Christoph Schmitt Wrote:
> I am trying to generate images of latex formulars via a java application
> and now confronted with some strange problems when using dvipng bundled
> with miktex and texlive 2007 under windows.
>
> The first call of dvipng hangs (generated os-process dvipng.exe via the
> java-application is not responding) because the a sub-process
> (makepk.exe for the case that miktex is used as latex-environment) fails
> to generate a certain pk-font. When calling dvipng from the cmd-shell,
> then the first run of dvipng leads to a console ouput similar like this:
>
> METAFONT failed for some reason....
> dvipng warning: not all characters could be displayed
>
> and new pk-fonts will be generated from dvipng. A second run of dvipng,
> not changing the contents (the font or font size) of the .tex-files
> leads to no warning or errors from dvipng.
I ran into the same issue. What I found is that even if the quiet flag (-q) is passed to dvipng, miktex-makepk.exe is being invoked with the –verbose flag. This is causing miktex-makepk.exe to not exit. I was able to workaround the issue in two steps:
1) When invoking dvipng it is run twice, both times with the quiet, picky, and strict flags.
2) A wrote a proxy application which took the place of miktex-makepk.exe. This proxy simply invoked the real makepk after stripping the --verbose option and replacing it with the –q option.
Those two alterations made a functional workaround.
-Mark