Re: help debugging latex-overlays boxes

[John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>]

The issue seems to finally be the value of temporary-file-directory,
which is defined in C-source, and I think that is where the ~1 comes
from. I have a workaround solution, which is to set the
temproary-file-directory variable this way:

(setq temporary-file-directory (expand-file-name "~/../Local/Temp"))

which gives it a full path.

It is pretty odd. There are about 50 students with nominally the same
computers in this class, but this issue seems to only affect about 20%
of them!

John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

> Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> writes:
>
> I have traced my problem. The issue is in the function
> org-preview-latex-fragment. At the end of the function, where it calls
> org-format-latex, the default-directory variable that is used in the
> function call has a value of
> "c:/Users/YUYUA~1/AppData/Local/Temp/ltxpng/mole-balance"
>
> The YUYUA~1 is causing the problem.
>
> I do not understand why the full path, "c:/Users/Yuyu
> Yao/AppData/Local/Temp" is not showing up here. When I examine the
> default-directory variable in a buffer in that directory, that is what
> comes up. It is only inside the org function it gets chomped to what
> looks like an old DOS format.
>
> Anyway, latex cannot handle that path, so no dvi is produced, and no
> image.
>
> otherwise the latex file is produced, and it compiles fine with the full
> path. Any ideas on how to fix that? Thanks,
>
>> John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I am using org-mode in a course this fall with 60 students.  All of them
>>> are using org-mode from elpa. For about 10 of them, they are unable to
>>> toggle the latex-overlays; instead of getting the equations, they get
>>> empty gray boxes with an error that the png file was not created.  Oddly
>>> enough, they can export to PDF just fine. I have also checked that they
>>> have LaTeX (TeXLive) installed, and it appears it is. I am able to
>>> convert tex files to dvi, and then use dvipng to make a png image. But
>>> for some reason, the toggle-latex-overlay function does not work for
>>> them.
>>>
>>> I am at a loss to figure out what the issue is. These are Windows
>>> laptops that were preconfigured by the department. Almost all of them
>>> work fine, except for this small number I cannot figure out.
>>>
>>> Any ideas? Thanks,
>>
>> I would edebug-defun the function org-create-formula-image and step
>> through it to make sure that it goes the way you want (are you sure you
>> are using the dvipng method on these machines? maybe you are using the
>> imagemagick method but the program has not been installed?  Check the
>> value of org-latex-create-formula-image-program).
>>
>> While you are stepping you can also check the variables in the function
>> and see e.g. what the output file name is.
>>
>> If that goes OK, then I would edebug-defun
>> org-create-formula-image-with-dvipng next and check the latex input file
>> it produces. Make sure that things like minted which require
>> --shell-escape are *not* included in that input file: it's processed by
>> a hard-wired call to latex (without --shell-escape) , so minted will
>> cause a failure. If that is the case, check org-latex-packages-alist and
>> make sure that minted's snippet-flag is nil.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>

-- 
-----------------------------------
John Kitchin
Professor
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu