Re: mp file not compiling

["Mojca Miklavec" <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>]

On 5/3/06, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
> Hi,
>   Is the mp support for btex...etex broken in the latest context
> (ConTeXt  ver: 2006.04.27 15:59) The following does not compile,
>
> \starttext
> \startMPpage
>    label(btex This is a test etex, origin) ;
> \stopMPpage
> \stoptext
>
> I get an error
>
> ! Unable to make mpx file.
> l.123 label(btex
>                    This is a test etex
>
> Even an mp file
>
> beginfig(1)
>    label(btex hello world etex, origin) ;
> endfig
>                                         end;
>
> with texexec --mptex gives the same error message.
>
> Can somebody confirm this? Or is something broken at my end?

First of all:
1. in case you are using windows, update "texmfstart.exe" from
cont-win.zip (you have to do that every now and then)
2. check that "texexec" is a synonym (for example texexec.bat under
windows or an executable) for running "texmfstart [new]texexec"
3. Hans would say that you have to use "textext" instead of btex ... etex


I doubt that this came with the latest distribution. The btex/etex and
textext functionality is  a bit broken anyway: sometimes it works and
sometimes it doesn't. It depends a lot on the system that you use
(MikTeX/tetex/standalone), on texexec that you run (texexec or
newtexexec), how you run it (a batch/shell script with "texmfstart
[new]texexec" or from linux/windows binaries that come with other
distributions than the standalone one).

It might also be that "write18" is set to off, it might be that some
\runMP[TEX]graphic[s]true, \forceMP[TEX]graphic[s]true are set to
false (chech your cont-usr.tex file). (I don't know which variable
does what, but if you try to use an undefined one, TeX will complain
anyway. Check the sources or try to switch on all the possible
combinations of the commands mentioned above.)


Since the topic is already open: Hans, if you find out what is going
on with those input-ed strings, can you please also check what has to
be done to enable "textext" under XeTeX? The more combinations I try,
the more I break the system as the whole, so that I even had to
reinstall everything. How does "runtexmpjob" know which TeX engine to
use? Here the labels are processed with pdfTeX instead of being
processed with XeTeX. I also have some problems with defining the
proper font for those labels, but that's another story anyway.

Thanks a lot,
    Mojca