TexPoint
A LaTex Add-In for MS PowerPoint
  
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frequently asked questions

  1. I have Office97 and TexPoint does not seem to work.
    This is a known problem. Office97 lacks some functionality that TexPoint needs. Also, I do not have access to an Office97 machine to find a work around. Most likely this is a small problem but I won't be able to fix it.

  2. Does TexPoint work for Word?
    No, and I do not anticipate finding enough time to port it in the near future. I would be willing to assist somebody else though.

  3. Does TexPoint work on PowerPoint for Mac OS X?
    Yes, it does.

  4. I get "Visual Basic Error 5" when I try to use TexPoint.
    See "Debugging TexPoint". Meanwhile, you should try to reset TexPoint (TexPoint/Reset TexPoint).

  5. I cannot install TexPoint on my machine and I get the following message: “You do not have sufficient privileges to complete this installation for all users of the machine. Log on as administrator and then retry this installation because the installation requires Administrator privileges.”, or a similar message that indicates lack of privilege.
    It appears that you need to have administrator privileges to install TexPoint (or more precisely to register the TexPoint add-in with PowerPoint and to register the fonts). In version 2.0 it appears that the add-in registration is not a problem anymore but the font registration is still a problem. I was able to install TexPoint nevertheless by repeatedly clicking “ignore” when told that a font cannot be registered. The resulting TexPoint installation was able to create displays but was not able to use the inline mode (due to missing fonts). I do not know any way around this problem. You must ask an administrator on your machine to install TexPoint.
    If an administrator has installed TexPoint then you must still perform a couple of steps to start using it. You must turn down the macro security level in PowerPoint to “Medium” (Tools/Macros/Security). Then go to Tools/AddIns/Add New, browse to find TexPoint.ppa in the installation directory and then click on it. Thanks to Arne Klawitter for figuring this out.

  6. I have PowerPoint 2000 and I cannot install TexPoint 2.0, or TexPoint does not work properly
    I have discovered that TexPoint 2.0 does not work properly on PowerPoint 2000. The following symptoms were reported:
    • After installation the TexPoint menu does not appear. If you go to Tools/Addin and click on the checkbox you get that “PowerPoint cannot load the addin”.
    • You get “Compilation error in hidden module DisplayTex”
    • You get that “cannot find executable \tex2bmp.exe” when trying to make a bitmap
    Starting in version 2.0.2 I distribute a version of TexPoint that is built specifically for Office 2000. I hope that this version would make the problems go away. In any case, people report that you can delete the addin, then “Add” it and it works. But you have to do this every time you start PowerPoint. Or, you can use 1.5.4, which is missing the outline display feature but is otherwise quite usable.

  7. I get the Permission denied error when trying to create EMF displays. The textpoint.errlog contains entries such as:
         EditTex.makebitmap_Click
         Error 70 (Permission denied)
         Context:
            MakeBitmap_Click
            60
    The problem is that some versions of PPT forget to close the EMF file after they embed it. This prevents TexPoint from creating new displays with the same name. I have implemented a workaround this problem in version 2.0.3. See the History section for details.

  8. When I use the EMF bitmap format I have lots of files with names like txp_fig342343.emf left in the presentation directory.
    Some versions of PowerPoint (e.g., PowerPoint 2000) forget to close EMF files that it loads. This prevents TexPoint from deleting the EMF files and requires it to create new EMF files with new names. The new names are formed using the value you have in the Debugging pane (default is txp_fig) along with a random numeric suffix. It is Ok to delete these files manually after you exit PowerPoint. Their contents is already included in the presentation.

  9. I get the error “Cannot open the file or device specified” during the installation of TexPoint.
    I have seen this problem appear on Windows XP and only when the MSI file has been saved to a directory with very restrictive permissions. Move the MSI somewhere else and retry.

  10. I get the error “Can't find "c:\gs\gs7.04\bin\gs32dll.dll" when trying to create EMF displays.
    The problem appears to be with your installation of Ghostview. The pstoedit tool, which is used by TexPoint only for creating EMF displays, finds out which version of the ghostscript DLL to load by looking at the file gsview32.ini (in the Documents and Settings/yourusername directory). This file is sometimes left over when you upgrade to a newer version of Ghostscript. Delete this file and try again, or edit the directory names in this file to the correct ones. Thanks for Andy Schofield for figuring this out.

