Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Eran Kaplinsky]

I've used memoir from day one, and whenever I had a problem I could not 
find a solution to here, or on comp.text.tex newsgroup, Peter Wilson was 
kind enough to answer.



Eran

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Eran Kaplinsky]

I've used memoir from day one, and whenever I had a problem I could not 
find a solution to here, or on comp.text.tex newsgroup, Peter Wilson was 
kind enough to answer.



Eran

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Eran Kaplinsky]

I've used memoir from day one, and whenever I had a problem I could not 
find a solution to here, or on comp.text.tex newsgroup, Peter Wilson was 
kind enough to answer.



Eran

I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Memoir.

Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.

Memoir. Never again!

As you know I switched to Ubuntu and of course things are different. But for 
the most part, my books whose document classes were based on book fired up 
just fine once I fixed the layout location (and of course once I got a LyX that 
stayed running more than 20 seconds :-)

But Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the zero output error.

The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but 
I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, 
there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.

Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my memoir 
derived book fails. All my book derived books work marvelously. If I get time, 
I'm going to rework Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting to use a book 
derived document class.

I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir for 
every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will have little 
trouble with it. But that's not me.

One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
memoir derived book fails.


Steve,

  Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)


I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
have little trouble with it. But that's not me.


  I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to do
the few tweaks I want.


One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.


  I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier version.
And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur in another
decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if they cannot
be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!

  Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.

  Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
written (in LaTeX, of course).

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

On Friday 24 July 2009 19:08:43 Rich Shepard wrote:
 On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
  Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
  memoir derived book fails.

 Steve,

Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)

  I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
  for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
  have little trouble with it. But that's not me.

I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
 expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to
 do the few tweaks I want.

  One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.

I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
 Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier
 version. And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur
 in another decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if
 they cannot be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!

Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
 earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.

Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
 written (in LaTeX, of course).

 Rich

If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for Troubleshooting Techniques of the 
Successful Technologist was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Paul A. Rubin]

Steve Litt wrote:



But Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the zero output error.


The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.




The 2008 version of TeXLive (which seems to be the preferred LaTeX 
distro on Ubuntu) supposedly has a package manager (tlmgr) which might 
take care of some of the package installation hassles.  Unfortunately, 
the official repositories for Ubuntu have a somewhat conservative 
adoption rate for new packages (including updates), so the official 
release is still TeXLive 2007, with no package manager.


So you might want to manually install the 2008 version. Alternatively 
(and this is what I use at the moment), MiKTeX's excellent package 
manager has been ported to Linux.  It lacks the GUI of the Windows 
version, but the command line syntax is not all that complicated, and it 
Just Works.  I'm not positive whether using it to install memoir would 
get mempatch properly installed, but in general there seems to be no 
manual futzing required once it installs a package.


HTH,
Paul

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for Troubleshooting Techniques of the
Successful Technologist was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)


SteveT,

  Whatever floats your boat is OK with me. It's your issue, so do whatever
feels good.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Memoir.

Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.

Memoir. Never again!

As you know I switched to Ubuntu and of course things are different. But for 
the most part, my books whose document classes were based on book fired up 
just fine once I fixed the layout location (and of course once I got a LyX that 
stayed running more than 20 seconds :-)

But Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the zero output error.

The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but 
I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, 
there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.

Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my memoir 
derived book fails. All my book derived books work marvelously. If I get time, 
I'm going to rework Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting to use a book 
derived document class.

I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir for 
every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will have little 
trouble with it. But that's not me.

One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
memoir derived book fails.


Steve,

  Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)


I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
have little trouble with it. But that's not me.


  I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to do
the few tweaks I want.


One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.


  I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier version.
And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur in another
decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if they cannot
be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!

  Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.

  Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
written (in LaTeX, of course).

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

On Friday 24 July 2009 19:08:43 Rich Shepard wrote:
 On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
  Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
  memoir derived book fails.

 Steve,

Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)

  I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
  for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
  have little trouble with it. But that's not me.

I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
 expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to
 do the few tweaks I want.

  One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.

I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
 Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier
 version. And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur
 in another decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if
 they cannot be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!

Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
 earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.

Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
 written (in LaTeX, of course).

 Rich

If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for Troubleshooting Techniques of the 
Successful Technologist was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Paul A. Rubin]

Steve Litt wrote:



But Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the zero output error.


The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.




The 2008 version of TeXLive (which seems to be the preferred LaTeX 
distro on Ubuntu) supposedly has a package manager (tlmgr) which might 
take care of some of the package installation hassles.  Unfortunately, 
the official repositories for Ubuntu have a somewhat conservative 
adoption rate for new packages (including updates), so the official 
release is still TeXLive 2007, with no package manager.


