[OS X TeX] puzzled with syncTeX

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Sep 29, 2015, at 1:17 PM, Ettore Aldrovandi <ealdrov at mail.math.fsu.edu> wrote:
> 
> SyncTeX records absolute paths, not relative ones. What you describe could have happened if the synctex file in backup_folder was copied from the one in current_folder, as opposed to resulting from the compilation of the tex file directly in backup_folder.
> 
> —Ettore
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sep 29, 2015, at 14:07, Themis Matsoukas <tmatsoukas at icloud.com> wrote:
>> 
>> This is bit complicated to explain but I will try. 
>> 
>> I’m working on a document in current_folder/source.tex but I keep an older version in  backup_folder/source.tex. I open backup_folder/source.tex in TS, which also opens backup_folder/source.pdf. But when I command-click on the pdf to edit the source,  this opens current_folder/source.tex and current_folder/source.pdf. I did not expect this behavior and until I realized I was editing the wrong file some damage had been done. Is this the intended behavior? I would have thought that syncTeX looks for source and output in the same folder but apparently sometimes it looks outside. This doesn’t happen always and in fact, after I typeset both files once more they now seem to sync to their respective sources. But it has happened before and it was happening reproducibly until I typeset again. 
>> 
>> Themis

Howdy,

Great explanation! In general just keep copies of the source(s) (and associated figures, bib files, etc.) and a pdf for reference. Don't ``backup'' aux or synctex files; recompile if necessary.

Between AutoSave and Time Machine I pretty much no longer do that sort of thing except if I'm going to have to compare versions on a regular basis.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)