[LON-CAPA-users] Printing with version 2.11.1
Stuart Raeburn
raeburn at msu.edu
Thu Jul 9 18:41:44 EDT 2015
Hi,
> The updates to ImageMagick have been completed, and the resources
> print with the images---the conversion of images is successful.
Thanks for reporting back to the mailing list.
The original subject line for this thread: "Printing with version
2.11.1" is misleading, as I encountered the same "blank PDF" behavior
you had originally seen, when generating printouts on LON-CAPA servers
running 2.10.1, 2.11.0, or 2.11.1 for the resource:
/res/msu/kortemey/physicsprecourse/geometry/arclength.problem
if the ImageMagick version installed was 6.5.4.7-7.el6 (i.e., the
standard version used by CentOS/Red Hat/Scientific Linux 6).
Accordingly, as described in my post to the lon-capa-admin list last month:
http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-admin/2015-June/003065.html
I added updated ImageMagick packages (version: 6.8.9-7) to the
LON-CAPA package repositories for CentOS/Red Hat/Scientific Linux 6.
When Mike Thomas (your server administrator) updated the tccfl
LON-CAPA server yesterday the rev. 6.8.9-7 ImageMagick packages were
the ones applied.
Stuart Raeburn
LON-CAPA Academic Consortium
Quoting Rex Abert <ABERTR at tcc.fl.edu>:
> The updates to ImageMagick have been completed, and the resources
> print with the images---the conversion of images is successful.
> However, the size of the images is too large. The images overlap
> other questions on the same page. However, this is probably
> something that should be set by the author by using the <TeXwith> et
> al. tags. For thos who are interested in seeing the output, I have
> uploaded the pdf files to
>
> www.math.fsu.edu/~rabert/LonCapa/sample1column.pdf
> www.math.fsu.edu/~rabert/LonCapa/sample2column.pdf
>
> There are 5 images in the printout. The two black-and-white images
> have a corresponding postscript file in the problem directory. The
> 3 color images were converted from jpg files.
>
> Rex Abert
> Associate Professor of Mathematics
> Tallahassee Community College
> ________________________________________
> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org
> [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Rex Abert
> [ABERTR at tcc.fl.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2015 11:26 AM
> To: Discussion list for LON-CAPA users
> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Printing with version 2.11.1
>
> I have forwarded the information to our IT guy. I'll keep you posted.
>
> Rex Abert
> Associate Professor of Mathematics
> Tallahassee Community College
> ________________________________________
> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org
> [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Stuart
> Raeburn [raeburn at msu.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2015 10:58 AM
> To: lon-capa-users at mail.lon-capa.org
> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Printing with version 2.11.1
>
> Rex,
>
>> So that leaves us with the following options ...
>
> There is another option:
>
> Ask your server administrator to run:
>
> yum update
>
> to install newer versions of ImageMagick and ImageMagick-perl on
> loncapa.tcc.fl.edu
>
> I have now added newer ImageMagick and ImageMagick-perl rpms
> (6.8.9-7.centos6.lc) to the LON-CAPA CentOS 6 repository for 32 bit
> and 64 bit architectures:
>
> http://install.loncapa.org/centos/loncapa/6/x86_64/
> http://install.loncapa.org/centos/loncapa/6/i386/
>
> I tested printout generation of:
> /res/msu/kortemey/physicsprecourse/geometry/arclength.problem
>
> and it worked without error (i.e., created a non-blank PDF), after I
> updated a CentOS 6 VM to use these newer versions of ImageMagick to
> convert the arc.jpg image to arc.jpg.eps, and then reloaded the Apache
> web server:
>
> /etc/init.d/httpd reload
>
>
> Stuart Raeburn
> LON-CAPA Academic Consortium
>
>
> Quoting Rex Abert <ABERTR at tcc.fl.edu>:
>
>> Stuart & Gerd-
>>
>> Here is what I've found.
>>
>> 1) The TeX file looks OK.
>> 2) The dvi file looks OK, with placeholders for the images to come later.
>> 3) The .ps file mostly displays OK, but with errors on the resources
>> that contain images from Gerd, and no corresponding eps file for
>> the image. Pages that do not contain such an image have no issues.
>> 4) The conversion to pdf gives up upon reaching the first image
>> without a corresponding eps file.
>>
>> So that leaves us with the following options: Gerd: Would you be
>> willing to drop in some eps files for the images in your resources?
>> (If needed, I could snag the jpegs and convert them in GIMP and
>> email them back to you.) I would like to use the few problems
>> relating to Trigonometry in the same folder as the problem listed
>> below. If not, I could reproduce the problem in my own directory.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Rex Abert
>> Associate Professor of Mathematics
>> Tallahassee Community College
>> ________________________________________
>> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org
>> [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Rex Abert
>> [ABERTR at tcc.fl.edu]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2015 8:41 AM
>> To: Discussion list for LON-CAPA users
>> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Printing with version 2.11.1
>>
>> I'll look into this some more. The problem cited is the third one
>> in a homework folder. When printing all problems in the folder, I
>> get a pdf containing the first two problems, and nothing else. Your
>> tips should help me troubleshoot exactly where the issue is---it
>> could be in the second problem, perhaps.