So you might want to manually install the 2008 version. Alternatively 
(and this is what I use at the moment), MiKTeX's excellent package 
manager has been ported to Linux.  It lacks the GUI of the Windows 
version, but the command line syntax is not all that complicated, and it 
Just Works.  I'm not positive whether using it to install memoir would 
get mempatch properly installed, but in general there seems to be no 
manual futzing required once it installs a package.


HTH,
Paul

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for Troubleshooting Techniques of the
Successful Technologist was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)


SteveT,

  Whatever floats your boat is OK with me. It's your issue, so do whatever
feels good.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Memoir.

Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.

Memoir. Never again!

As you know I switched to Ubuntu and of course things are different. But for 
the most part, my books whose document classes were based on "book" fired up 
just fine once I fixed the layout location (and of course once I got a LyX that 
stayed running more than 20 seconds :-)

But "Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the "zero output" error.

The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but 
I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, 
there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.

Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my memoir 
derived book fails. All my book derived books work marvelously. If I get time, 
I'm going to rework "Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting" to use a book 
derived document class.

I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir for 
every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will have little 
trouble with it. But that's not me.

One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
memoir derived book fails.


Steve,

  Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)


I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
have little trouble with it. But that's not me.


  I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to do
the few tweaks I want.


One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.


  I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier version.
And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur in another
decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if they cannot
be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!

  Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.

  Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
written (in LaTeX, of course).

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Steve Litt]

On Friday 24 July 2009 19:08:43 Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
> > Worse, this isn't the first time. Every time I lay down a new OS, my
> > memoir derived book fails.
>
> Steve,
>
>Perhaps this is a clue to stick with a single distribution. :-)
>
> > I'm not saying Memoir doesn't have its place. The person who uses Memoir
> > for every book and is intimately familiar with its idiocyncracies will
> > have little trouble with it. But that's not me.
>
>I tried the Memoir class a couple of times but it did not work as
> expected. So now I stick with the KOMA-Script book class and it's easy to
> do the few tweaks I want.
>
> > One thing's for sure -- I'll never use Memoir for a new book again.
>
>I have been told by Those Who Know that it's common for a new version of
> Microsoft Word to refuse to open a document created with an earlier
> version. And people still pay money for this! Imagine what fun will occur
> in another decade with legal documents in Word-3, -4, -5, or -6 format if
> they cannot be opened in whatever version is sold by then. Whew!
>
>Now and then I find old documents prepared by OpenOffice.org-1.0.0 (or
> earlier) and all of them open without any problems in the current -3.0.0.
>
>Try KOMA-Script. Works well and the documentation is thorough and well
> written (in LaTeX, of course).
>
> Rich

If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for "Troubleshooting Techniques of the 
Successful Technologist" was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)

SteveT

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Paul A. Rubin]

Steve Litt wrote:



But "Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is built with a document class 
based on Memoir, and it's nothing but trouble. First I had to get Memoir from 
the web because the Ubuntu one didn't seem to work. Now I need memhfixc or my 
book gets the "zero output" error.


The memhfixc and memoir documentations say memhfixc is included in memoir, but I 
sure couldn't find it. Yeah, I finally realized I had to run latex  
mempatch.ins, but it all took time and it was all a hassle. I had to take 
apart the book til I got a small file to reproduce the problem, narrowed it 
down to memhfixc, and then had to figure out how to fix it. For all I know, there 
will be yet other problems when I put back the original layout file and the 
original document.




The 2008 version of TeXLive (which seems to be the preferred LaTeX 
distro on Ubuntu) supposedly has a package manager (tlmgr) which might 
take care of some of the package installation hassles.  Unfortunately, 
the official repositories for Ubuntu have a somewhat conservative 
adoption rate for new packages (including updates), so the official 
release is still TeXLive 2007, with no package manager.


So you might want to manually install the 2008 version. Alternatively 
(and this is what I use at the moment), MiKTeX's excellent package 
manager has been ported to Linux.  It lacks the GUI of the Windows 
version, but the command line syntax is not all that complicated, and it 
Just Works.  I'm not positive whether using it to install memoir would 
get mempatch properly installed, but in general there seems to be no 
manual futzing required once it installs a package.


HTH,
Paul

Re: I promise I'll never use Memoir again!

[Rich Shepard]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


If I'm not mistaken, the doc class for "Troubleshooting Techniques of the
Successful Technologist" was derived from Koma. I'll keep you informed :-)


SteveT,

  Whatever floats your boat is OK with me. It's your issue, so do whatever
feels good.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863