ALaTeX Installation Guide 21 January 1996 Matt Swift SUMMARY ======= This file contains the installation instructions for the ALaTeX document preparation system. In order to install ALaTeX, you must have a working installation of LaTeX2e. More information on LaTeX may be found at In summary, to install ALaTeX, you will: * Generate the ALaTeX format and standard metaclass. * Put the ALaTeX files where ALaTeX can read them. * Check the installation. When one of these steps depends on your TeX distribution, you may find help on how to do it in a .txt file in the LaTeX distribution. GENERATING THE ALATEX FORMAT ============================ To create the ALaTeX format, * Run TeX on the file `aunpack.ins'. This will create two new files called `alatex.ltx' and `metaclas.cfg'. * Invoke iniTeX with a first line of `&latex alatex.ltx'. This will create a format file called `alatex.fmt'. Alternatively, you can do this by typing `&latex' to iniTeX's `**' prompt, then typing `\input alatex.ltx', and renaming the file `texput.fmt' to `alatex.fmt'. * Copy or move the format file `alatex.fmt' to the TeX formats directory, and copy or move the standard metaclass `metaclas.cfg' into a standard TeX input path. * If you use the Unix web2c distribution of TeX, you may wish to create a link from `alatex' to `virtex', and define TEXINPUTS.alatex to have the same or similar value as TEXINPUTS.latex2e in the file texmf.cnf. On other platforms, you must do something else to use the ALaTeX format. CHECKING THAT THE INSTALLATION WORKED ===================================== To make sure that the installation has worked, you may run ALaTeX on the document `ltxcheck.tex' which came in the base directory of your LaTeX2e distribution. Notice that the dialog will refer to LaTeX2e, but the banner ought to announce that you have invoked ALaTeX. This will produce a number of messages, each of which should be `OK'. If any of them are `BAD', I suggest trying seeing whether the same error occurs when you run LaTeX on `ltxcheck.tex'. If so, see the PROBLEMS section of the install.txt file in the LaTeX distribution. If not, then please see the file abugs.txt in the ALaTeX distribution and submit a bug report. If all the messages are `OK' then you are finished! GENERATING THE DOCUMENTATION ============================ Process `alatex.tex' with LaTeX and (optionally) Makeindex to produce documentation of ALaTeX and its standard metaclass. If you generate the index, use the index style that came in the base directory of your LaTeX2e distribution (though it might have been moved elsewhere during installation). UNIX ==== On a Unix system, it will be easiest to use the Makefile I have written. Look over the variables at the top of the Makefile and adjust them as necessary. Invoke "make" with no arguments to see a list of targets.