[Tex/LaTex] Reducing the console output of LaTeX

compilingdebugging

When I run pdfLaTeX, I get very verbose output:

(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/generic/pgf/frontendlayer/tikz/librarie
s/tikzlibrarycalc.code.tex)
...

Is there a script to soak up all the verbose output and allow the important stuff to pass through, like errors, overfull hboxes, and so on?

Also, is there a reason why it sends a hard return to the console for lines longer than 79 characters?

Best Answer

The line feed after 79 characters is defined in Web2C's configuration file, called texmf.cnf. The variable name is max_print_line which you can change in the file (not recommended in general, but in that case the setting is really harmless); and if you run TeX from a shell you can also set this variable in the environment (export max_print_line=1048576 for Korn-like shells, set max_print_line 1048576 for C shells).

I am not aware of a way to forbid line breaks entirely; I only set the variable to a very large value when this behaviour annoys me.

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You can modify the texmf.cnf variables error_line and max_print_line, adding to the "local" texmf.cnf file, whose location depends on the distribution you're using; for TeX Live it is

/usr/local/texlive/2021/texmf.cnf

and the lines to be added are

max_print_line=1000
error_line=254
half_error_line=238

The first number is actually arbitrary, but 1000 seems to be sufficient. The error_line variable must be less than 255 and the maximum value of half_error_line is less than error_line-15

For experimenting you can also set the variables in the environment; assuming a Bash shell,

export max_print_line=1000
export error_line=254
export half_error_line=238

You can find the location of the various texmf.cnf files, in the order they're looked at, by running

kpsewhich -a texmf.cnf

from the command line. On my system I get

/usr/local/texlive/2021/texmf.cnf
/usr/local/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf

The “year part” in the path can and will vary according to the currently installed version of TeX Live.

Best Answer

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