[OS X TeX] Unwanted blank page

[Alain Schremmer]

Ross Moore wrote:

> Hi Alain,
>
> On 25/04/2006, at 6:31 AM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>
>> I am back with this issue even though the "include/don't include  
>> exercises" was solved to my entire satisfaction.
>>
>> Here is the new issue—and I didn't see how to apply the previous to  
>> the latter.
>>
>> I have a lot of very small, preamble-less files, 1, 2, 3 etc, in  
>> each of which are the variants of a given question of an exam.
>>
>> Once all done, they are used by a file with preamble using the  
>> package probsoln—very nice—but, to keep things straight as I write  
>> these files, I use a file with a preamble and
>>
>> Question 1: About Blah 1
>> \include{1}
>> Question 2: About Blah 2
>> \include{2}
>> Question 3: About Blah 3
>> \include{3}
>>
>> etc
>>
>> This works well except that each "Question n: About Blah n" sits  all 
>> by itself on the page with the corresponding file "n" on the  next 
>> page whereas I would like it to be just after "Question 1:  About 
>> Blah n".
>
>
> LaTeX's  \include  is *not* the way to do this.
> Instead I'd recommend the  {comment}  package,
> where you can define your own named environments and specify
> programatically whether they should be included or excluded.
>
> Using a different master file, the same \input  source
> (containing your data) can be used for different views
> of the overall project.
>
>
>  \include  is for including chapters of a large(ish) book or report,
> or somesuch.
> As well as starting a new page, it keeps separate .aux files for each
> chapter. These contain sufficient information about the \label
> commands (i.e., cross-reference anchors) and other meta-data
> (e.g.  figure/table numbers, start/end page) for the chapter,
> so that the \ref commands, etc. in other chapters can refer
> to them correctly.
>
> This allows you to do detailed work on the contents of just a few
> chapters at a time, (using  \includeonly) and still have the correct
> page numbering, and resolved cross-references, etc.
>
> Now you can see why the new page is necessary:  without it,
> the pagination coould change considerably in those sections
> that you are not working on.
>
> But there is another defect too.
> The .aux files are written at the end of each \include'd segment.
> This information can only be accurate if all the information
> from that segment has been shipped-out (i.e. the relevant page
> must have been built in its entirety, since otherwise the exact
> page-number is not known yet.
>
> It is *not* sufficient for the LaTeX source to have been processed
> in terms of macro-expansions, and building tables, math-displays, etc.
>
> Think also of floating environments. These must have been located
> (within the chapter) and fully shipped-out.
>
> Without *both* of the \clearpage commands, there will be trouble
> with such things.

(1) I am crushed: one normally has to pay a consultant for such a 
detailed explanation. I now will never even dream of modifying \include.
(2) I will download the {comment}package and study the doc.
(3) I should perhaps explain just a bit more what this was all about. I 
am writing a book and I am indeed using, in fact, \askinclude to work on 
one chapter at a time. The previous question—a couple of months ago—was 
about a way to include/not include the exercises in the book to please 
the (future) users. As I said, the solution given on this list works 
beautifully as it replaces the exercises by its url.
But, by the Hestenes theorem, I also have to make exams to go along with 
the book. And, as I explained above, this is where I wanted the 
unadvisable "modified \include" to check the data base and only there. 
This was a bit frivolous since, once the exam data base is finished, I 
will get rid of the ExamEdit master file and use only the Exam master file.

I am much obliged for being able to put to rest what I now understand to 
have been a bad idea.

Best regards
--schremmer



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