GNU bug report logs - #20661
What prevents me from getting a preview?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Markus Pötzlberger
 <M.Poetzlberger <at> physik.uni-muenchen.de>
To: <bug-auctex <at> gnu.org>
Subject: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 16:32:04 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi!

I'm a Windows 8.1 user. I unzipped emacs, used the emacs package installer
to install AUCTex,

opened a .tex file, can compile it and have a Preview and LaTex menu.

gswin64c is in the path. unzipped some png .dll files into the emacs folder.

LaTex works fine, but the conversion to pictures fails somehow...

I had to change the "preview-gs-command" from "nil" to the current

setting "gswin64c.exe"

Is it necessary to use "gswin32" instead of "gswin64"?

Any mistakes in my settings?

 

The basic example is:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}

 

\begin{document}

Hello World!

This is $\mu$

\end{document}

 

Thank you for your help!

 

With kind regards,

Markus P.

 

Emacs  : GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i686-pc-mingw32)

of 2014-10-24 on LEG570

Package: 11.88.6

 

Run buffer contents:

 

Running `Preview-LaTeX' on `test' with ``pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode
"&"prv_test"" "test.tex"''

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.5-1.40.14 (MiKTeX 2.9)

entering extended mode

(d:\test.tex

LaTeX2e <2011/06/27>

Babel <v3.8m> and hyphenation patterns for english, afrikaans, ancientgreek,
ar

abic, armenian, assamese, basque, bengali, bokmal, bulgarian, catalan,
coptic, 

croatian, czech, danish, dutch, esperanto, estonian, farsi, finnish, french,
ga

lician, german, german-x-2013-05-26, greek, gujarati, hindi, hungarian,
iceland

ic, indonesian, interlingua, irish, italian, kannada, kurmanji, latin,
latvian,

lithuanian, malayalam, marathi, mongolian, mongolianlmc, monogreek, ngerman,
n

german-x-2013-05-26, nynorsk, oriya, panjabi, pinyin, polish, portuguese,
roman

ian, russian, sanskrit, serbian, slovak, slovenian, spanish, swedish,
swissgerm

an, tamil, telugu, turkish, turkmen, ukenglish, ukrainian, uppersorbian,
usengl

ishmax, welsh, loaded.

CUSTOMISED FORMAT. Preloaded files:

        .

article.cls    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class

  size10.clo    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)

amsmath.sty    2013/01/14 v2.14 AMS math features

amstext.sty    2000/06/29 v2.01

  amsgen.sty    1999/11/30 v2.0

  amsbsy.sty    1999/11/29 v1.2d

  amsopn.sty    1999/12/14 v2.01 operator names

        .

(d:\test.aux) ("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX
2.9\tex\latex\preview\preview.sty

" ("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\preview\prtightpage.def")

("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\preview\prauctex.def"

No auxiliary output files.

 

 

 

("c:/Users/Markus
P/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/elpa/auctex-11.88.6/latex\prauctex

.cfg")) ("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX
2.9\tex\latex\preview\prfootnotes.def")

Preview: Fontsize 10pt

Preview: PDFoutput 1

)

! Preview: Snippet 1 started.

<-><->

      

l.7 This is $

             \mu$

Preview: Tightpage -32891 -32891 32891 32891

! Preview: Snippet 1 ended.(282168+127431x394886).

<-><->

      

l.7 This is $\mu$

                 

[1{C:/Users/Markus P/AppData/Local/MiKTeX/2.9/pdftex/config/pdftex.map}] )

(see the transcript file for additional information)<C:/Program Files
(x86)/MiK

TeX 2.9/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmmi10.pfb>

Output written on test.pdf (1 page, 8531 bytes).

Transcript written on test.log.

 

TeX Output exited as expected with code 1 at Tue May 26 16:12:31

LaTeX: LaTeX found no preview images

 

 

current state:

==============

(setq

AUCTeX-version "11.88.6"

LaTeX-command-style '((""

                                            "%(PDF)%(latex)
%(file-line-error) %(extraopts) %S%(PDFout)")

                                     )

image-types '(svg png gif tiff jpeg xpm xbm pbm)

preview-image-type 'png

preview-image-creators '((dvipng

                                               (open preview-gs-open
preview-dvipng-process-setup)

                                               (place preview-gs-place)

                                               (close preview-dvipng-close))

                                              (png (open preview-gs-open)
(place preview-gs-place)

