groff.enc

[Gary Knott]

Dear TeX group, I get an error message from dvips:


This is dvips(k) 5.993 Copyright 2013 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2015.08.30:1705' -> sobnew.ps
dvips: ! Couldn't find header file: groff.enc


I googled to see others have had this problem, but sparsely; I got a copy of
groff.enc someone had posted and added it to my working directory and
dvips then worked!

But I want to know where to put this file outside my
working directory where it will be found and used on every use
of dvips from whatever working directory. I noted some
remark that said put it in:

/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/groff/

So I created the groff directory (as root) and copied
the file there, but it didn't work!

(1) If groff.enc has anything to to do with the old groff
program, I don't need it - I guess - maybe for making a man page?

(2) Where do I put this file? I'm running a KDE linux 14.04 system
and there is a /usr/share/texlive directory present, so I suppose
I'm using "texlive"?

Thanks, gary knott, gary...@gmail.com

[Peter Flynn]

On 08/30/2015 10:28 PM, Gary Knott wrote:
> Dear TeX group, I get an error message from dvips:
>
>
> This is dvips(k) 5.993 Copyright 2013 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
> ' TeX output 2015.08.30:1705' -> sobnew.ps
> dvips: ! Couldn't find header file: groff.enc
>
>
> I googled to see others have had this problem, but sparsely; I got a copy of
> groff.enc someone had posted and added it to my working directory and
> dvips then worked!
>
> But I want to know where to put this file outside my
> working directory where it will be found and used on every use
> of dvips from whatever working directory. I noted some
> remark that said put it in:
>
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/groff/

No. Don't ever put your additional files into the main distribution
because they risk being wiped off when you upgrade.

Assuming dvips follows the kpsewhich path-finding mechanism used by
other TeX programs, then the place to put it is in your Personal TeX
Directory, probably in the subfolder fonts/enc/dvips/groff (by deduction
:-) or perhaps tex/generic...

See http://latex.silmaril.ie/documentation/personalTeXfolder.pdf for
details of where to create your Personal TeX Directory if you don't
already have one. For Linux, it's ~/texmf

If dvips does NOT follow the standard file-finding mechanism, then I'm
afraid you'll have to hunt further.