[OS X TeX] Pesky TeXShop warnings

[Don Green Dragon]

Hi All,

Working on a LaTeX {book} document which is about 120 pages in length at this point. Everything is working beautifully, but ....

After each TYPESET the console window reveals somewhere of the order of 131 complaints or warnings or whatever they should be called. Not sure about the number 131, but I see these [1], [2], [3], ... , [130], [131] creatures scattered throughout the console window.

I decided to check out some of these complaints, so put the [draft] option in the \documentclass line and looked for those vertical bars that apparently correspond to 'Overfull' line --- or is it overfull paragraphs? There were hardly any! And some seem unreasonable (to me).

For example, following a \chapter{...} command there sits

\rule{\textwidth}{4pt}
\rule{\textwidth}{2pt}

and TeXShop places a vertical bar to the right of the second rule and complains (not including the ---------- guys):

----------
Overfull \hbox (30.0pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 17--19
[] |
----------

Huh!? The actual source code is:

16  \chapter[Theorems and Proofs]{\centering Theorems and Proofs}
17  \rule{\textwidth}{4pt}
18  \rule{\textwidth}{2pt}
19  \par

Double Huh!? 

Most of the complaints are "Overfull \hbox ..." or "Underfull \hbox ..." and I've pretty much given up on the 'Underfull' complaints because when looking at the source code, I can see no reasons for the claim. I try to pay more attention to the 'Overfull' guys. Here is one that is beyond my ken:

The complaint --- maybe 'advice' is a better term  ;-) --- is (not including the ---------- guys)

----------
Overfull \hbox (1.03319pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 1282--1283
[]\T1/lmr/m/n/10.95 To com-plete the ta-ble above, three more re-duc-tions are 
nec-es-sary. Next, we might note |
----------

and sure enough the line is marked with a fat vertical bar. Yet on viewing the line in the PDF window, the text

----------
To com-plete the ta-ble above, three more re-duc-tions are nec-es-sary. Next, we might note
----------

obviously fits within the left and right margins! The source lines in question are

1281  \par
1282  To complete the table above, three more reductions are necessary. Next, we might note 
1283  \par

After this exercise, I've concluded that I should knot my knickers less tightly and be happy that TYPESET produces a PDF file that looks as I desire. However, perhaps more experienced users have more subtle advice.  :-)


Don Green Dragon
fergdc at Shaw.ca