pdfTeX in texlive missing pdftex.fmt

[Lawrence Velázquez]

On Aug 28, 2014, at 5:15 PM, Jim Graham <spooky130u at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm trying to use pdfTeX from texlive, which I've used extensively
> before and never had problems.  Now, for some reason, it's missing
> pdftex.fmt.
> 
> I get the following errors:
> 
> ---------------------------  CUT HERE  ---------------------------
> This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.5-1.40.14 (TeX Live 2013/MacPorts
> 2013_5)
> restricted \write18 enabled.
> 
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdftex.fmt
> I can't find the format file `pdftex.fmt'!
> ---------------------------  CUT HERE  ---------------------------
> 
> I couldn't find it, either.  I even re-installed tex-live to just
> start clean...it's still not found, so I'm assuming it got moved
> to a new location that I'm not pointing to for TeX macros, etc.,
> but where did it get moved to?

Could you provide a test file? I have a pdftex.fmt, but it seems to be a transient file. It doesn't belong to any ports.

> Oh, and just for future reference, how do I limit the languages
> installed with texlive to English?  I have no use for the others,
> so waiting for them to be installed, only to be deleted later,
> is just a waste of time....

Pick another texlive variant, like +basic. Or pick and choose your texlive-* packages manually.

vq