Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 14:10:24 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Me Myself And I <sylvintree AT juno DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com, ashram AT bigfoot DOT com
Subject: Re: Help: txi to dvi
In-Reply-To: <19970503.163349.7007.0.sylvintree@juno.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970504140945.9215a-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Precedence: bulk


On Sat, 3 May 1997, Me Myself And I wrote:

> **djgppfaq.txi
> (djgppfaq.txi (texinfo.tex Loading texinfo package [Version 2.185]:
> Basics,
> [clip]
> (faqmacro.txi (faq-addr.txi) (faq-vers.txi)
> [clip]
> 
> Runaway argument?
> bye </body>@* </html>@* 

Did you ever wonder why generation of the FAQ in PS format isn't
included in the Makefile which comes with faq210s.zip, and why
djgppfaq.dvi and djgppfaq.ps are commented-out in the all: target?
The reason is that I haven't find any feasible way to generate a DVI
file from djgppfaq.txi.  The problem is that TeX and texinfo.tex don't
support Texinfo macros, and the FAQ sources are full of them.  (The
FAQ uses macros so extensively because I could find no other way of
generating Info, HTML and text links from a single source reference.)

To come close to a solution, run djgppfaq.txi through "makeinfo -E"
(which expands all macros), like so:

makeinfo --no-validate --no-split --no-headers -E faq.exp -o /dev/null djgppfaq.txi

then submit the file faq.exp to TeX.  Unfortunately, this doesn't work
either, since Texinfo macro expansion leaves inactive conditionals in
the expanded file, and TeX chokes on those.  But if you care enough,
you can manually edit the expanded file to remove the fragments that
make TeX barf, and then generate the DVI output.  (I actually did
that once, to make sure no other problems are lurking in the FAQ.)

If you find any way to make TeX work without manual editing, please
let me know.  Thanks.