  11. My displays are empty.
    Make sure your TeX source contains some stuff. The underlying dvips does not like empty files. Maybe you are using an old presentation with a new version of TexPoint. To check if this is the case select Interactive and Pause when you make a display. Then see if the -E argument is passed to dvips. If not then you should update your configuration strings:
    • Bring up the TexPoint configuration option (ALT-X C)
    • Replace your configuration commands with the following two strings:
      latex $(base).tex; dvips -D $(res) -E -o $(base).ps $(base).dvi
      latex --interaction=nonstopmode $(base).tex; dvips -D $(res) -E -o $(base).ps $(base).dvi
    • You must do this for all old presentations that exhibit the problem of empty displays. I will try hard to maintain backwards compatibility in the future


  12. I am trying to use TexPoint with the cygwin installation of Latex. But I get “Cannot run latex”.
    The problem is that in cygwin the latex command is a symbolic link, which is not understood by the tex2bmp command. Here is a fix suggested by John J. Ottusch. Create a file named latex.bat in a directory that is in the PATH. The contents of that file should be
    
    bash –c “latex %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9”
    
    This should solve the problem.

  13. I get the error “Cannot compute the bounding box”. I am using AFPL Ghostscript 8.10.
    I noticed that this is a problem with Ghostscript 8.10. Stay tuned for fixes or workarounds.

  14. I get the error that TexPoint cannot compute the bounding box.
    The problem could be that the gswin32c command is not in the PATH, or the output of Latex is invalid EPS. If you are using special packages (such as psfrag or graphicx) to include literal EPS commands, then those command might not be “clean” enough.

  15. None of the commands seem to work and the TexPoint menu item does not appear.
    Most likely the TexPoint add-in is not loaded. Go to Tools/Add ins and make sure that TexPoint shows in the window with a checkmark next to it. If it doesn't, load the add-in (see the manual installation
    instructions). If it TexPoint still does not appear then you are experiencing a Visual Basic Compilation error which means that your Office installation is unlike those that I used for testing. The only way I can fix this is with your help. See "Debugging TexPoint".
    Another possible cause for this is if you are using Office XP and your macro security is set to High. Go to Tools/Macros/Security and select the medium security.

  16. How do I import some Latex source from my paper into the TexPoint display?
    Open your paper with an editor and copy the fragment you want to import into the Clipboard (with Notepad or Word and most other editors you press CTRL-C; with Emacs you select the fragment and press ESC-W). Then you go into the TexPoint display text box and press CTRL-V (paste).

  17. If I try to edit displays that are part of a group, the old version of the display does not go away.
    If you have grouped displays TexPoint will try to edit them but it will fail to replace properly the old display with the new one. This is a bug in TexPoint but since it does not appear to be easy to fix, I will decrease its priority. Sorry.

  18. How come TexPoint’s inline mode understands macros such as \alpha but not \frac, \bar, or \array or \sqrt?
    The inline mode supports a very limited set of macros (essentially the math symbols, subscript and superscript and some font changing macros; these are all listed in the accompanying TexPointDemo.ppt presentation). There are two main reasons for these limitations: (1) PowerPoint cannot position symbols arbitrarily but only one following another; and (2) TexPoint incorporates only a minuscule Tex interpreter so it could not handle complicated macros such as \bar. Note however that TexPoint does support user-defined macros with arguments. If you use the display mode you get the whole power of Latex but the result are images that do not flow with the text like the stuff produced with the inline mode does.

  19. Characters do not look right when I view the presentation on another machine
    You have used symbol macros that need the AMS fonts. These fonts are not standard on Windows. See above for a few solutions for this problem.

  20. When I open my old presentation that uses inline TexPoint some of the characters are changed
    Starting with version 2.0 I have renamed the old font “stmary10” to “modstmary10”. If your presentation was generated with an earlier version of TexPoint and if it uses characters from the old font “stmary10” then you will have to select those characters and then change the font to “modstmary10”. This change was necessary because the old font was a modified version of the true Latex “stmary10” font. Now we use the name for the original font.

