TexPoint
A LaTex Add-In for MS PowerPoint
  
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setup instructions for Windows

Uninstall previous version of TexPoint before installing a new version. See FAQ for details.

For Versions 1.5.4 to 2.0.3 there are MS installer files available. You will be guided through the installation. On rare occasions, I have noticed that the installation fails with a message saying that "a script associated with this installation fails to run". This happened to me only on Windows XP and only when I had PowerPoint presentations open. I fixed it by closing all PowerPoint presentations and retrying the installation.
The Windows Installer comes preinstalled on Windows 2000/XP and Windows ME and is available as an add-in for Windows NT or Windows 95/98. Note that TexPoint works somewhat more reliably on Windows NT/2000/XP due to a bug in Windows 95/98.
  • If you are using Office XP or Office 2003 you should first open any PowerPoint presentation go to Tools/Macros/Security and choose the medium security setting. This means that you will be given the option to disable macros whenever you want to open a presentation with macros. The default setting of High allows only macros that are signed, which TexPoint isn't.
  • You must download the appropriate TexPoint package for your version of Office.
For older and newer versions you need to do a few simple steps "by hand":
  1. download the latest zip file and save it somewhere.
  2. unpack the file (make sure that you unzip with the "Use folder names" option enabled). This will create the directory TexPoint with a few subdirectories (fonts, test and doc). On Windows 95/98 you must install TexPoint in a directory that does not contain spaces!
  3. preferably move this directory to your main application directory (e.g. "C:\program files\", "C:\Programme",...). For this you need administration rights on NT machines.
  4. Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Windows\Fonts (replace C:\Windows with the directory where you installed your Windows version). Go to File menu and select Install new Fonts. Make sure you uncheck the "Copy fonts to the Fonts folder" checkbox. Then browse to the TexPoint\fonts directory. You will see that the six fonts appear in the window. Select them all and press Ok. You will see that Windows installs the fonts. You do not need to perform this step if you do not want to use the Latex and AMS symbols. Do the same with the emf fonts if needed.
  5. Open PowerPoint, go to Tools/Add-ins.../Add new, then browse to the TexPoint directory and click on the TexPoint[X_win].ppa add-in (For PP 2003 use TexPoint[X_2003].ppa). At this point you will be warned that the add-in contains macros. The TexPoint add-in will then be loaded automatically every time you start PowerPoint, until you explicitly Unload it from the Tools/Add-ins menu. You are now ready to use the inline mode.
    On Multi-User Systems you need to do this step for every user, including the macro security setting (medium).
    Note: Starting with version 2.5 TexPoint recognizes itself as installed, if the AddIn is named in the form "TexPoint[x].ppa" (case insensitive, [x] can be anything).
  6. Add TexPoint to your PATH (needed only for versions before 1.5)
  7. On Win2000 go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment
    Similar procedures work in NT40
  8. On Win98 you can add "set PATH=%PATH%;C:\TexPoint" to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT
  9. make sure that latex, dvips, and ghostscript is stalled on your system and are accessible through your PATH variable:
    • Install Latex. Any implementation of Latex will do. I very strongly recommend Miktex. It is very complete and reliable and also very easy to install.
      • After you install Miktex make sure that miktex\bin in in your PATH (this is in Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment in Win NT/2k/XP and in AUTOEXEC.BAT in Win95/98; also on Win95/98 you have to reboot before the settings take effect)
      • Verify that you can run "latex test" and then "dvips test" in TexPoint/test directory
    • Install Ghostscript. (for details see http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost; Ghostview is not needed for TexPoint but is a good thing to have.) TexPoint has been tested with many versions of Ghostscript up to and including AFPL 8.00. The version 8.10 of AFPL Ghostscript is buggy does not seem to work with TexPoint, but 8.11 does work.
      • Add gstools\gs8.00\bin (or the directory in which gswin32c.exe ended up) to the PATH
      • Verify that you can run "gswin32c -help" from the command line
      • New in version 2.0: You can now configure TexPoint to use the cygwin version of Ghostscript or any version of Ghostscript that is not in the PATH. (see the configuration section).
    • The final step is to test your configuration. Open an MS-DOS window and go to the directory TexPoint/test. Run "..\tex2bmp test -v". This should start latex followed by dvips and followed by two invocations of gswin32c to convert PS to bitmaps. If this script runs successfully you must be left with test.bmp and without test.msg. If that is not the case read test.msg (the error message) and fix the errors that are reported (typically missing components in the PATH).
  10. You are done with the installation.