                                               (close preview-gs-close))

                                              (jpeg (open preview-gs-open)

                                               (place preview-gs-place)
(close preview-gs-close))

                                              (pnm (open preview-gs-open)
(place preview-gs-place)

                                               (close preview-gs-close))

                                              (tiff (open preview-gs-open)

                                               (place preview-gs-place)
(close preview-gs-close))

                                              )

preview-dvipng-image-type 'png

preview-dvipng-command "dvipng -picky -noghostscript %d -o
\"%m/prev%%03d.png\""

preview-pdf2dsc-command "pdf2dsc %s.pdf %m/preview.dsc"

preview-gs-command "gswin64c.exe"

preview-gs-options '("-q" "-dDELAYSAFER" "-dNOPAUSE" "-DNOPLATFONTS"

                                    "-dPrinted" "-dTextAlphaBits=4"
"-dGraphicsAlphaBits=4")

preview-gs-image-type-alist '((png png "-sDEVICE=png16m")

                                                   (dvipng png
"-sDEVICE=png16m")

                                                   (jpeg jpeg
"-sDEVICE=jpeg")

                                                   (pnm pbm
"-sDEVICE=pnmraw")

                                                   (tiff tiff
"-sDEVICE=tiff12nc"))

preview-fast-conversion t

preview-prefer-TeX-bb nil

preview-dvips-command "dvips -Pwww -i -E %d -o %m/preview.000"

preview-fast-dvips-command "dvips -Pwww %d -o %m/preview.ps"

preview-scale-function 'preview-scale-from-face

preview-LaTeX-command '("%`%l
\"\\nonstopmode\\nofiles\\PassOptionsToPackage{"

                                            ("," .
preview-required-option-list)

 
"}{preview}\\AtBeginDocument{\\ifx\\ifPreview\\undefined"
preview-default-preamble "\\fi}\"%' %t")

preview-required-option-list '("active" "tightpage" "auctex"

 
(preview-preserve-counters "counters"))

preview-preserve-counters nil

preview-default-option-list '("displaymath" "floats" "graphics" "textmath"

                                                   "sections" "footnotes")

preview-default-preamble '("\\RequirePackage["

                                                ("," .
preview-default-option-list)

                                                "]{preview}[2004/11/05]")

preview-LaTeX-command-replacements nil

preview-dump-replacements '(preview-LaTeX-command-replacements

                                                 ("\\`\\([^ ]+\\)\\(\\(
+-\\([^ \\\\\"]\\|\\\\\\.\\|\"[^\"]*\"\\)*\\)*\\)\\(.*\\)\\'" "\\1 -ini
-interaction=nonstopmode \"&\\1\" " preview-format-name ".ini \\5")

                                                 )

preview-undump-replacements '(("\\`\\([^ ]+\\) .*? \"\\\\input\"
\\(.*\\)\\'"

                                                           "\\1
-interaction=nonstopmode \"&"

 
preview-format-name "\" \\2")

                                                   )

preview-auto-cache-preamble 'ask

preview-TeX-style-dir "c:/Users/Markus
P/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/elpa/auctex-11.88.6/latex"

)

 

Output from running `gswin64c.exe -h':

GPL Ghostscript 9.16 (2015-03-30)

Copyright (C) 2015 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Usage: gs [switches] [file1.ps file2.ps ...]

Most frequently used switches: (you can use # in place of =)

-dNOPAUSE           no pause after page   | -q       `quiet', fewer messages

-g<width>x<height>  page size in pixels   | -r<res>  pixels/inch resolution

-sDEVICE=<devname>  select device         | -dBATCH  exit after last file

-sOutputFile=<file> select output file: - for stdout, |command for pipe,

                                         embed %d or %ld for page #

Input formats: PostScript PostScriptLevel1 PostScriptLevel2 PostScriptLevel3
PDF

Default output device: display

Available devices:

   bbox bit bitcmyk bitrgb bj10e bj200 bjc600 bjc800 bmp16 bmp16m bmp256

   bmp32b bmpgray bmpmono bmpsep1 bmpsep8 cdeskjet cdj550 cdjcolor cdjmono

   cp50 declj250 deskjet devicen display djet500 djet500c eps2write eps9high

   eps9mid epson epsonc fpng ibmpro ijs ink_cov inkcov jetp3852 jpeg

   jpegcmyk jpeggray laserjet lbp8 lj250 ljet2p ljet3 ljet3d ljet4 ljet4d

   ljetplus m8510 mswindll mswinpr2 necp6 nullpage pam pamcmyk32 pamcmyk4

   pbm pbmraw pcx16 pcx24b pcx256 pcxcmyk pcxgray pcxmono pdfwrite pgm

   pgmraw pgnm pgnmraw pj pjxl pjxl300 pkmraw plan planc plang plank planm

   plib plibc plibg plibk plibm png16 png16m png256 pngalpha pnggray pngmono

   pngmonod pnm pnmcmyk pnmraw ppm ppmraw ps2write psdcmyk psdcmykog psdrgb

   pxlcolor pxlmono r4081 spotcmyk st800 stcolor t4693d2 t4693d4 t4693d8

   tek4696 tiff12nc tiff24nc tiff32nc tiff48nc tiff64nc tiffcrle tiffg3

   tiffg32d tiffg4 tiffgray tifflzw tiffpack tiffscaled tiffscaled24

   tiffscaled32 tiffscaled4 tiffscaled8 tiffsep tiffsep1 txtwrite uniprint

   xpswrite

Search path:

   C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.16\bin ; C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.16\lib ;

   C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.16\fonts ; %rom%Resource/Init/ ; %rom%lib/ ;

   c:/gs/gs9.16/Resource/Init ; c:/gs/gs9.16/lib ;

   c:/gs/gs9.16/Resource/Font ; c:/gs/fonts

Initialization files are compiled into the executable.

For more information, see c:/gs/gs9.16/doc/Use.htm.

Please report bugs to bugs.ghostscript.com.

 

 

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 20661 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com>
To: Markus Pötzlberger
 <M.Poetzlberger <at> physik.uni-muenchen.de>
Cc: 20661 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20661: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 00:12:02 +0200

On 2015-05-26 at 16:32:04 +0200, Markus Pötzlberger wrote:

 > gswin64c is in the path. unzipped some png .dll files into the
 > emacs folder.
 > 
 > LaTex works fine, but the conversion to pictures fails somehow...
 > 
 > I had to change the "preview-gs-command" from "nil" to the current
 > setting "gswin64c.exe"

What makes you think that you had to change preview-gs-command?

preview-latex uses the "hidden" Ghostscript packages shipped with TeX
Live or MIKTeX by default.  You don't even have to install Ghostscript
at all.  You can check whether rungs (TeX Live) or mgv (MiKTeX) is in
PATH and working:

  rungs -help   (TeX Live)
  mgv -help     (MiKTeX)

Did you get an error message?  It's unclear whether Ghostscript is the
culprit or one of the image libs you installed separately.  If you've
got any error message, please post it here.

 > Is it necessary to use "gswin32" instead of "gswin64"?

No.  preview-latex looks for gswin32c.exe by default if no Ghostscript
provided by a TeX distribution is found.  Theoretically you have to
specify gswin64c.exe explicitly only if you have a 64-bit version of
Ghostscript.  Maybe a future version of preview-latex could add
(executable-find "GSWIN64C.EXE") so that even less people have to
touch preview-gs-command.  But IMO there is something wrong if you
have a TeX distribution installed and auctex/preview-latex doesn't
find the provided Ghostscript.

As I said before, without any error message it's hard to find out
what's going on.

BTW, it would be very helpful if you use the command

  M-x TeX-submit-bug-report RET

It provides useful information about your installation.

Which TeX distribution are you using?


Instead of assembling emacs, auctex, and a bunch of libraries
yourself, you could also try

  http://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/win32-emacs-auctex

This is hopefully easier to install, especially since it already
contains all the necessary libraries (.DLLs).  I strongly encourage
Windows users to give it a try.  I need more feedback in order to
maintain it properly.  ATM I have the impression that only very few
people are aware of this distribution.

Please note that another installation of Emacs shares the same
initialization file (.emacs) as the one you installed already.
Therefore it's better to remove or comment out customizations you
alraedy did so that we can start with a fresh setup.

Regards,
  Reinhard

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                    mailto:reinhard.kotucha <at> web.de
------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #11 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Arash Esbati <esbati <at> gmx.de>
To: bug-auctex <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20661: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 23:31:09 +0200

Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com> writes:

first of all Reinhard, a big thank you for providing and maintaining
this bundle.

