I installed TeX using MiKTeX and installed TeXstudio using the basic installer, but whenever I compile a TeX file (.tex) using pdflatex in TeXstudio I receive this error:
TeXworks (which came bundled with MiKTeX) is able to compile using pdflatex without a problem.
I tried the command line to see what was going on and this is what I got:
C:\Users\Brenton\Documents\LaTeX>pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode "Amide condensation reaction".tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.5-1.40.14 (MiKTeX 2.9 64-bit)
(Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)
I have also tried to configure the program, changing pdflatex.exe in the command for pdftex to the full location of pdflatex on my system. These are my settings.
but still I receive this message:
Process started: "C:/Program Files/MiKTeX/miktex/bin/x64/pdflatex.exe" -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode "Amide condensation reaction".tex
Process exited with error(s)
Best Answer
The error message "Fatal format file error; I'm stymied" means that TeX binary is trying to load
latex.fmt
(orpdflatex.fmt
) but the version of this TeX binary differs from another TeX binary which created suchlatex.fmt
. There could be two reasons: you have installed two TeX binaries (in different versions) or you have somewhere in your computer the oldlatex.fmt
from previous TeX installation.The
pdflatex.exe
must be implemented as one what runs TeX binary (most probablypdftex.exe
) and sets the message to this binary: "hey, loadpdflatex.fmt
". And this loading is broken as described above. I don't know how exactly it is implemented in MikTeX, sorry. I never used MS Windows.New TeX distributions has more TeX binaries: "tex", "pdftex", "luatex" and "xetex". If one of them creates
file.fmt
and another of them reads suchfile.fmt
then the error message mentioned above occurs too. This is reason why TeX distributions save the generatedfile.fmt
to directories specific for used TeX binary and they have implemented a searching system over such directory trees.