[texhax] Blank first page problem (how to remove?)

[Uwe Lueck]

Johnny <yggdrasil at gmx.co.uk> wrote 05.06.2011 18:06:57:
> Acutally, running the test script in from editing a new buffer, I was
> unable to reproduce the problem myself, but going to the original file I
> "stripped down" to the minimalist format originally posted, the problem
> reappeared. I believe the cause is that I edited the file in Winows
> notepad at work at some point and this inserted invisible illegal
> character in the file! Saving the file in emacs and 'C-x RET f' and set
> encoding to nil solves the problem. Still not sure about what Windows
> really did to corrupt the file though?

Actually I had prepared the question what happens with latex and
a dvi viewer in lieu of pdflatex and a pdf viewer.

Johnny <yggdrasil at gmx.co.uk> wrote 02.06.2011 21:03:18:
> When running pdflatex on a simple test .tex file, I get a blank page
> before the first page, why is this and how can I get rid of it?
> [...] During the month in
> between, I also went from Fedora 13 to 15, so it may be some change in
> the texlive package used. There must be some reason behind this, but I
> have been unable to change this behaviour. Further, running the above
> produces a 'LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}' message, which seems
> counterintuitive as the statement is clearly in the file?

Maybe notepad inserted an invisible *printable* character in the preamble?

Cheers,

    Uwe.