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PreTeXt installation instructions for all platforms

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Setup Instructions

Here follows computer requirements and setup instructions. General Resources will be in the Resources file.

Computer requirements:

  1. Bring your wireless-enabled laptop. MAA assures that there will be adequate wifi for the workshop in our room.

  2. Get set up for using PTX on your computer. This involves the following (and see below):

  3. Getting some "command line tools", including xsltproc and git

  4. Finding a text editor you may like - NOT a word processor like MS Office or Open/LibreOffice

  5. Downloading the actual MathBook XML processor using the "git clone" command

If you want the workshop leader to be able to easily see your documents, you may wish to use the cloud option in addition to on your local computer (or exclusively, if you have little experience with command line options).

  1. Optional: start making PTX documents! See the resources for PTX below, as well as the videos. The site http://mathbook.pugetsound.edu/quickstart.html is a good first place to look for how to make your first document, though terse.

  2. Optional for the workshop, but long-term probably not: Install LaTeX on your computer. See below.

Depending upon your OS choice, there are more or fewer steps for setting up PTX.

Videos

Informational videos for setting up your computer, as well as processing your first PTX document, are in a Google Drive folder at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1cVidfJQblveWh0TnhuQVpqdWc (They are named "MBXCasts" since PTX was previously MathBook XML.) The production values aren't the greatest, but especially if you follow along with the

Instructions

Setup instructions on various systems

Cloud

The easiest option for starting is using a cloud solution, since it only requires a modern browser. This is a good long-term solution for team projects, but for individual ones it has the obvious handicap of requiring one to be online. Thanks to the generosity of SageMath, Inc., we can provide free upgraded projects on CoCalc for the month which include everything needed except PTX itself. Google Chrome recommended as browser.

In this case, to begin you will need to create a CoCalc account - you should have received a separate email invitation to the “course” for this workshop. Once logged in, you should be have a project in your Project List with the name of the Course, “2018 PTX Workshop”, plus your name. Click on that.

At this point, you just need to find the “New” button at the upper left and add a new Terminal. You should be able to run the following command: git clone https://github.com/rbeezer/mathbook.git If this doesn’t work, please email the organizers immediately so we can make sure you have internet access.

To start making PTX documents, go again to “New” and click the “File” drop-down menu, choosing “Xml” toward the bottom.

Relevant video instructions also at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1cVidfJQblvQU1DR2NSSGxYT3M

Linux

If you have Linux, we assume you know how to apt-get or yum or whatever the stuff you need. The prerequisites include xsltproc and git. Then you will need to run git clone https://github.com/rbeezer/mathbook.git wherever you want to install PTX.

See also the Cloud instructions and the video at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1cVidfJQblvQU1DR2NSSGxYT3M for relevant information.

Mac

On Mac, the main hurdle is to open the Terminal window. You will need to get to the Finder, and then open the Utilities folder. One way is with “Shift+Command+U”. Inside here is the Terminal; open this.

The easiest way to get started will then be to issue the command git clone https://github.com/rbeezer/mathbook.git directly. However, you could alternately navigate to a different folder where you wanted to put it. Some put it near our PTX projects, but putting it in your home directory is fine for now.

If you already have command line tools for Mac OS, you will see the mathbook folder download. If not, you will be asked several questions about installing “command line tools”. Just accept the defaults and minimal installation; this is all you should need for getting the necessary stuff. Then rerun the git clone command.

See also the introductory video at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1cVidfJQblvX3A3YmxaVWFKRmM for how to then create and use your first PTX documents. It uses the pico/nano text editor to create documents, but there are also many other options; see the separate "Big List of Resources".

Windows

As one might expect, Windows is not as natively great at processing stuff developed first on Linux. However, it turns out to be relatively straightforward to install, if somewhat tedious and requiring familiarity with making folders in Windows. There are some step-by-step intros available:

The main thing is that you will have to download “Git bash” for Windows, and then a lot of annoying little downloads for xsltproc to work its magic. But it actually does work reasonably well, once you get there.