fontenc error message

[rdtennent]

It is easily confirmed by a google search that many users encounter the fontenc error message "Encoding file `t2aenc.def' not found." But the comment that follows is not helpful: "You might have misspelt the name of the encoding." In fact the problem is that the user has not installed the cyrillic package. I suggest replacing the unhelpful message by: "Have you installed the cyrillic package?".

Bob Tennent

[davidcarlisle]

This is a very generic message,

\usepackage[wibble]{fontenc}

produces

! Package fontenc Error: Encoding file `wibbleenc.def' not found.
(fontenc)                You might have misspelt the name of the encoding.

In general there might be no package.

Of course it would in theory be possible to add tests for some known names, but just T2A, or T2B, OT2, ... as well?

Rather than add code adding special case tests and custom messages it would probably be simpler, if we wanted to do anything, just to re-assert the "required" status of latex/cyrillic so the encoding files are (or should be) there.

[rdtennent]

At least remove the misspelling :+)

[FrankMittelbach]

Given that, thanks to Bob, there are now a large number of fonts useable with pdftex that support the various Cyrillic font encodings (as well as LGR by the way) and TLC3 devotes a whole chapter showing most of them, I think we should at least augment the error message giving a second cause: "or a necessary support package is missing".

But asking for the core encoding files becoming required (which then should, even though it is "L", probably also include LGR) may also be sensible.

[davidcarlisle]

actually the code is

     \InputIfFileExists\reserved@f
          {}{\PackageError{fontenc}%
           {Encoding file `\reserved@f' not found.%
            \MessageBreak
             You might have misspelt the name of the encoding}%
           {Necessary code for this encoding was not
            loaded.\MessageBreak
            Thus calling the encoding later on will
            produce further error messages.}}%
    \let\reserved@f\relax
    \expandafter\in@\expandafter{\CurrentOption}%
                                {T2A,T2B,T2C,X2,LCY,OT2}%
    \ifin@
       \expandafter\in@\expandafter\cyra\expandafter
                                {\@uclclist}%
       \ifin@
       \else
         \update@uclc@with@cyrillic
       \fi

so immediately after this generic message we are testing for cyrillic and branching, so we could move the \InputIfFileExists test into each branch of the \ifin@ and use a customised text for the cyrillic case as you already know it is not a misspelled encoding name if it is one of T2A,T2B,T2C,X2,LCY,OT2

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[FrankMittelbach]

At least remove the misspelling :+)

as in "use US spelling" not British spelling?

[rdtennent]

'Outside America, "misspelled" has been more popular than "misspelt" since the mid-1970s.'

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=misspelled%2Cmisspelt&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmisspelled%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cmisspelt%3B%2Cc0

On Tue, Nov 7, 2023 at 10:04 AM Frank Mittelbach @.***> wrote:

At least remove the misspelling :+)

as in "use US spelling" not British spelling?

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/latex3/latex2e/issues/1102#issuecomment-1798793530, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAUZWNQZYUULYOH2SXKSBL3YDJEYTAVCNFSM6AAAAAAZUZ424OVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTOOJYG44TGNJTGA . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: @.***>

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