A friend burned some font files for me (I don't think they are technically 'font' files, but you get the drift). Minion Pro. He saved them in a variety of formats so I could figure which one was easiest for me to install (some of them are TeX files etc).

Trouble is that when I try and view what is on the CD I'm not seeing any files. The info tells me that the computer recognizes that there is space taken up on the CD, however.

If I put the CD into a PC then the CD shows up blank. If you ask it so 'show all file extensions' then there they are.

How do I get my mac to similarly show all file extensions???

[DocClyde]

Dunno, but did you check the cd thing? There are CD-R's, CD-RW, as I am sure you are aware...perhaps thats what happened, it cannot read them because the CD is the wrong type?

Sorry I am speaking out my butt, I just got home and trying to figure it out

Hmm. The disk is a DVD-R. I tried to gmail the files to myself but the damned uni has stopped internet / network access from my desktop PC (since I'm using my MacBook now). Sigh... And this is only round one... Once I've got the files then I need to figure out 1) How to install them into LaTeX. And 2) How to use them in LaTeX. Sigh.

You were right! Copied them onto a memory stick okay and my Mac can see those. Unarchiving (decompressing?) them now

:-)

[DocClyde]

Very glad to hear! Good!

Yes, terrific.

So I go about trying to install them...

Armed with about 5 different instruction booklets (some of the instructions far from clear so multiple sources slightly helpful though also extremely confusing).

Several days later:

We have progressed to 'MinionPro Symbol. sty not found'.

Hmm.

Someone says that you need to install the MinionPro Symbol package in order to be able to use the MinionPro Font package.

Aargh.

Installing the MinionPro Symbol package...

We have progressed to h\bar command already defined.

I wonder what package I need to install now????

Aargh.

Hint: When people tell you some installation is 'not trivial' and look at you skeptically: Don't take it as a challenge!

At least... Not if you are me...

[DocClyde]

Or me

This might not be the place, but you never know.

Installed MinionPro.
Installed MinionPro Symbol.

Running this little test program in LaTeX:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{MnSymbol}
\usepackage{MinionPro}
\usepackage[,textlf,minionint] {MinionPro}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\begin{document}
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
\end{document}

It generates a completely blank PDF document when I typeset.
It seems to get to here:

(/usr/local/texlive/2007/../texmf-local/tex/latex/adobe/minion pro/fontaxes.sty)

And then I get this error message:

! LaTeX Error: Command `\hbar' already defined.

Apparently \hbar is a symbol for some physical constant. Some physical constant (I might add) that I'll never jolly well ever use the symbol for!!!

If i change the order of the program so that the MinionPro usepackage loads before the MnSymbol usepackage then I get this error message instead:

!LaTeX Error: Option clash for package MinionPro.

Any thoughts anyone??

[DocJohn]

I don't know about the first error, but the second error means:

"This means you're loading the package twice. Try and find the other
place you're loading it and delete that line. Note that it may be another package that's implicitly loading inputenc."

I got that by googling around for those two latex error lines... You'll probably have more luck in the more techie forums, though (and I see you've already posted to at least one of 'em, so good luck!).

Thankyou.

I have been doing a few things... And I think I've messed up the .map files somehow.

Trouble with the technical forums is understanding how to follow their instructions...

There is a guy here who managed to install precisely what I'm trying to install now with the same distribution of TeX as me.

He looked very sceptically at me when I said I was going to do this. So... I guess I'll have to buy him lunch and swallow my pride and get him to take a look...

By the way... The Macrumours forum (which I have significant difficulty in spelling but google is forgiving) seems to have been started because they like to speculate (sometimes) about what products are going to be uncovered in the Mac convention held each January. There is a particular forum for that, however, and you aren't supposed to do that in other sections (though people do sometimes). So... You get handy information about whether you are better to leave off purchasing model x or model y if an upgrade is likely to follow the mac convention. (My book was the only one that people thought I'd be okay with since it had a major upgrade in November and I purchased in December).

There is also a more 'official' Mac forum associated with the online official purchase site along with some tutorials on using macs and using Leopard etc etc etc. That one seems pretty good, too. You are supposed to rate the 'best answer' and so people seem highly motivated to up their rankings on the site by posting a relevant and informative answer. But... The official site seems (to me at least) to be less sympathetic about user modifications to hardware etc. And of course to ban speculation on products.

The 'official' site isn't endorsed by mac (in the sense that you can't sue them if you get bad advice). Seems that some of the people who post there are authorized mac genius people, though, but of course they aren't posting AS authorized mac genius people if something goes wrong.

Might be worth checking out there too... (I think you need an i-mac account in order to post, though). But there could be stuff in the archives.

I"m sorry - that last post was meant for you. I accidentally put it here instead of in your thread.