Setting a Path to Dropbox Files (FYI)

[Colin Ramsay]

Hi all,

I just noticed that TL 2019 cautions against making changes to file ... /2019/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf

Instead, they recommend adding the local path to the file ... /2019/ texmf.cnf

I reversed my changes to the former file and added them to the latter file and, again, it works.

Colin

-----Original Message-----
From: Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2020 11:52 AM
To: Philip Taylor <P.Taylor at hellenic-institute.uk>
Cc: Colin Ramsay <cramsay at unl.edu>; Christopher W. Ryan <cryan at binghamton.edu>; ΤeXhax <texhax at tug.org>; tex-live at tug.org
Subject: Re: Setting a Path to Dropbox Files

Hi all,

file texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf (or with backslashes in Windows) defines the location of texmf-local as:

% Local additions to the distribution trees.
TEXMFLOCAL = $SELFAUTOGRANDPARENT/texmf-local

You should have a texmf.cnf file in the root TL tree for each year which contains no definitions as default. You just add something like:

TEXMFLOCAL = C/path/to/my/dropbox/texmf-local

and it should work. You can copy the file template to your dropbox so that you can easily configure all your computers. When upgrading TL to 2020, you just copy your local texmf.cnf from the 2019 root to the
2020 root.

Zdeněk Wagner
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ttsm.icpf.cas.cz_team_wagner.shtml&d=DwIFaQ&c=Cu5g146wZdoqVuKpTNsYHeFX_rg6kWhlkLF8Eft-wwo&r=6Dz6cLdGaY55jZN5vbeYeA&m=giAD1ejGkJoER2yIS36U2YE1iKaImXVZPdjC28WL3Ws&s=SDpbVahQcCesfJbYuYJ52yGLrkSZU1lp-qpZtKL6JI0&e=
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so 25. 4. 2020 v 18:42 odesílatel Philip Taylor <P.Taylor at hellenic-institute.uk> napsal:
>
> Colin Ramsay wrote:
>
> I have >= 2 Windows 10 computers that I use regularly for Latex stuff and I have my latex documents in several folders on Dropbox.
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> I also have a texmf-local folder that contains my personal definitions, style files, etc., located on Dropbox.
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> Is there a way to get Texlive 2019 to search the Dropbox texmf-local folder?
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> I want to keep my definitions etc in a central folder that is accessible to Texlive on any machine that has my Dropbox folder. I do not want to put these definitions etc in the folders containing the main files.
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> Your advice would be helpful.
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>
> Colin
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> I do not know whether it is possible to retrospectively change the install-time definition of the location of TeXMF-Local; I always specify the location explicitly when installing a new version of TeX Live, and always the same location, so that the location of TeXMF-Local is independent of the version of TeX Live used.  Thus (for example), I might install TeX Live 2019 to X:\TeX\Live\2019 and TeX Live 2020 to X:\TeX\Live\2020, but the location for TeXMF-Local would be the same for both :  X:\TeX\Live\TeX-MF\Local.  Clearly if you were to re-install TeX Live 2019 you could specify that the root of TeXMF-Local is to lie within your local Dropbox hierarchy, but once installed I do not know how (if at all) you could re-specify it other than through an environment variable.  A TeX Live expert would be able to advise here, so the TeX Live list cc'd.
>
> Philip Taylor