Environment multicols undefined
An Thi-Nguyen Le
WARNING: I can't afford the LaTex manual if it's a book, and if it's
documentation I can't find it in the huge doc texmf tree I have. I can't
afford the companion either. People stole the LaTeX books from the
library. I have looked at dejanews, and the FAQ's, and I can't find the
solution to my problem there. The point is, this is probably a stupid
post but I'm at my wit's end.
Anyways....
I'm rather new to all this, but I searched the FAQ's, the README's, etc.,
also dejanews, and I can't find the solution to this particular problem.
Or if I did it's in Russian.
I am running Linux, with teTeX, and everything is there but the sources.
Hence, /usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/tools/multicol.sty exists on my
system. The tex.conf, if I can understand it correctly, is alright; the
texmf tree is right, the stuff for latex is right. However, if I run
latex on a file that contains something like this:
-------------------------
\begin{multicols}{2}
\noindent \textbf{\small The Adventure of the Empty House}{\small }\\
{\small by} \noun{\small Sir Arthur Conan Doyle}{\small \par}
(etc.etc.etc.)
\end{multicols}
---------------------------
I get this output:
---------------------------
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
(newfile.tex
LaTeX2e <1996/12/01> patch level 1
Babel <v3.6h> and hyphenation patterns for american, german, loaded.
(/usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 1996/10/31 v1.3u Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))
(/usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/base/fontenc.sty
(/usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/base/t1enc.def)) (newfile.aux)
(/usr/lib/texmf/texmf/tex/latex/base/t1cmtt.fd)
! LaTeX Error: Environment multicols undefined.
See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
...
l.29 \begin{multicols}
{2}
?
----------------------------------
I don't know why this happens, I only know that it's probably not supposed
to happen. If you really want to know, I installed the whole tetex tree
from 'rpm' which is supposed to take care of little details like this for
the enterprising newbie....
Here is the output from texconfig:
---------------------------
==================== binaries found by searching $PATH ===================
tex: /usr/bin/tex
initex: /usr/bin/initex
virtex: /usr/bin/virtex
mf: /usr/bin/mf
inimf: /usr/bin/inimf
virmf: /usr/bin/virmf
dialog: /usr/bin/dialog
dvips: /usr/bin/dvips
xdvi: /usr/bin/xdvi
kpsetool: /usr/bin/kpsetool
kpsewhich: /usr/bin/kpsewhich
MakeTeXPK: /usr/bin/MakeTeXPK
MakeTeXTFM: /usr/bin/MakeTeXTFM
mp: /usr/bin/mp
inimp: /usr/bin/inimp
virmp: /usr/bin/virmp
=========================== Kpathsea variables ===========================
TETEXDIR=/usr/lib/texmf
TEXMF=/usr/lib/texmf/texmf
=============== environment variables (ok if no output here) =============
----------------------------
Please email me. I can survive without tools, obviously, but I would just
like to, you know, have a working LaTeX installment... I got this far on
the network card, the PnP sound card, networked printing to a M$ print
server, but am stuck on software. ARgh.... Even just pointers to the
right FAQ. Or news server. Or archives. A little sign in the ground,
even. Please. Please. Please.
--
An Thi-Nguyen Le ,_, doesn't byte
Smallest cat in the world -> <.> hates bugs, loves mice
"As the disk drive turns...." <_(_) goes anywhere the email goes
Thomas Ruedas
reproduced the error message you get when did *not* insert the line
\usepackage{multicol}
in the header (note: multicol, not multicols). Note that in the screen
output the file multicol.sty is not listed, although it should if the
package was included. If this is not the reason, I can only suggest that
you contact the teTeX mailing list
te...@informatik.uni-hannover.de
(which you also can subscribe), in case you should really have a teTeX
specific installation problem (which I don't think is the case here).
Good luck
Thomas Ruedas
--
--------------------------------------------
Thomas Ruedas
Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics,
J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt/Main
Feldbergstrasse 47 D-60323 Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Phone:+49-(0)69-798-24949 Fax:+49-(0)69-798-23280
e-mail: rue...@geophysik.uni-frankfurt.de
http://www.geophysik.uni-frankfurt.de/~ruedas/
--------------------------------------------