>>
>> Anyway, thanks for the tips and I'll see what I find.
>>
>> Rex Abert
>> Associate Professor of Mathematics
>> Tallahassee Community College
>> ________________________________________
>> From: lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org
>> [lon-capa-users-bounces at mail.lon-capa.org] on behalf of Stuart
>> Raeburn [raeburn at msu.edu]
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 8:49 AM
>> To: lon-capa-users at mail.lon-capa.org
>> Subject: Re: [LON-CAPA-users] Printing with version 2.11.1
>>
>> Hi Rex,
>>
>> For this resource:
>>
>> /res/msu/kortemey/physicsprecourse/geometry/arclength.problem
>>
>> the print utility in LON-CAPA generates a non-blank PDF when using any
>> of the servers in the msu domain, or any of the *educog.com servers
>> (all running LON-CAPA 2.11.1).
>>
>> I switched my web session to a number of other servers in the network
>> currently running 2.11.1 and found that a non-blank PDF was also
>> generated on servers in other domains where the Linux distro was
>> CentOS 5 or 7, or Ubuntu 12 or 14. However, a blank PDF was the
>> result on some (but not all) servers running CentOS 6.
>>
>>> ... Now, I just get a link to the pdf file and nothing else. Is
>>> there a way to find the log and TeX files with 2.11.1?
>>
>> There has not been a change in the display of links to the .log and
>> .tex files in 2.11.1 as compared with earlier LON-CAPA versions.
>>
>> Those links are displayed to "advanced users" (e.g., Course
>> Coordinators, Authors/Co-authors etc.) when an "Emergency stop" is
>> found in the log file.
>>
>> If printout generation is successful and the various stages of the
>> process are completed (i.e., calls to latex, dvips, ps2pdf13 complete
>> etc.) then the corresponding files with extensions .log, .tex, .ps
>> and .pdf will remain in the prtspool directory, until the nightly
>> clean-up by cleanup_file_caches.pl.
>>
>> You can access the .log, .tex etc. files by replacing the .pdf
>> extension, with the extension for the desired file in your browser's
>> address box. If you right click (or ctrl-click for Mac) on the link:
>> "Your PDF file" in the text:
>>
>> <Name> - Your PDF file is ready for download, in the final printout
>> generation screen then you can copy the link location, which will be
>> of the form:
>> http://loncapa.tcc.fl.edu/prtspool/<user>_<domain>_<identifier>.pdf
>>
>> Comparing sizes for the various files generated when printing
>> /res/msu/kortemey/physicsprecourse/geometry/arclength.problem
>> (imported into a course) in the same course for the same user on msua4
>> (i.e., s4.lite.msu.edu) versus tccfll1 (i.e., loncapa.tcc.fl.edu) I
>> find:
>>
>> 2412 msua4.dvi
>> 26010 msua4.log
>> 30978 msua4.pdf
>> 999358 msua4.ps
>> 3740 msua4.tex
>> 1001384 msua4temporar.ps
>>
>> 2408 tccfll1.dvi
>> 26010 tccfll1.log
>> 9360 tccfll1.pdf
>> 1003401 tccfll1.ps
>> 3740 tccfll1.tex
>> 1005427 tccfll1temporar.ps
>>
>> A diff of tccfll1.tex and msua4.tex reports no differences.
>>
>> However the .dvi files are different, and in addition the .ps file
>> generated on loncapa.tcc.fl.edu cannot be displayed with a postscript
>> viewer.
>>
>> The issue would seem to be in the generation of the .dvi file within
>> cgi-bin/printout.pl from the command:
>>
>> "latex filename.tex 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null"
>>
>> where filename is the name of the .tex file.
>>
>> Note: loncapa.tcc.fl.edu and s4.lite.msu.edu have the same Linux
>> distro, and architecture.
>>
>>
>> Stuart Raeburn
>> LON-CAPA Academic Consortium
>>
>>
>> Quoting Rex Abert <ABERTR at tcc.fl.edu>:
>>
>>> I'm having difficulty printing some resources after our system was
>>> upgraded to 2.11.1. Previously, if there was a TeX error, Lon-Capa
>>> would provide links to the log file and the original TeX file to
>>> assist in troubleshooting. Now, I just get a link to the pdf file
>>> and nothing else. Is there a way to find the log and TeX files with
>>> 2.11.1?
>>>
>>> For what it's worth, the resource that is causing the error is
>>>
>>> /res/msu/kortemey/physicsprecourse/geometry/arclength.problem
>>>
>>> (Sorry, Gerd!)
>>>
>>> Rex Abert
>>> Associate Professor of Mathematics
>>> Tallahassee Community College
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
>>> LON-CAPA-users at mail.lon-capa.org
>>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
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