +0200
cat-license: lppl1.3
cat-topics:  graphics-incl
collection:  collection-latexrecommended

Ran texhash as root and user. Still the same result.

Any pointers would be helpful.

[Johannes_B]

Hi, works perfectly on my machine.

[mas]

works perfectly on my machine.

I know Working perfectly on my other machines except one. I am trying to troubleshoot. The error message says pdfpages not installed, but it is! pdflatex is able to find it, whereas pdfjam is not.

[Johannes_B]

pdfjam looks for a file called pdfjam.conf as i found out by reading the man page. I have just one on my system, maybe you have an extra one on that one machine that sets a different path for the search.

[mas]

No. The only thing I could find on my system was the same one you found. I did a locate pdfjam to find all such files on my system and tried all things that I know with no change in the result. So, thought of picking the brains of others and hence the post

If it matters, on my debian machines things are working fine. The non-working setup runs Mint 17.3.

[Johannes_B]

We are a bit short on helpers. You could try the TeX Live mailing list, or texhax. Please refer to the topic here when posting on a list, since this is crossposting as well.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Interesting. i just think it's not a TeX Live issue at all, so the TeX Live mailing list might not be the best place to ask. TeX Live finds the file.

A pdfjam mailing list (if existent) could help though.

But, I think the root cause may be

• you installed the original TeX Live (over the Internet, not via Mint/Ubuntu/Debian Linux repositories)
• pdfjam looks for Linux system packages, but you don't have them installed.

Just a guess. Hopefully it can be fixed by configuring pdfjam to use the non-repository non-OS TeX.

Stefan

[mas]

But, I think the root cause may be
you installed the original TeX Live (over the Internet, not via Mint/Ubuntu/Debian Linux repositories)

It has been years since I installed TeXLive via the standard repositories. I always use the TeXLive from ctan.

pdfjam looks for Linux system packages, but you don't have them installed.

As I mentioned earlier, the only pdfjam files on the system are all under the texlive tree.

Just a guess. Hopefully it can be fixed by configuring pdfjam to use the non-repository non-OS TeX.

Again as I mentioned, the pdfjam.conf did not have any difference with the one on a working machine.

I am thinking of reinstalling and see if the issue gets resolved.

[andreibarbos]

I encountered the same problem myself with respect to pdfjam saying it is not able to find the pdfpages.sty package. I managed to find a solution based on the responses so far. I also installed texlive using tlmgr and not my distribution's package manager.

The first thing that I did was to find the pdfjam.conf file, which in my case was '/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/doc/support/pdfjam/pdfjam.conf'. I opened it, not before making a copy though, and first uncommented the line

Code: Select all

# pdflatex='/usr/bin/pdflatex'     ## typical unix installation

then modified it such that it points to where pdflatex is located on my system

Code: Select all

pdflatex='/usr/local/texlive/2016/bin/x86_64-linux/pdflatex'

and finally saved and closed it. I ran pdfjam and got the same error. At first I failed to understand why it still didn't work since I had correctly specified the location where pdflatex resides. At a second glance at the error given by pdfjam I realised that it didn't read the file that I just modified and the clue that tipped me off was the line that said

pdfjam: Reading any site-wide or user-specific defaults...
(none found)

I then looked at the help for pdfjam by simply running pdfjam --help and realised why it wasn't using the pdfjam.conf file that I modified. The help states that

The path that is searched for site-wide configuration files (named pdfjam.conf) at this installation is
/etc:/usr/share/etc:/usr/local/share:/usr/local/etc

which does not include the current location of the file, i.e. '/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/doc/support/pdfjam/', so I simply copied the pdfjam.conf file to /etc and afterwards pdfjam worked.

You can also put a copy of it in your home folder as '.pdfjam.conf', however I decided to put it in /etc to be available system wide.

I don't know if you have solved the problem by this time, however I am still posting the answer such that others who might face the same problem have an answer to it.

All the best,
Andrei