[OS X TeX] Parts of equations dragged from TeXShop

[David Watson]

On May 12, 2009, at 6:11 PM, david craig wrote:

>
>> To repeat my question, trying to help you to understand your  
>> problem: are you trying to copy a picture or are you trying to copy  
>> a maths particle in a kind of text representation?
>
> This is not a problem I've seen before, and naturally pops up while  
> I'm on the road preparing a conference presentation.
>
> I am creating equations for a presentation and/or figures.  Mac OS  
> 10.5.6, TeXShop 2.26, LaTeXiT 1.16.1.  In TeXShop you can select an  
> equation (or whatever) from the preview and drag it to the desktop  
> or to your presentation, creating a small pdf.  In LaTeXiT you run  
> your code and drag the resulting equation to the desktop or your  
> presentation or whatever.
>
> I HAVE installed the font-cache-bug fix.   (Several times, now...)
>
> After not too terribly long a time, now, whether TeXShop or LaTeXiT,  
> characters in the output (not just stuff I drag out of either) start  
> disappearing (or sometimes replaced by exclamation points).  Tends  
> to get worse the longer I wait before rebooting.  Both in TeXShop's  
> preview and/or LaTeXiT -- once it starts in one I start seeing it in  
> the other.
>

I seem to remember something about previously typeset documents  
causing the issue to reappear until they were typeset anew.
Thus, it could be possible that in your preparation of your new  
material, that you opened a pdf (for reference, perhaps) that was  
malformed, and re-corrupted your font-cache.

While the font-cache-bug fix might help prevent new documents from  
causing a problem, all of your old documents---or perhaps new  
documents from colleagues---could lead to issues unless Apple updates  
the underlying code that checks to check for pdf-sanity.

At least that's what I took from it.

> TeX is becoming unusable, which is catastrophic for me!
>
> I am at a loss what is triggering the problem, and why I am seeing  
> it now (with a vengeance) but have never seen it before.  Not much  
> has changed that I can think of.
>
> Deleting the font caches/rebooting helps temporarily, but it comes  
> back. SOMETHING related to font display in pdf's is corrupted,  
> perhaps some cache that google hasn't told me about that isn't re- 
> generated on reboot, or something I am doing is corrupting them anew.
>
> I'm becoming a bit desperate.   I welcome suggestions!   (Re- 
> installing TeXLive is not an option until I return home.   Besides,  
> I doubt that would resolve a corrupted cache problem, if that's what  
> it is.)
>
> David Craig