TeX Live and MacTeX ⇒ Tex Live basic and revtex4

[thelma]

I've just installed the basic version of TeX Live on my Mac[OS X 10.5].
I need to use revtex4: do I need to download this separately or does it already exist within the Tex Live utitlities? If it exists, how do I set paths so latex can find it?

I tried to latex a file that runs on another system: latex complained that 'revtex4.cls' was missing.
I provided a minimal one which it accepted and proceeded to complain about several missing .sty files, including revtex4.sty. I'm just learning TeX via someone else's document. I'm guessing that some of the .sty files are for that particular document, but revtex4.sty? I found a 'revtex4_1.sty' (or something very close to that name) buried somewhere in what I already have.

What do I need to do to use revtex4?

thank you, thelma

[localghost]

[...] I need to use revtex4: do I need to download this separately or does it already exist within the Tex Live utitlities? If it exists, how do I set paths so latex can find it? [...]

Open a terminal (shell, command prompt) and check whether the revtex4-1 class (not package) is already installed.

Code: Select all

kpsewhich revtex4-1.cls

If you get no output, the class is missing in your LaTeX system.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[thelma]

Thank you.
I do have the revtex4-1.cls. When I tried to latex the file I had been given it asked for revtex4.cls. I told it to use revtex4-1.cls. It then reported two missing .sty files, but did produce some not unreasonable looking output.
Is replacing revtex4 by revtex4-1 going to cause me bad trouble?

--thelma

[localghost]

[...] Is replacing revtex4 by revtex4-1 going to cause me bad trouble? [...]

As long as there are no changes to the basics, older code should run. Perhaps you need to do some accommodations. But you should check the log file to find out which packages are missing and where required install them subsequently.

[T3.]

Is replacing revtex4 by revtex4-1 going to cause me bad trouble?

I'm not sure about how "bad" problems it can create, but there are still some bugs in the new version of revtex. However, the previous version is still available in TL as revtex4 package. Just use the TL package manager to install it. On the command line this will do the trick:

Code: Select all

tlmgr install revtex4

Cheers,

Tomek

[sukayser]

Help! Going back to the original question:
I have the TeX Live 2009 distribution installed on my Mac (OS 10.6.3)--which does not include revtex at all--and have downloaded the Revtex4-1 package from CTAN (and unzipped it on the desktop). How do I install it?

I'm a very basic Unix user. I can open a Terminal window and change directories, but not much more. I do know about sudo. I am not sure about moving files or directories from my desktop to the tex distribution, or which TexLive directories to move files into, and I've seen some messages talk about indexing, and know nothing about that.

Please help.
Susan Kayser

[josephwright]

Hello Susan,

I'm a bit surprised that you don't have REVTeX4, as it is certainly in TeX Live 2009, at least if you update TeX Live. This suggests two possible approaches: 1) update TeX Live to see if this helps 2) do a manual installation.

If you want to have the package installed via TeX Live's update system, the easiest way is to do

Code: Select all

sudo tlmgr update --self --all

at the Terminal. This will update everything that is installed and add any missing packages.

The alternative is to put the files in the local TeX tree. Inside ~/Library you should have a folder called "texmf". The REVTeX files need to live in the correct places, but they seem to be correctly set up in the zip, so just move the folders inside the zip inside ~/Library/texmf. You then need to run "texhash" at the Terminal so that TeX can find the new files.

Generally, it's easier to use tlmgr to install packages when it knows about them (unless you are a TeX expert).