> Instead of assembling emacs, auctex, and a bunch of libraries
> yourself, you could also try
>
>   http://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/win32-emacs-auctex
>
> This is hopefully easier to install, especially since it already
> contains all the necessary libraries (.DLLs).  I strongly encourage
> Windows users to give it a try.  I need more feedback in order to
> maintain it properly.  ATM I have the impression that only very few
> people are aware of this distribution.

IIRC correctly this bundle was assembled together some years ago by the
AUCTeX team.  It was a good idea then, but in the meanwhile, do you
think it is still worth the effort?  The latest official Emacs binaries
for Win are available from:

    http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/

Required libs (not only for image support) and other bins (e.g.,
hunspell) are available from here:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/

A 64-bit version with all required dll's is available here:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/emacsbinw64/

Latest AUCTeX is available via ELPA.

I think that most users would go a route mentioned above and leave your
package alone since they have to grab other libs from other sources
anyways (and they also get the latest version).

Again, please don't get me wrong, I do appreciate your work on this.  I
am just asking if users honor this enough.

Best, Arash

Message #14 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com>
To: Markus Pötzlberger
 <M.Poetzlberger <at> physik.uni-muenchen.de>
Cc: bug-auctex <at> gnu.org, help-debbugs <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20661: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 01:35:58 +0200

Hi,
it seems that my response didn't get to the bug-auctex list for some
reason .

Markus sent me the output of TeX-submit-bug-report privately but it
contains two contradicting entries:

    preview-gs-command nil

    Output from running `nil -h':

In the first case »nil« is a boolean (TeX-submit-bug-report usually
quotes strings properly) but in the second case »nil« must be a string.

Is there a bug in TeX-submit-bug-report?  Can »nil« be a boolean and a
string at the same time?  As I said before, TeX-submit-bug-report
usually quotes strings properly:

    preview-fast-dvips-command "dvips -Pwww %d -o %m/preview.ps"

Given that Markus accidentally did something like

    (setq preview-gs-command "nil")

then I would expect that TeX-submit-bug-report returns

    preview-gs-command "nil"

but not

    preview-gs-command nil

And if »nil« is indeed a boolean, the message

  Output from running `nil -h':

is unexplainable, at least to me:

    (concat "nil" " " "-h")
    => "nil -h"

    (concat nil " " "-h")
    => " -h"

Regards,
  Reinhard

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                    mailto:reinhard.kotucha <at> web.de
------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #17 received at 20661 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: David Kastrup <dak <at> gnu.org>
To: Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com>
Cc: Markus Pötzlberger
 <M.Poetzlberger <at> physik.uni-muenchen.de>, reinhard.kotucha <at> gmail.com,
 20661 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20661: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 07:27:26 +0200

Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com> writes:

> Hi,
> it seems that my response didn't get to the bug-auctex list for some
> reason .
>
> Markus sent me the output of TeX-submit-bug-report privately but it
> contains two contradicting entries:
>
>     preview-gs-command nil
>
>     Output from running `nil -h':
>
> In the first case »nil« is a boolean (TeX-submit-bug-report usually
> quotes strings properly) but in the second case »nil« must be a string.
>
> Is there a bug in TeX-submit-bug-report?  Can »nil« be a boolean and a
> string at the same time?  As I said before, TeX-submit-bug-report
> usually quotes strings properly:
>
>     preview-fast-dvips-command "dvips -Pwww %d -o %m/preview.ps"
>
> Given that Markus accidentally did something like
>
>     (setq preview-gs-command "nil")
>
> then I would expect that TeX-submit-bug-report returns
>
>     preview-gs-command "nil"
>
> but not
>
>     preview-gs-command nil
>
> And if »nil« is indeed a boolean, the message
>
>   Output from running `nil -h':
>
> is unexplainable, at least to me:
>
>     (concat "nil" " " "-h")
>     => "nil -h"
>
>     (concat nil " " "-h")
>     => " -h"

(format "\nOutput from running `%s -h':\n" nil) => "
Output from running `nil -h':
"

-- 
David Kastrup

Message #20 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com>
To: Arash Esbati <esbati <at> gmx.de>
Cc: 20661 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, bug-auctex <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20661: What prevents me from getting a preview?
Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:38:01 +0200

On 2015-05-27 at 23:31:09 +0200, Arash Esbati wrote:

 > Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha <at> googlemail.com> writes:
 > 
 > first of all Reinhard, a big thank you for providing and maintaining
 > this bundle.
 > 
 > > Instead of assembling emacs, auctex, and a bunch of libraries
 > > yourself, you could also try
 > >
 > >   http://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/win32-emacs-auctex
 > >
 > > This is hopefully easier to install, especially since it already
 > > contains all the necessary libraries (.DLLs).  I strongly encourage
 > > Windows users to give it a try.  I need more feedback in order to
 > > maintain it properly.  ATM I have the impression that only very few
 > > people are aware of this distribution.
 > 
 > IIRC correctly this bundle was assembled together some years ago by the
 > AUCTeX team.  It was a good idea then, but in the meanwhile, do you
 > think it is still worth the effort?

