[OS X TeX] Preview setting

[Robert Bruner]

Colleagues,

Feel free to ignore this, since it may be a purely Mac issue, not TeX at all, but it interferes with my use of TeX because it interferes with reading the pdf files TeX produces for me.

Say I produce a tex file whose origins are obscured by using 

cat E368.tex > testit.tex

so that no hidden data about the file E368.tex can be tacked onto my test file.   Then I see

~/papers/rrb/[38]: cat E368.tex >testit.tex
~/papers/rrb/[39]: ls -lt testit*
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff   17227 Aug 24 15:51 testit.tex

After TeXing it using TeXShop,

~/papers/rrb/[40]: open testit.tex
~/papers/rrb/[41]: ls -lt testit.*
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff   30353 Aug 24 15:51 testit.log
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff   68033 Aug 24 15:51 testit.synctex.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff  169380 Aug 24 15:51 testit.pdf
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff    1517 Aug 24 15:51 testit.aux
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rrb  staff   17227 Aug 24 15:51 testit.tex

it has an xattr, but testit.pdf does not.   But then, invoking Preview on the pdf file gives it one too:


~/papers/rrb/[42]: open testit.pdf
~/papers/rrb/[43]: ls -lt testit*
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff   30353 Aug 24 15:51 testit.log
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff   68033 Aug 24 15:51 testit.synctex.gz
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rrb  staff  169380 Aug 24 15:51 testit.pdf
-rw-r--r--  1 rrb  staff    1517 Aug 24 15:51 testit.aux
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rrb  staff   17227 Aug 24 15:51 testit.tex

Now, these xattrs aren't harmful;   they may even help by opening the file to the same spot I was looking at last time (just a guess), or some such.
They're not like the awful xattr's tacked onto pdf files I download from friends' emails, which cause Preview to tell me I am not allowed to open them, even though their permissions are 644 (-rw-r--r--) because of some quarantine which presumably comes from either MS Outlook or Firefox.   Those I deal with by "xattr -c *".

Still, any insight is welcomed.  I am running Catalina, 10.15.7 (yes, I plan to update as soon as I get done with the paper I am working on).  

Regards,
Bob Bruner
Wayne State Dept of Math

PS:   Yes, I still drive a stick shift, but since my next car will be electric, that too will end.