Re: debiandoc-sgml-doc: FTBFS: debiandoc-sgml.en.pdf could not be generated properly

[Frank Küster <frank@kuesterei.ch>]

Hi, 

I have further analysed this bug and can give some input that might
help. 

Frank Küster <frank@kuesterei.ch> wrote:

> ,----
> | ! Package textcomp Error: Symbol \textcurrency not provided by
> | (textcomp)                font family ppl in TS1 encoding.
> | (textcomp)                Default family used instead.
> | 
> | See the textcomp package documentation for explanation.
> | Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
> |  ...                                              
> |                                                   
> | l.1515 \&curren; => \textcurrency
> |                                  {}
> | Your command was ignored.
> | Type  I <command> <return>  to replace it with another command,
> | or  <return>  to continue without it.
> `----
[...]
> This error is reproducible with a minimal document like this:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{mathpazo}
> \usepackage{textcomp}
>
> \begin{document}
>
> 100 \textcurrency{}.
>
> \end{document}
>
> So one could argue it is a bug in tetex-extra (which provides the ppl
> font family, Palatino).  On the other hand, you cannot expect that the
> Palatino fonts will get a textcurrency symbol before etch is released,
> if at all.

This is not correct - there *is* a textcurrency symbol in Palatino.
With teTeX-3.0, the textcomp package has introduced some additional
check whose rationale escapes me - it claims to have something to do
with "textcurrency being misused for the euro".  I'll report that as a
separate bug against teTeX and the LaTeX bug database, but this doesn't
help you - we'll not get a new LaTeX release with a fix soon.

I have found three ways to circumvent the problem.  All require fixes in
debiandoc-sgml, not in debiandoc-sgml-doc - this is clear because
debiandoc-sgml-doc just shows what can be done (or is supposed to be
possible) with debiandoc-sgml.  

- The first is to load the textcomp package with the "force" option:

\usepackage[force]{textcomp}

  But this might have other side effects; you'd have to carefully check
  the rest of the document (I must admit that I don't understand the
  sparse and not user-oriented documentation of the textcomp package,
  which is only available after processing LaTeX's ltoutenc.dtx).

- The quick-and-dirty solution is to add, after loading textcomp, the
  lines

\makeatletter
\DeclareTextCommandDefault{\textcurrency}{\tc@check@symbol4\textcurrency}
\makeatother

  Unlike the force option, this only affects the textcurrency symbol and
  nothing else.

- In addition to textcomp, also load wasysym, and use \currency instead
  of \textcurrency.  This has the nice side effect that the currency
  symbol from the Wasy fonts looks much nicer than that of Palatino
  (which is hardly decernible from a circle).  But again you should
  check carefully whether the appearance of other symbols does change.
  I *believe* that the only LaTeX symbols that Wasy redefines are
  integrals, which are probably not accessible from debiandoc-sgml,
  anyway.  But I am not sure.

Taking this together, it seems to me as if the third solution is the
best one if somebody takes the time and compares a printout of the old
and new documentation.  If nobody from the maintainers speaks up, I'll
consider an NMU, and in this case I'd take solution 2.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer