[tex-live] Questions regarding glossaries on TeX-Live on Windows

[Zdenek Wagner]

2011/1/14 Jonathan C. Day <jcday at healthplancrm.com>:
> This seems to be a particularly evil bugbear, so I fully understand those hiding under the desks. Especially after the mention of Windows.
>
> Here's the basic set of includes I'm using for the document I'm writing:
>
> \documentclass[letterpaper,oneside]{memoir}
>
> \usepackage{algorithm}
> \usepackage{algorithmic}
> \usepackage{amsgen}
> \usepackage{biokey}
> \usepackage{cite}
> \usepackage{colortbl}
> \usepackage{float}
> \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
> \usepackage{fullpage}
> \usepackage{graphicx}
> \usepackage[xindy,toc,acronym]{glossaries}
> \usepackage{ifthen}
> \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
> \usepackage{listings}
> \usepackage{longtable}
> \usepackage{multirow}
> \usepackage{scalefnt}
> \usepackage{textcomp}
> \usepackage{times}
> \usepackage{url}
> \usepackage{xy}
>
> So far, so good. I'm also using booktabs, but that's emulated by memoir (along with a few other packages), so use the built-in versions.
>
> The moment I try to define glossary entries in the preamble, I get the dreaded message that \begin{document} is needed.
>
How do you define them? This error message means that you try to
output some paragraph before \begin{document}. This error message is
within \everypar and is removed during \begin{document}

> Ok, there's a reference to such a bug in glossaries and it mentions that it's usually caused by an out-of-date package. Some greps later, it looks like I'm using the latest version and that no warning of package versioning is in the log. tlmgr shows I'm running the latest of everything. (I check once or twice a day, depending on free time.)
>
> Neither Google nor Tex-Live's FAQ nor quick attempts to hack round the bug did any good.
>
> My first question is:
>
> Are there workaround packages (either supplied via tlmgr or by simply FTPing them) that will fix the problem?
>
The "workaround" is not to enter horizontal mode in the preamble, this
is strictly prohibited by LaTeX.

> Since there doesn't seem to be a major outcry over glossary-related bugs, it seems likely that there's an (undocumented) package clash - are there packages (or document classes) that just won't work with glossaires, no matter what?
>
Package clashes are never documented. You use really a huge amount of
them. I have typeset maybe 100 books and rarely needed more than 5
packages.

Anyway, TeX Live people just distribute the packages. If you suspect a
bug in a package, you have to contact the author of the package and
supply the error message and possibly the minimal document
demonstrating the bug.


-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz