Textures, LaTeX, and babel

Using babel with Textures and LaTeX2e

(For plain TeX, just change the line in plain.tex where it says \input hyphen.tex to \input ghyphen.tex (or whatever the name of your particular hyphation file is.) I'll quote you some information from install.txt, the babel installation instructions, [with a few notes from me interspersed]:

        1 Make sure that you have the Docstrip (version 2) program
          available (it is part of the LaTeX2e distribution);  then
          run the file babel.ins through TeX.

[This is the pertinent instruction for #1. It means "Typeset the file babel.ins with LaTeX2e" (This file is in your TeX inputs folder, in the subfolder called "*LaTeX" in the subfolder called babel.) This will produce a bunch of files. ]

          This strips all the .dtx files of the comments and produces
          fast loadable versions of the files. It will tell that you
          have to move the resulting .sty and .def files into a
          directory where TeX can find them.
          Do that now.

[This means to put them into your TeX inputs folder, probably you'll want them in the *LaTeX folder.]

         Docstrip also produces two files called babel.drv and
          user.drv. You can use babel.drv to produce the full
          documented source listing of the babel system. (Which is
          also provided as babel.dvi) You can use user.drv to produce
          a short document that describes the features of each
          language specific file.

        2 Make sure you have the hyphenation patterns available for
          the languages that you intend to use. If you don't have
          them, you may be able to find them in CTAN, in the directory:
          /tex-archive/language/hyphenation.
          If you happen to have a set of patterns that is not
          available there you could make it available by either
          putting it in the /incoming directory or sending it to me.

[e.g. for German, you probably want to have the file ghyph31.tex, which you should put in your TeX inputs folder.]

       3 Make sure that the iniTeX you are using has a sufficiently
          large trie_size and trie_op_size to be able to process all
          the hyphenation patterns that you wish to load into your
          format. If you can recompile TeX, do so (with enlarged
          parameters) if you need more than one or two languages.

[not a concern]

        4 The docstripping process will have produced a file called
          hyphen.cfg. This file will be loaded when you build a
          LaTeX format. To build a plain format with the babel system
          preloaded you should make sure that the standard file
          `hyphen.tex' has a different name. You could for instance
          rename it to UShyphen.tex, to indicate American English
          hyphenation patterns.


        5 Check the hyphenation patterns that you have available and
          want to load into the format. For each language that you
          want to hyphenate correctly you need a hyphenation pattern.
          List them all in the file `language.dat'. The file that is
          in the distribution serves as an example of what you have to
          put in there.
          **NOTE The file language.dat that is in the distribution
          ** loads hyphen.tex for english. When you want to use babel
          ** with plain TeX you will have to rename the file
          ** hyphen.tex and therefore you will have to change
          ** language.dat to reflect that change.

[Here's my version of language.dat. You probably only want one or two of the languages, e.g. the "german" line, in yours.

% File    : language.dat
% Purpose : specify which hypenation patterns to load 
%           while running iniTeX 
english UShyphen.tex
ukenglish ukhyph.tex
german  ghyph31.tex
french  f8hyph.tex
italian ithyph.tex

]

        6 Run iniTeX, telling it to load your favorite macro package
          (ie plain or latex).
          When you build a LaTeX format iniTeX will find the file
          hyphen.cfg (provided that you have stored it in the
          correct place).

[Here is where you recompile your LaTeX2e format. You should have a folder called LaTeX2e sources. This is where you want to put hyphen.cfg and language.dat and any of the other babel files needed for format making. Once all your files are in order, typeset the file latex.ltx with Flash mode turned off and VirTeX selected as the format. Oh yeah, Textures will probably need ~6 Mb of memory to make the format.

If it all works out then Textures will bring up a dialog asking you where to save the format. Save it into your TeX Formats folder with a name like GermanLaTeX. Then open your TeX inputs folder, find the *LaTeX folder, and make an alias of it (Make Alias from the file menu). Rename the alias from "*LaTeX alias" to "*GermanLaTeX" so that the new format can find the old input files.]

          When you build a plain TeX format iniTeX tries to find
          hyphen.tex. If you have renamed or moved that file iniTeX
          will tell you that the file can't be found and ask you for a
          different name. Enter `hyphen.cfg' at this point.
          If you haven't renamed or moved hyphen.tex the format will be
          built *without* the babel code.

          *Beware*: some implementations of TeX only look in the
          current directory when the \openin primitive is used. If
          your TeX does that you need to put the file `languages.dat'
          in the same directory where you build your format.

[This is the case for Textures. As I said above, this file should be moved to your LaTeX2e sources folder.]

Using babel with Textures and LaTeX2e

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