Installing pstricks in windows with MikTex

devoured elysium picture devoured elysium · Jan 21, 2010 · Viewed 10.6k times · Source

I've been trying to get pstricks to work but to no avail. I am using Miktex, and I downloaded the package from it packages manager. But when I try to build it, it always fails:

This is XeTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.1 (MiKTeX 2.8)
entering extended mode
(C:\xxxx\Desktop\untitled-6.tex
LaTeX2e <2009/09/24>
Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, dumylang, nohyphenation, ge
rman, ngerman, german-x-2009-06-19, ngerman-x-2009-06-19, french, portuguese, l
oaded.
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\base\article.cls"
Document Class: article 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\base\size10.clo"))
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\oberdiek\epstopdf.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\oberdiek\epstopdf-base.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\infwarerr.sty")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\oberdiek\grfext.sty")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\oberdiek\kvoptions.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\graphics\keyval.sty")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\kvsetkeys.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\etexcmds.sty")))
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\pdftexcmds.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\ifluatex.sty")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\oberdiek\ltxcmds.sty"))

Package epstopdf Warning: No graphics package `graphic{s,x}' loaded.

)) ("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\graphics\graphics.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\graphics\trig.sty")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\00miktex\graphics.cfg")
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\xelatex\xetex-def\xetex.def"))
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\pstricks\pstricks.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\pstricks\pstricks.tex"
`PSTricks' v1.29  <2009/05/19> (tvz)

======================================================================
starting package maintenance...
installation directory: "C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8"
package repository: http://ftp.eq.uc.pt/software/TeX/systems/win32/miktex/tm/packages/
lightweight database digest: ecef59fd2592919972b79117b8fcd1c8
going to download 1520 bytes
going to install 4 file(s) (1 package(s))
downloading http://ftp.eq.uc.pt/software/TeX/systems/win32/miktex/tm/packages/xetex-pstricks.tar.lzma...
1520 bytes, 8.84 KB/Sec
extracting files from xetex-pstricks.tar.lzma...
miktex-xetex.exe: Windows API error 87: The parameter is incorrect.

miktex-xetex.exe: Data: C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.8\miktex\config\1567d83d412396067c84a669e65114a0.fndb
======================================================================
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\generic\pstricks\pstricks.con"))
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\xcolor\xcolor.sty"
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\tex\latex\00miktex\color.cfg")))
(C:\xxxx\Desktop\untitled-6.aux)
! Undefined control sequence.
<recently read> \c@lor@to@ps 

l.8 \psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)

? 

Anything special I have to do?

Thanks edit:

Here is the code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{pstricks}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\begin{pspicture}(4,5)
\psframe(0.7,2)(3.3,3)
\rput(2,2.5){First Example}
\end{pspicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

Answer

Ramashalanka picture Ramashalanka · Jan 21, 2010

I can't see from the partial log results, but it looks like pstricks is loading OK since it's got that far: you can look further up the results to check and it'll list the pstricks package it's used. There are two problems I can see. First, you need a

\usepackage{graphics}

Second, you need to choose DVI from the drop down menu I can see in TeXworks. It should say something like LaTex + DVI + PDF. You can use pdflatex with pstricks (see e.g. http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~fouvry/how-do-I.html), but dvi is easier. If you go the pdflatex route, a first step is:

\usepackage{epstopdf}

Omitting this package is what is causing the error we see above, but the will be other errors after that is fixed (see the website above). As a minor aside, it was good to see the picture, since it obviously was necessary for the above comments, but additionally having the code copy and pasted as text would've been useful for me to copy and try (yes I am a bit lazy).