Thanks for the comment. As you might guess, flexibility was not priority number one for me. What I’ve posted is a starting point for editing for each case. (As I’ve developed my LaTeX work, I’ve altered how I make my DTX files, so the older ones need different treatment to the newer or updated ones.) Of course, I’d be intrigued to see what you have (I’m well aware of my limitations with batch programming: I’ve got a lot better, but there is still much to learn).

The DTX structure in the latest stuff is something I’ve taken from what Will Robertson has been doing. I quite like the idea of keeping everything in one file, but having the ability to extract or typeset easily. There is some information on DTX creation in the “dtxgallery” bundle on CTAN. As you might guess, I tend to start with “take an existing file, delete all of the code and rename”!

On the zip stuff, I can only comment on what I’ve tried. “zip -ll” works with the copy of Info-ZIP I have (downloaded from their site once I’d worked out where it was):

ftp://ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/win32/

The same works on my new Mac, and the PDFs seem to survive OK. (The current expl3 and biblatex-chem releases were done this way from the Mac, while notes2bib was released from Windows.)

Joseph

I’m quite intrigued by your self-extracting .dtx sources. Is there some information available on how to prepare them. I’m still trying to get the hang of .dtx format.

BTW, line conversion with ‘zip -ll …’ damaged my pdf documentation, so I’m not sure if this is such a good idea. It’s probably better to do it for selected files with a dedicated tool (or a text editor).

“So far, ctanify has been tested only on Linux.”

The aim of my batch file is to work without needing too much in the way of “extras”. You need a ZIP program to make zip files at the command line, but that it it here. I should add that the more complex version for doing LaTeX releases does need Perl, but only to run the automated check system, not to do the basics.