setup instructions for Mac OS X

System requirements
  • Mac OS X (Version 10.2 or higher recommended)
  • PowerPoint X or PowerPoint 2004 for Mac
  • Unix latex system (latex, dvips)
  • ghostscript (gs)
  • (Terminal application and) AppleScript
The Latex and ghostscript program are free available via the Apple Web-Site.
I recommend to use i-installer packages which guides you through the complete setup (the PATH is also set correctly). Another option - especially if you need more Unix Open Source software - is the FINK project.

However, the paths to latex, dvips, and gs have to be defined in the bash-PATH variable!

To check if your system is set up correctly, go to the "Configuration" Dialog and select the information page.
If one of the paths for latex, dvips, gs, or bash is "<unknown>", you have to install it and/or configure the path in the bash configuration file (profile, usually in folder /etc/). A typical modification could be (warning: paths might be different!):
  #added for TexPoint
  PATH="/usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current:/sw/bin:$PATH"
  export PATH
The profile file can only be edited as root, therefore use something like "sudo pico /etc/profile" to edit the file.


Install the TexPoint Add-in

There is no automatic installer, but you are welcome to create one;-)
But it's easy to install it "by hand".
  1. download the latest zip file and save it somewhere.
  2. unpack the zip-file into any folder you like, preferable to
    "/Applications/TexPoint/"
    (usually "Macintosh HD:Applications:TexPoint") if you have administration/root rights or
    "/Users/<username>/Applications/TexPoint/"
    ("Macintosh HD:Users:...") for a single user.
  3. Move the 6 font files in the sub-folder "fonts" to
    "/Library/Fonts/"
    (admin) or
    "/Users/<username>/Library/Fonts/".
    You do not need the outline fonts! (since EMF is a Windows specific vector format. But if you open a windows presentation with emf graphics you will need them (maybe).)
    You cannot use Alias files in the Fonts folders.
  4. Open PowerPoint X/2004 and Select "Tools->Add-Ins..." in the menu.
    Click "Add..." and select the "TexPoint_mac.ppa" file. (enable macros !)
  5. If you want, you can delete the Windows specific files: TexPoint_win.ppa, *.exe, and the online fonts in the fonts folder.
Now you can use TexPoint on your Mac!

(For configuration of the latex, dvips and ghostscript programs, use the Configure command from the TexPoint menu.)


additional information

Differences in the Mac version compared to Windows
  • ActiveX-VBA commands are not supported by Office X/2004, therefore you have to use the Edit command from the "TexPoint" menu or right (or control)-click on the TexPoint object and choose "TexPoint properties..." to edit a TexPoint object you cannot use a double-click to edit an equation.
  • Resizing of the input dialog boxes has to be done by clicking the resize-control in bottom-right corner (to expand) and the status bar (to shrink) or the Spin Buttons in the main editor or the single-line editor.
  • Copy, Cut and Paste in the dialog boxes can be done by clicking the appropriate buttons.
    control-c, control-x, and control-p also work, but not the usual apple-c,x,p.
  • EMF/WMF graphics cannot be created with the TexPoint on Mac platforms (yet, pstoedit should work though), but can be opened in PowerPoint:mac versions. You might need to move the outline fonts to your Font Library folder.
  • PDF format can be selected in the Mac version (also displayed on Windows versions). Unfortunately PowerPoint rasters included pdf files, so that you will get only poor quality equations - at least in the current version. A solution is (like used in the equation service) is to create large pdf displays and scale them down after inclusion in PowerPoint.

miscellaneous
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last update 2005-10-17