  21. I resized the display using a side anchor and I lost the original aspect ratio. How do I get it back?
    Double-click on the display to start the edit process, but do not make any changes to the source. Press Ok and the new display will appear at the same width as before but the right aspect ratio.

  22. I set the transparency option for a display but without effect.
    The problem appears to be some strange behavior in PowerPoint: sometimes images are imported with an off-white background. It looks that this is happening only on Office XP Service Pack 2. You should use the “Workaround PPT bug” checkbox when this happens. Alternatively, you can always manually fix the problem by right-clicking on the display, select “Show Picture Toolbar”, then select from the toolbar the “Set Transparent Color” button and click on a background pixel of the image. It seems that this might be due to a bug in Office XP (see MSKB article 318042) and that it should be fixed in Office XP SP2. However, I still see the problem even with SP2.

  23. I right-click on a display and the TexPoint properties control is grayed.
    You must first select the display by clicking on it. Then right-click.

  24. TexPoint says that cannot start shell even though I am sure that I added TexPoint to my PATH.
    This happened to me too right after I installed TexPoint and I solved it by logging out and then back in. It seems that some changes to the PATH do not take effect immediately.

  25. I get an error from DVIPS
    This happens if you have an empty dvi file. You forgot to add anything to your document.

  26. How can I configure the name of the Ghostscript command to use when making the displays?
    You can do this starting with version 2.0 from the TexPoint configuration dialog box. If you use a complete path then the Ghostscript command does not have to be in the PATH anymore.

  27. I am using Win98 or Win95 and I have a bunch of problems: (below are some specific problems. One generic answer applies to all of the below: don't use these versions of Windows!)
    I get "Out of environment Space" when I run "tex2bmp test -v" to test my installation: Edit your config.sys and add the line "shell = command.com /E:4096 /P". Make sure you reboot after this.
    After editing a display edit I am left with a zombie MSDOS window: Open an MSDOS window, right-click on its title bar and select Properties. Then check the box "Close on Exit"

  28. I am trying to edit a display and I am stuck with an hourglass mouse pointer. (TexPoint appears to be stuck)
    TexPoint is waiting for the tex2bmp script to finish. What is actually happening depends on the version of TexPoint that you use (version 1.5.3 should alleviate this problem)
    • Version 1.5.2 and earlier: TexPoint starts the tex2bmp script and then waits for it to delete the file foo.lock in the same directory with the presentation (where foo is the external name that you selected in the Debugging text box). It is likely that latex has encountered an error and waits for your input. Or maybe you told it to Pause and is waiting for your input. Make sure this is not happening in an MS-DOS window that is obscured by other windows. Another solution is to wait until the shell command timeouts (the timeout value is specified in the Debugging textbox from the display editing dialog box). As a last recourse you can delete the foo.lock file manually to get TexPoint unstuck before the timeout. In these versions of TexPoint you should not press CTRL-C or kill the MSDOS window running the latex command!
    • Version 1.5.3 and later: TexPoint starts the tex2bmp script and then waits for it to terminate. The script can terminate successfully, or with an error, or get killed by you by pressing CTRL-C or killing the MSDOS window in which it runs. If TexPoint is stuck then the script is probably waiting for your input, most likely in a window that is hidden (use the task bar to find a MSDOS window). Or, you can open the Task Manager and kill a process named “latex.exe” (the other commands that tex2bmp uses should never block).


  29. How do I install TexPoint manually?
    Go to the installation page.

  30. I installed a new version of TexPoint but I get the same behavior
    Make sure you uninstall the previous version of TexPoint first. Otherwise Microsoft Installer might use a cached copy of the installation package instead of the new one. This is not a but in Installer but more likely a result of my lack of experience programming it. Note: this should not be a problem anymore starting with version 2.0 or on Mac.

  31. What do I need to do if I want to install a newer version of TexPoint on top of an older one?
    You should uninstall TexPoint before installing a new version. In version 2.0.x (Win): if you use the MSI package then the old version will be uninstalled automatically.

