[Ipe-discuss] LaTeX runs -> temporary files

[Otfried Cheong]

Andreas Keil wrote:
> I have one minor feature request regarding the LaTeX runs performed by Ipe
> for typesetting text and formulae:
> Would it be possible to make the name of the temporary LaTeX file
> configurable using prefs.lua or an environment variable? I managed to make
> Ipe run LaTeX from the current directory (setting IPELATEXDIR to "./"). This
> enables me to include LaTeX files in the preamble relatively to the current
> image/directory (like \input{packages}). 

Could you explain a bit more what you are trying to achieve?  What you 
are asking for has been asked for before by several users, and it nearly 
always turns out that what they really needed was a feature like this:

http://ipe7.sourceforge.net/manual/manual_35.html

Making an Ipe file depend on files present in the paper's directory is 
quite against the philosophy of Ipe figures, which are intended to be 
self-contained.  For instance, "ipetoipe" would not work any longer on 
such a figure if you move it out of its original directory.

prefs.lua is out of the question, as Latex conversion can be done by 
pure C++ programs (such as ipetoipe or iperender).  An environment 
variable would of course be possible.

> Another question I have (out of curiosity): Did you ever think about
> optionally not storing rendered glyphs in the pdf/eps files but instead rely
> on the font definitions (either by embedding or by assuming they'd be there,
> e.g. after inclusion in a LaTeX document)? I know that embedding would make
> the files larger whereas not embedding without glyph rendering would make
> the files non-self-contained. However, there might be applications for this
> - but I may be wrong...

If you really need this, you can set up pdflatex not to include the font 
definitions.  Ipe should work fine with such a setup (although I don't 
know anybody who tested this).

But what would this be good for?  When pdflatex includes Ipe figures in 
a Latex document, the duplicate font definitions are removed anyway.  So 
your only gain would be to save a few bytes in each Ipe figure, at the 
price of not being able to view them in a PDF viewer.

> But maybe you helped me with putting the temporary files in to a subfolder
> of the current directory: I could create a temp. directory, point
> IPELATEXDIR there, and add ".." to the search path using TEXINPUTS. This
> would enable me to use \input paths relative to the image's path. However, I
> did not manage to use the TEXINPUTS environment variable correctly. I am
> using MikTeX 2.7 on Windows 7 and specifying
>   set TEXINPUTS="..;"
> (with or without quotes, with or without trailing slash, with trailing colon
> or semicolon) didn't work. The TEXINPUTS variable is referenced in MikTeX's
> documentation but no examples are given.

The last time I looked at MikTeX, it did NOT use TEXINPUTS at all.  You 
have to use a command line parameter:

http://docs.miktex.org/2.8/manual/texfeatures.html#includedirectory

Otfried