QUESTION :
Having TeXLive installed on my Mac, I frequently need to consult documentation for some of the packages. It seems silly to Google this when I have the PDFs all on my HDD in /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/doc , so I want to be able to use Spotlight to search for them. However, I can’t get Spotlight to cooperate. I tried
mdimport /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/doc
which then does some work, but afterwards doesn’t display any results in Spotlight. I’ve also added the folder in Alfred’s search scope to no avail. Any ideas?
ANSWER :
Files in /usr/ are scanned by Spotlight but just not included in the normal search results.
AFAIK there’s no way to include files treated as system files in the Spotlight menu. But you can include them in Finder:
or create a search filter for searching for system files in Alfred:
or use mdfind:
mdfind -onlyin /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/doc "search phrase"
I know this is not a real solution, but I would move the /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/doc directory to /Users/yourusername/Documents/TeXLiveDocs.
Try the -f (folder flag) when invoking mdimport:
$ mdimport -f /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/doc