General ⇒ Input File not found in working Directory

[wjahnva]

Hi,
I have used LaTeX for over 10 years now, and thought I knew how it works...big mistake!

Here's my problem:
I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 (or installed it from scratch to be exact), and installed texlive-full (as I always had done before).

Now when I try to compile a document (from the directory where my input file is), I get the following error:

Code: Select all

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
entering extended mode
! I can't find file `presentation.tex'.

(presentation.tex is my input file). When I put the complete path it works, but I get a different error:

Code: Select all

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
entering extended mode
(/home/my_name/Desktop/presentationJune2012/presentation.tex
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1 \documentclass
                  [dvipsnames,table,t,hyperref]{beamer}

I have now re-installed texlive-full but I get the same error.

The whole thing makes absolutely no sense to me....why does it not find a file which is in the same directory? I tried with other documents, and get the same error.

Any ideas what could be wrong? I suspect it is my OS rather than the LaTeX distribution, but no idea how to fix it...

Thanks!

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi wjahnva,

welcome to the board!

It seems that you compile with pdfTeX, but not with pdfLaTeX. (pdf)TeX doesn't know \documentclass because it's a (pdf)LaTeX command. Either use pdflatex on the console, i.e. in a terminal window, or change your editor settings to typeset with pdfLaTeX.

Stefan

[wjahnva]

Hi Stefan,
thanks for your reply, pdflatex actually works...

but it doesn't fix my initial problem, it still doesn't find the input file in the working directory. This is annoying, since I compile it from within emacs, and I don't want to open a new shell to compile it with complete path every time. And even if there's a work around (I guess I could tell emacs to put the whole path), I'd like to know where this problem suddenly comes from....had never had that before.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Perhaps post your .log file here, as attachment.
Ensure that emacs actually works in the document directory, and is not calling the document from another directory.

Stefan

[wjahnva]

Hi Stefan,
I found the problem (although I still don't understand the cause). Maybe you can explain it to me:

In my .bashrc file I set and exported TEXINPUTS (it was set as .texmf/tex/latex, and it was where I had my own sty files and shortcut declarations). I commented it out, and now it works.

What I don't understand is that it used to work fine....is it a problem with the updated texlive package? Is there a way of defining TEXINPUTS that won't break my LaTeX distribution?

Anyway, thanks for your time

Cheers,
Wolfram

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Wolfram,

if you define TEXINPUTS, you should also include the current directory, which is used by default if TEXINPUTS isn't set. For example:

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export TEXINPUTS=".:~/.texmf/tex/latex/";

The dot . is a shortcut for the current directory. The : separates the paths.

Stefan

[wjahnva]

yeah, I fixed that now and it all works fine. Actually now I am wondering how it used to work before....the current setting (where I include the "." in TEXINPUTS) makes much more sense.

Anyway.........(sigh)