using this point as the reference of query, a link on arch linux forum was discovered [https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=91655](https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=91655)
SOLUTION the following steps were undertaken. * re-install texlive-fontsextra (sudo pacman -S texlive-fontsextra) * cd ~/source-nim/nim * git pull * cd csources && sh build.sh * bin/nim c koch * ./koch boot -d:release * ./koch pdf At this point, nim is built and ready to use bin/nim --version Nim Compiler Version 0.16.0 (2017-01-24) [Linux: amd64] Copyright (c) 2006-2017 by Andreas Rumpf git hash: 0ead17bf0ecb12e32f64c050f8d28f6c22a59adb active boot switches: -d:release and the full documentation in PDF format is available. find . -name "*.pdf" ./doc/manual.pdf ./doc/pdf/niminst.pdf ./doc/pdf/manual.pdf ./doc/pdf/tut2.pdf ./doc/pdf/gc.pdf ./doc/pdf/nimc.pdf ./doc/pdf/lib.pdf ./doc/pdf/tut1.pdf SUMMARY If you are using Arch Linux and encounter issue with building the PDF documentation * remove ~/.texlive * re-install texlive-fontxextra Thanks for hcorion, araq for the assistance and encouragement with troubleshooting !