HowardGilbert wrote
>A friend, who has seen the superb parts I can produce, is very
>interested in acquiring and using PMX and MusixTeX. He uses the Windows
>OS whereas I am Linux based. Hence I not sure how to advise on what he
>needs.
>
>I assume he needs to get musixtex.zip and pmx.zip from
>www.gmd.de/Misc/Music; is this correct?
Yes
>What else does he need? I
>think my system needs TeTeX which (I think) is not a standard part of
>the Windows package.
Right, Windows does not come with any version of TeX.
I use a cobbled up system, including
1. tex386.exe from PCTeX, running in a DOS window.
2. dviwin, a freeware WINDOWS dvi-viewer. A great little dvi-viewing
program, but sometimes I find the fixed zoom levels a little frustrating.
3. dvips in a DOS window
4. copy the .ps to a postscript printer to make the final output.
There is no particular need for ghostview except in special situations. It
is not the best thing to use for normal operations, because you have to go
thru the extra step dvi=>ps before you can view the output. But if you have
embedded graphics, dviwin will not display them, and ghostview will.
I have set up emtex on an old PC and am very impressed with it, as a totally
free, DOS alternative (PCTeX is not free). Emtex comes with dvips32 and a
bunch of batch file. Once you get it set up right, (and that can be tricky,
especially setting environment variables and printer configuration files) it
will generate and store any missing bitmapped fonts automagically when you
go to make the .ps .
I have also heard good things about MikTeX as a Windows-based system, but
haven't used it myself.
And keep in mind, there are dvi=>printer drivers for other types of printers
besides postscript.
If you want totally window-based operation, I just don't know what MikTeX
provides. But in principle ghostview could serve for printing to any
windows printer. I must say, though, I haven't had any luck getting it to
do that...it's print menus look and act differently from normal windows
programs.
--Don Simons
