• View
• Edit
• Upload
• History
• Print

LatexBugs

Here are some bugs in LaTeX supporting programs that affect functionality of LyX. Some of these bugs may be squashed in more recent distributions.

1.  LaTeX bugs

1.1  Bug in Babel "Extra \else"!!!

There is a bug in the babel package that affects formatting in large documents in an erratic way, indicating a spurious "Extra \else" error that stops LyX and prevents viewing. To avoid it, do the following: In babel.def replace the three occurrences of \noexpand\bbl@restore@actives with \protect\bbl@restore@actives. (See the thread babel + fancyhdr + natbib = ! Extra \else in the comp.text.tex group.)

1.2  Bug in Babel/graphicx "figures in turkish and latin documents"

There is a bug in the babel/graphicx packages that occurs in Turkish and Latin documents. The \includegraphics command does not work in these documents, and you will get a LaTeX error if you use figures in LyX with Turkish and Latin documents. See http://bugzilla.lyx.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2005 for details and a workaround.

1.3  Bug in Babel's Hungarian support

Babel's support for Hungarian is outdated and often causes LaTeX bugs. The babel maintainer unfortunately doesn't update the affected file magyar.ldf. The workaround is to replace babel's default magyar.ldf file with this one. The Windows-specific description how to use Hungarian with LyX also describes this workaround.

1.4  Bug in dvipng "instant preview"

A bug in dvipng version 1.6 causes font problems in instant preview (an option in Preferences -> Graphics). If math inserts vanish partially or totally, or characters in math inserts disappear or are displayed with incorrect glyphs, try the following: Remove dvipng.exe from the ...\texmf\miktex\bin\ directory (or its equivalent in other systems) and reconfigure LyX. This bug allegedly will be cured in dvipng version 1.7.

1.5  Bug in varioref, version 1.4w

The styles “on page <page>”, “<reference> on page <page>” and “Formatted reference” will cause LaTeX errors for document languages that make the period character active (like for example French).

Frank Mittelbach corrected the bug in december 2010, the right version 1.4y is here (still in svn, will probably be committed to CTAN with the next update of the tools directory). To get it, you must retrieve also http://www.latex-project.org/svnroot/latex2e-public/required/tools/tools.ins, run latex on this file (ignore errors) and install the resulting varioref.sty in your distribution.

Otherwise here are two possible workarounds:

• you can embed each reference in two TeX-code boxes like this:
  {\shorthandoff{:}<Formatted reference>}
• You can globally redefine the command \vref@pagenum in the preamble:
  \def\vref@pagenum#1#2{%
  \@ifundefined{r@#2}{\@namedef{r@#2}{{??}{??}}}{}%
  \edef#1{\expandafter\expandafter\expandafter
  \@cdr\csname r@#2\endcsname\@nil}

LaTeX bugs