  32. How do I uninstall TexPoint?
    If you used Windows Installer (version 1.4 to 2.0.3) then go to Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs and click on TexPoint
    If you did not use Windows installer you must perform the following steps:
    1. Open PowerPoint, go to Tools/Addins..., select the TexPoint add-in and click Remove
    2. Go to Windows/Fonts (Win) or Library/Fonts (Mac) and delete the (links to) fonts cmsy10.ttf, msam10.ttf, msbm10.ttf, and stmary10.ttf
    3. Delete your TexPoint directory


  33. I cannot install TexPoint because I get a message that the “add-in might contain an unknown virus”.
    Similarly, you get an “Alert: Malicious script detected. Object FileSystem Object Activity OpenTextFile”
    This has been reported as a problem when you try to install TexPoint while you have certain anti-virus programs (such as F-secure) running. TexPoint does indeed use the FileSystem object up to version 2.0.3. It does it to save the source of displays and to invoke latex.

  34. My EMF displays contain strange characters.
    EMF displays contain references to fonts (as opposed to bitmaps which contain renderings of characters). This means that you must have the referenced fonts installed in order to see the displays properly. Here are possible remedies:
    • Install TexPoint version 2.0 or later (with the Outline displays feature enabled) on the machine where you want to view the presentation
    • Regenerate the display using a bitmap format
    • On the machine where the EMF display shows correctly, save the presentation with the True Type fonts embedded. Go to File/Save As/Tools/Save Options.


  35. Tell me about other problems you are having.
    George: necula@cs.berkeley.edu
    Andreas: contact info


Common Problems Encountered (I hope only) In Older Versions

  1. Characters do not print right.
    I had this problem occasionally on a PCL printer and I was able to fix it by selecting the Printer Properties and choosing "Send TrueType fonts as bitmaps". This happened to me only for the stmary10 and cmsy10 fonts and only on one printer. Meanwhile I have changed the fonts and I expect this problem to be a thing of the past.

  2. I have installed Miktex 2.0 and TexPoint does not work. More precisely the displays are all blank.
    This is fixed in version 1.4.5. This is due to a difference in the behavior of dvips in Miktex 2.0 vs. Miktex 1.2. The precise difference is that Miktex 2.0 sets the paper size in the .PS file (to A4), thus making it impossible to crop the bitmap precisely. I have updated TexPoint to clean up the mentions of the paper size in the .PS file before passing it to GS. An even better fix that seems to work is to pass -E to dvips.

  3. I used a symbol macro as the first thing in a bulleted list and TexPoint inserted a space right before the symbol.
    If I don't do that, then the bullet's font changes during the expansions. This might be fixed in future versions.

  4. I use Ghostscript 5.50 and my displays come out too big initially.
    Conal Elliott reports that Ghostscript 6.01 does not have this problem. Also, if you resize the display to the desired size it will remember its magnification factor and apply it automatically to subsequent edits.

  5. I open the presentation from a network share (e.g. \\myhost\mydisk\mydir\myart.ppt) and I get an error if I try to use the display mode.
    This problem was addressed in version 1.4.3 (by giving an intelligible error message). In any case TexPoint cannot handle such presentations (seems to be a limitation in the VBA API). You must first map the network share to a disk name and then open the presentation from the mapped drive. In any case working with remote files will be slower since all the external commands that process the display run in the same directory where the presentation is.


known issues and (possible) future extension

known, but so far unsolved problems (not essential ones though)
  • on mac: after external edit, all controls in the TexPoint dialogs need double clicks instead of single clicks to do something
  • in the simple equation dialog, the option "use font color" (=use the selected text color) does not work correctly.
  • there seems to be a problem with eps format equations - so far I do not know the reason for this.
  • editing a grouped Tex display destroys the group and associated animations.

fixes and extensions in future version (probably 3.0)
  • the grouped object issue: requires some major changes
  • "Displayify" - make display from textfield
  • "TexAll" - latex all displays with the presentation config
  • keyboard shortcuts on mac (and win)???? probably not possible without OS (carbon/kernel32) functions
  • spell check and update documentation
  • reactivate terminal mode on mac - if neccessary



last update 2005-10-17