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I've tried following the advise in other postings here, but nothing is working and I'm now afraid I'm going to break something.

I've tried setting:

export TEXINPUTS=.:~/projects/ini/latex/texmf:$TEXINPUTS

I've tried running

sudo texhash ~/projects/ini/latx/texmf

But neither work.

The files I'm expecting LaTeX to find are

~/projects/ini/latex/texmf/tex/latex/stages/stages.tex
~/projects/ini/latex/texmf/tex/latex/choices/choices.tex

What am I not doing or doing wrong?

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5
  • I don't have the variable $TEXINPUTS. What is it?
    – Sigur
    Jan 26, 2013 at 22:58
  • @sigur, I'm not entirely sure. I was just trying to follow advice to similar questions posted here, but not succeeding.
    – A.Ellett
    Jan 26, 2013 at 22:59
  • You should put your first code in the file .bashrc on your home folder.
    – Sigur
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:02
  • @sigur. Yes. That's were I put the export...
    – A.Ellett
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:04
  • 2
    You're missing the trailing double slash for recursive searches: .:~/projects/ini/latex/texmf//: Don't add $TEXINPUTS which is nil in the environment; just a trailing colon stands for "add the usual value of the variable".
    – egreg
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:09

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8 
 ~/projects/ini/latex/texmf

will just look in that directory you want a path component of

~/projects/ini/latex/texmf//

to search subdirectories.

These days it is probably more common to set things in texmf.cnf configuration rather than use environment variables, although the same path syntax applies either way.

So on my TeXLive 2012 system I have:

$ kpsewhich texmf.cnf
/usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf.cnf

and that file looks like

$ more /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf.cnf
% (Public domain.)
% This texmf.cnf file should contain only your personal changes from the
% original texmf.cnf (for example, as chosen in the installer).
%
% That is, if you need to make changes to texmf.cnf, put your custom
% settings in this file, which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf.cnf, rather than
% the distributed file (which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf).
% And include *only* your changed values, not a copy of the whole thing!
%

If you look at the file it references in the web2c directory it is mostly comments just detailing all the things you can set. Note texmf.cnf files look a bit like shell environment settings but they are not they are read directly by the kpathsea library of TeX and work cross platforms including systems without a usable shell.

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3
  • 1
    Do I just make a texmf.cnf file and put it in my home directory?
    – A.Ellett
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:14
  • 1
    What other variables might be good to set and put in texmf.cnf
    – A.Ellett
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:15
  • updated with example
    – David Carlisle
    Jan 26, 2013 at 23:24

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