2008.4.14

Towa Tachibana

How to Install “foiltex”

In ProTeXt, almost all the procedures are automatic or self-instructing. However, if it is not in such kind arrangements, we may have some difficulties. A typical case is to install the packages (macros) not included in ProTeXt. There is a brief explanation on p. 9 (1.5.4) of protetext-install-en.pdf. Unfortunately, to laymen, it is of not much help.

Let us add a package, which is not in the Package Manager, to ProTeXt. Our example is foiltex, which is a macro for making Power-Point like slides in LaTex. Note that IBM has a copyright of foiltex.

1) Go to CTAN (http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/foiltex/), and download all the 5 files (foiltex.ins, etc) there onto your computer. In my case, I downloaded them onto my extra drive “I”.

2) Below C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7\tex\latex, make a new folder named “foiltex”. Your computer may show some resistance, but proceed.

3) Copy all (actually not necessarily all, but this is easier) the foiltex files into this new folder: C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7\tex\latex\foiltex

4) From here, completely different procedure. Forget about directory trees of LaTex system.

5) At the left-bottom of your screen, go to “Start” “All Programs” MikTeX 2.7” and finally choose and click “Settings”.

6) In MiKTeX Options, choose the left-most tab “General”.

7) There should be “maintenance” part at the top. Click “Refresh FNDB”.

8) This identifies and incorporates the foiltex macro into ProTeXt system.