Others ⇒ Does PCTeX have proper e-TeX support?

[mwrenfro]

In trying to use the etoolbox package with PCTeX v6 (6.1, Build Fri Apr 16 13:29:46 2010), it looks like either PCTeX doesn't have e-TeX support, or etoolbox is checking for that support incorrectly. Since PCTeX didn't include etoolbox, or know how to get it from CTAN (or else I don't know how to fix it), I copied etoolbox.sty and etoolbox.def v2.1 from a TeX Live 2010 install into the same folder as the MWE below:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\begin{document}
Hello, world.
\end{document}

Building this with PCTeX returns "! Package etoolbox Error: Not running under e-TeX." while building it with TeX Live 2010 works fine. Any ideas on how to narrow down the source of the problem?

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi,

perhaps post your .log file here as attachment, we could have a look at it.

Stefan

[apollo_el]

Greetings,

I have the exact same problem with PCTex (same version). Here's what my log reads:

Code: Select all

This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.20a-2.2 (Web2c 7.5.3)
 Source specials enabled.
 %&-line parsing enabled.
output format initialized to PDF
(./test.tex
LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
(c:/Program Files (x86)/PCTeX/PCTeXv6/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
(c:/Program Files (x86)/PCTeX/PCTeXv6/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))
(c:/Program Files (x86)/PCTeX/PCTeXv6/texmf-dist/tex/latex/etoolbox/etoolbox/et
oolbox.sty

! Package etoolbox Error: Not running under e-TeX.

See the etoolbox package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              
                                                  
l.33   {}
         
? e
No pages of output.
Transcript written on test.log.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[mwrenfro]

I hadn't been keeping up with this thread, but I got an answer on the PCTeX forum within a few days.

This is the PCTeX thread. Short version of the fix:

To use e-TeX's extended mode, go to PCTeX's Typeset menu, select INITeX, select LaTeX, add an asterisk to the beginning of the macro file name (i.e. "*latex.ltx"), and click INITeX.

Now when you typeset with LaTeX, it will use e-TeX's extended mode.

[apollo_el]

I confirm that the steps, described above, solve the problem with PCTeX. It will also ask you for a number of files to download (which it requires in order to compile); this is ok.
In my case, it gave me an error :
"missing xargs.sty"

Just download it from:

http://ctan.mackichan.com/macros/latex/ ... /xargs.sty

And put it in: (C:)...\PCTeX\PCTeXv6\texmf-dist\tex\latex

That's it!

[EnriqueVilla]

It sounds like your guess is right — PCTeX v6 likely doesn't run an e-TeX-compatible engine by default, which is why etoolbox throws that error. Unless PCTeX allows switching to an e-TeX-enabled engine (like pdfTeX with e-TeX extensions), the simplest fix would be to switch to a TeX distribution like TeX Live or MiKTeX, which do support etoolbox out of the box.