[OS X TeX] strange behavior

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Sep 6, 2016, at 3:18 PM, Nitecki, Zbigniew H. <Zbigniew.Nitecki at tufts.edu> wrote:
> 
> What should I look for in the following situation?
> 
> I have a large book project, essentially finished, recently I tweaked one figure and went to typeset the ms. for the final version.
> 
> I got an error message: undefined control sequence.  The macro in question, called \bookans, inserts a list of exercises whose answers are given in the back of the book.  It is defined in a style file called formatmacros.sty, which was initially called by another style file, calculusmacros.sty, in the form
>> \RequirePackage[sectiontheorem,indexdefs]{format macros}
> (along with a few other style files).  
> The macro has been used successfully in the same project in the past, but I decided maybe the call was buried too deeply so I Commented out \usepackage{calculusmacros} and wrote in all the calls, using \usepackage instead of \RequirePackage, into the preamble to the master source file.  In any case, the error message continues. I am getting a similar message for two other macros, one defined in the same style file, the other in a different file, also initially called by calculusmacros.sty.  All of these macros never gave me trouble before this particular run.
> 
> I have been carrying out this project between two different computers, both Macs running El Capitan, and synchronized by keeping the files in DropBox.  Most of the recent work was done on my home computer, which went into the Apple hospital yesterday due to graphics issues, and I am getting the error messages today on my office computer.  Could this explain the problem?
> 
> I don’t even know where to start to work through this silly problem which is delaying my sending the book to the publisher.
> 
> 
> 
> Zbigniew Nitecki
> Department of Mathematics
> Tufts University
> Medford, MA 02155
> 
> telephones:
> my office     (617) 627-3843
> dept. off.    (617) 627-3234
> dept. fax    (617) 627-3966
> 
> http://sites.tufts.edu/znitecki/

Howdy,

Unless we have something to actually work with it is very hard to say what is happening. Did that `format macros' package (did it really have a space in its name---very bad practice) only have soem parameters and load packages based on those options? Nothing else?

Finally, did you clean out all the auxiliary files before recompiling after the failure?

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)