Dear Aresh,
thank you very much for your response.  First of all, a few words
about the history of the bundle.

A few years ago there was a "support" directory on the TeX Collection
DVD which contained a few TeX shells.  Packages in this directory were
not installed, but they had been on the DVD at least.  It was an
arbitrary collection, I don't even know who put the packages into this
directory.

It turned out that some TeX users assumed that these TeX shells were
recommended by the TeX Live team, just because they were on the DVD.

At this time Ralf Angeli maintained the wonderful emacs+auctex package
you mentioned, at alpha.gnu.org.  I thougt that when people believe
that these programs are recommended, then the program *I* recommend
should be available too.  Hence I pushed Ralf's emacs+auctex package
to the support directory.

Later I found out that everything in the support directory except
emacs+auctex were old versions of packages available at CTAN already.
When I removed all stale packages from the directory, emacs+auctex was
the only one left over.  This wasn't a good situation either, so I
moved it to CTAN in the hope that it gets more attention there and
deleted the support directory completely.

When Ralf Angeli discontinued his work at alpha.gnu.org, I took over.
Maintaining emacs and auctex it isn't much work, I just assemble stuff
from gnu.org.  I don't compile anything myself.

The nasty thing was to keep the image-libs up-to-date.  There are many
sites providing libraries compiled with MinGW but nobody seems to
update his stuff regularly.  In this respect, I'm very grateful for
the link

 > Required libs (not only for image support) and other bins (e.g.,
 > hunspell) are available from here:
 > 
 >     http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/

Not all the libs I need are available there, but it's great to hear
that it's maintained by Eli Zaretskii.  He's one of the major texinfo
developers and I know that he works continuously on his projects.

You asked whether it's still worth the effort to maintain the bundle.
Actually, I'm mirroring emacs and auctex now and for the latest
release I wrote a script which creates a .tar file ready for upload to
CTAN.  The mirror allows me to react faster than in the past, I just
have to change version numbers of packages in my script in order to
create a new release.  Only the libs need extra work, but if I mirror
ezwinports too, I suppose that I can save even more time.  Thanks again
for the link.

 > A 64-bit version with all required dll's is available here:
 > 
 >     http://sourceforge.net/projects/emacsbinw64/

I deliberately provide 32-bit binaries because I don't want to exclude
people with older machines.  The benefit of 64-bit systems is rather
small.  If speed matters: In a virtual machine running Linux on top of
Windows I could compile a LaTeX file five times faster than on Windows
itself.  A colleague could confirm it on his machine.

 > I think that most users would go a route mentioned above and leave
 > your package alone since they have to grab other libs from other
 > sources anyways (and they also get the latest version).

Well, you might be right.  On the other hand I'm convinced that there
are many Windows users who don't want to go this route and I wouldn't
go this route either.  The reason is that ezwinports, for example, has
a directory structure which is appropriate for MSYS/MinGW but not for
a standalone, portable emacs distribution.

I need the DLLs in the same directory as the emacs binary in order to
make installation as easy as possible.  An important feature is that
one can extract emacs-24.4+auctex-11.88-w32.zip in an arbitrary
directory, either on a disk or on a USB stick.

Another point is that "TeX Collection" DVDs contain a CTAN excerpt.
Recent editions don't include my package due to lack of space.  But
TeX Live is growing rapidly, so it's foreseeable that either two DVDs
will be needed in the near future or a media with more capacity.
Then there should be enough space to provide the package again.

 > Again, please don't get me wrong, I do appreciate your work on
 > this.  I am just asking if users honor this enough.

I didn't get you wrong at all.  I really appreciate your feedback.
Thank you very much.

Regards,
  Reinhard

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                    mailto:reinhard.kotucha <at> web.de
------------------------------------------------------------------

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