Document Classes ⇒ Installing PSTricks Help

[edc]

I am in need of some help with installing PSTricks. I'm getting the necessary files from ftp://ftp.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/pstricks/ which I linked to from http://tug.org/PSTricks/main.cgi/.

According to the readme, the following steps need to occur:

a - You have to move all the files from the "generic" subdirectory
to a directory part of your TEXINPUTS environment variable, or to add it
in your TEXINPUTS list of paths.

b - If you are a LaTeX user (and not only a plain TeX one), you have
to do the same thing for the "latex" subdirectory, which define LaTeX
wrappers for all the PSTricks files.

a - If you use the "dvips" DVI to PostScript converter, you have
to move all the files from the "dvips" subdirectory to a directory part
of your DVIPSHEADERS environment variable, or to add it in your DVIPSHEADERS
list of paths.

I'm using the ProText installation on a PC, and I put the files above in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7\ in the generic, latex, and dvips subfolders.

Here's what I've tried:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{amsart}
\title{Why Won't This Fucking Work!?}
\author{Ed}
\date{\today}

% Check if we are compiling under latex or pdflatex, and include the
% appropriate graphics package
\ifx\pdftexversion\undefined
  \usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}
\else
  \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
\fi

\usepackage{pstricks}
\usepackage{pst-node}
\usepackage{pst-tree}
\usepackage{pst-plot}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(3,3)
\psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)
\end{pspicture}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

and this gives me the following four errors:

! Undefined control sequence.
<recently read> \c@lor@to@ps

1.23 \psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)

! Undefined control sequence.
\XC@usec@lor ...string \color@ #1#2\endcsname \@@
\fi \space
1.23 \psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)

! Undefined control sequence.
<recently read> \c@lor@to@ps

1.23 \psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)

! Undefined control sequence.
\XC@usec@lor ...string \color@ #1#2\endcsname \@@
\fi \space
1.23 \psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)

On the other hand, this works without error:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{amsart}
\title{Why Won't This Fucking Work!?}
\author{Ed}
\date{\today}

% Check if we are compiling under latex or pdflatex, and include the
% appropriate graphics package
\ifx\pdftexversion\undefined
  \usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}
\else
  \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
\fi

\usepackage{pstricks}
\usepackage{pst-node}
\usepackage{pst-tree}
\usepackage{pst-plot}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(3,3)
\end{pspicture}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

I'm kind of at a loss, and my guess is it's something elementary, so please help a LaTeX newbie out!

[daleif]

Any reason why you do this by hand and not just update/upgrade you LaTeX installation?

As the miktex package manager to install the new version for you. That is a lot easier than trying to do it by hand.

[localghost]

As daleif already mentioned, modern LaTeX distributions have a package manager to install missing packages very easy. You didn't say something about your LaTeX system so we can only guess. If we'd know that, giving help would be much easier.


Best regards
Thorsten¹

[daleif]

The OP is using ProTeXt which is MikTeX plus tools

[localghost]

The OP is using ProTeXt which is MikTeX plus tools

Ah, now I got it, too. In this mass of text I failed to notice that. Thanks for pointing that out.

[edc]

So I went ahead and updated all my packages with the automatic MikTeX function and the problem still persists, with the same error messages. Any other ideas?

[localghost]

After a closer look at the error message I can see what is wrong. You can't compile with pdflatex when using PSTricks (PostScript Tricks). But you can use the pst-pdf package to have PSTricks graphics with pdflatex. A special build profile for TeXnicCenter is given in another topic [1]. Follow very carefully the advices. As an alternative you can try the auto-pst-pdf package.

[1] Problems with pstricks :S

[daleif]

Might be a better idea to switch to TiKz/PGF which can do moch the same as PStricks, and works in latex + dvips and with pdflatex

[edc]

Nice...things seem to be working sort of...

I think I'm getting the definition of the build right, as I've changed all the necessary paths to be exact.

However, when I try the following:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{amsart}
\title{Why Won't This Fucking Work!?}
\author{Ed}
\date{\today}

\usepackage{pst-pdf,pst-text,pstricks-add}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\psset{linecolor=lightgray}
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=true](-5,-3)(5,3)
\pstextpath[c]{\pscurve(-5,0)(-2.5,-2)(0,2)(2.5,-2)(5,0)}
    {\color{blue}\large Esta frase sinuosa y peculiar est\'a escrita a lo largo de la curva $y=x^4-2x^2$}
\end{pspicture}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

I get two warnings that say "pspicture No. 1 undefined." and "File `PSTry-pics.pdf' not found." Afterwards it spits these directions, but I'm really not sure what it wants me to do:

Use the following commands to create it:
----------------------------------------------
latex PSTry.tex
dvips -o PSTry-pics.ps PSTry.dvi
ps2pdf PSTry-pics.ps
----------------------------------------------

I'm on a PC, and it looks like the above are linux commands, and it seems that they're asking me to do what the build is supposed to do anyway...any ideas on this one?

Oh, and thank you for the assistance, both of you. If I keep on having issues with this, I might just use the other package that is compatible.

[daleif]

no those works fine on windows as well.