> Judging from the contents of the current tk.pdf, it looks > like you might have slipped and run [pdf2ps]
of course, thank you; the error was in the mkfile and i didn't notice the implausible name when it ran. perhaps i then dutifully copied the same name if i ran it by hand on linux systems, although i thought i'd snarfed and sent darren bane's suggested command for plan9ports. a little mystery but who really cares? i'll ship the updated pdf