How to set up pdftricks using miktex on windows xp
Things you need
How I set it up
- Install Ghostscript
- Install Miktex
- Install Perl
- make sure that Perl/bin is in your PATH (under System -> Environment Variables)
- make sure that the Ghostscript bin directory is in your PATH (for me it's C:\gs\gs8.14\bin).
- unzip the above zip file
- copy the localtexmf subdirectories from pdftricks to your miktex localtexmf directory
- copy the texmf subdirectories from pdftricks to your miktex texmf directory
- open a command window on your miktex localtexmf directory and type initexmf -u and hit Enter. Your new files are then being registered. Don't worry if it takes a while. That is normal.
- find the test file under localtexmf/doc/latex/pdftricks/test.tex
- compile it using the -shell-escape command line switch (in TexnicCenter you can set that up at Build->Define Output Profiles... then choose pdftricks and add -shell escape to the command line arguments
Possible Errors
- Bounding boxes are wrong: recheck that ghostscript is in you classpath
- You get many errors compiling your document: recheck that you are using the -shell-escape option for compiling latex