BUILD-STRATEGY := latex / fails to make .ps file with vers. 2.2.1-alpha6

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I discovered this issue at the same time as another issue with vers. 
2.2.1-alpha6,
(http://code.google.com/p/latex-makefile/issues/detail?id=138) -- not sure if 
they are related or not.

This issue also appears with BUILD-STRATEGY := latex, and not pdflatex.  For 
this issue, there is a very simple source file, my_latex.tex, and a .eps 
graphics file, foo.eps, but this time, the 'draft' option is used, such as:
\documentclass[draft]{article}.

After the command: 'make my_latex', the .dvi file is built correctly, and the 
.dvi file shows the bounding box of the .eps graphic as it is supposed to do.  
Then, when the .ps file is being built, make terminates with the error:

Makefile:2758: *** unterminated call to function `call': missing `)'.  Stop.

I checked the code in the Makefile after line 2758, and it appeared that all 
the parentheses were balanced, so I'm puzzled!

Thank you very much!  For the time being, I am using 2.2.1-alpha6 for the first 
build to get the nomenclature files right, then switch to 2.2.0 if I need to 
build a .ps file.

-Chas

Original issue reported on code.google.com by charles....@gmail.com on 9 Aug 2011 at 2:58

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Try the attached.  Change is r5e74159776e5 and builds on the change for issue 
138 (so it contains both fixes).

Original comment by shiblon on 9 Aug 2011 at 4:31

• Changed state: Fixed

Attachments:

• Makefile

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Still have a problem creating the .ps file, although I think I've narrowed it 
down to a minor error with the dvips call.

After the command 'make my_latex', the .dvi file is still built correctly with 
the graphic.  Then come some error messages:

= my_latex.dvi --> my_latex.ps =
This is dvips(k) 5.99 Copyright 2010 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
dvips: Missing DVI file argument (or -f).
dvips: Try --help for more information.
mv: cannot stat `my_latex.ps.temp': No such file or directory
= my_latex.ps --> my_latex.pdf =
rm my_latex.paper.make my_latex.embed.make my_latex.beamer.make

I took a look at the SHELL_DEBUG listing, and the call to dvips was:

dvips -z -o my_latex.ps.temp -t my_latex.dvi

Looks like that option -t (paper size) was either missing its argument, or 
perhaps shouldn't be there at all.  The Makefile seems to put this in based on 
an if statement, but I haven't figured out the details.  I manually invoked 
dvips and omitted the -t option, and dvips then seemed to run fine.

Thanks again for all your work!
-Chas

Original comment by charles....@gmail.com on 10 Aug 2011 at 4:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Aha.   Wow, it's amazing how code can rot over time when it isn't exercised (I 
never personally use the latex strategy anymore, so it doesn't make me itch and 
I don't often scratch it).

I believe that the attached will fix your issues.  Please let me know!

The change is in r20c78b7c435d in case you want to see the diff.

Original comment by shiblon on 10 Aug 2011 at 1:46

Attachments:

• Makefile

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This last fix did the trick!  The postscript file is now built properly, and 
then the .pdf is created from that as it should be.

I have started to use strategy "latex" a little more lately after I had an 
issue with submitting papers to a conference website this summer.  The paper 
submission website had an "Adobe document verifier" step, and it marked as 
failed the documents I was trying to upload that had been compiled with 
pdflatex, but marked as passed documents that had been done with dvips and then 
into pdf... not sure why, perhaps due to some Adobe silliness... anyway, thanks 
again for your continued efforts!!

Original comment by charles....@gmail.com on 10 Aug 2011 at 4:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

So, the fix works!  I'll mark this as verified.

Regarding the adobe document verifier:

I had a similar issue with the adobe document verifier earlier this year.  I 
thought I had fixed all of those issues, but obviously missed something.  I 
wonder if there is a way that we can test the output against it?

The problem I was having was with embedded fonts, which I believe has been 
completely resolved (I was able to submit my paper).  But, there may be other 
issues, and I'd love to know about them so we can tackle them, as well.  
Probably best in a separate issue, though.

Is it something you can reproduce, or was it a one-time access thing?

Original comment by shiblon on 10 Aug 2011 at 5:03

• Changed state: Verified

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Well, the submission site was called "ScholarOne Manuscript Central" but I had 
to log in to that from the conference website -- it was an American Institute 
of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) conference in May... I just now was 
poking around the AIAA site, and they've shut down the manuscript site for 
conferences in the past, and looks like the only way to try is to go through 
the whole conference paper submission process for another conference.

I'm bound to submit another paper to an AIAA conference sometime again in the 
next year -- next time I'll plan to try again uploading a .pdf produced with 
the Makefile and pdflatex at that time, and file an issue and provide the 
example document if it doesn't work.

The document I was uploading in May did use Times font instead of Computer 
Modern, through \usepackage{mathptmx} and \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} for font 
encoding... not sure if those might have been the source of problems...

Original comment by charles....@gmail.com on 10 Aug 2011 at 6:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It may be that one of your included graphics was not embedding fonts when 
converting to PDF.  That was my problem: gnuplot doesn't have a font embedding 
option for generating pdf files, so I had to fiddle with the makefile to ensure 
that it rewrote the pdf with embedding after graphic file creation.   Messy.

This is, in general, a problem with pdflatex - it just includes other pdfs that 
you specify without looking at them.  The dvips pipeline, however, does not 
have this problem, because font embedding is done after all of the postscript 
files have basically been inlined into the main document.  Then we run ps2pdf 
(actually, I run gs directly with a bunch of crazy parameters) and get global 
font embedding.

Either way - I'm not retiring the latex-dvi-ps-pdf pipeline, since it has many 
useful features (psfrag, anyone?), so I'm thrilled that you're submitting bugs 
for the latex build strategy.  :-)

Original comment by shiblon on 10 Aug 2011 at 6:24