Re: [tlug] Latex for translation

[Travis Cardwell <travis.cardwell@example.com>]

On 2014年04月23日 18:23, Brian Chandler wrote:
> I can edit the file, easy, but I get all sorts of errors trying to
> "compile" it: as far as I can see this is all about "literally" millions
> of "packages" which I might or might not have. The source starts with
>
> \documentclass{jarticle}
>
> and it said "jarticle.cls not found". So I changed it to "article" and
> this went away. Trouble is his goes on and on - now it can't find
> "proof.sty". I don't know whether this is something I should have been
> given or what. Can anyone suggest my best approach - either how I
> untangle this myself, or if anyone could perhaps look at the header and
> say "You need to change A B and C" or "You need to ask the author for X
> and Y". In particular if anyone has ideas on handling translating Latex
> docs from Japanese to English.

There are various distributions of (La)TeX that supply various sets of TeX 
packages.  Assuming that the author did not use packages without reason, 
changing or removing lines that cause errors due to missing packages is 
likely to cause more errors...  TeX is a programming language: including 
packages brings commands and environments into scope, so changing the 
`\documentclass` or removing the `\usepackage` will cause any lines that 
use the commands/environments that should have been included to raise errors.

In the "jarticle" case, the author is using pLaTeX, which is still popular 
in Japan because it is one of the first TeX implementations to support 
Japanese.  You can find many tutorials for installing and using pLaTeX. 
For example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pLaTeX+debian

Note that the customer may want you to keep the translation in pLaTeX, so 
that they can build it within their existing environment.  If that is the 
case, then your best bet might be to install pLaTeX and any other missing 
packages so that you can build the document, focus on just translating and 
not worry about layout, and then let the customer (who is presumably 
experienced with LaTeX) take care of LaTeX-specific refinement.  My advice 
is to keep backups (revision control!) and test continuously in order to 
catch any errors as quickly as possible.

Good luck!

Travis