[Tex/LaTex] TeXShop and Mac preview crashing when opening latex/beamer built pdfs

mactexshop

After updating to Sierra 10.12.4 last week, TeXShop crashes:

when opening an existing .tex document that has a pdf associated to it
immediately after compiling a new document, i.e. as soon as a pdf is created.

Furthermore, preview crashes opening almost any pdf that has been created with TeXShop. There is virtually nothing on the internet about it, and the only solution seems to be a complete reinstall of MacOSX (so as to reinstall the supposedly broken preview), which I'd like to avoid if at all possible.

Someone else has described a similar issue, but has not received any responses (Texshop not compiling after Mac update to sierra 10.12.4).

I would be very grateful for some help, as I can neither produce work, nor look at any at the moment. Many thanks!

Best Answer

To solve, remove the PDF file from the source folder. Then open the source in TeXShop. Check the header. Did you \usepackage{pstricks}? Comment out this line and typeset again. (Or, leave the line and typeset with TeX + DVI.)

If this is your problem, then Apple knows about the bug. If this is NOT your problem, please write me (author of TeXShop) with details, including source and illustrations.

If you hold down the option key in TeXShop when opening a file, only the source will open. Use this trick to fix a project with this bug. Open the file with the option key, comment out the pstricks line and typeset again with pdflatex, or just typeset with TeX + DVI. Then the PDF will not be defective and TeXShop can open it the usual way.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Use TeXShop Preview window when different output-dir is set

Let me explain a little more the solution suggested in my above comments. In TeXShop, you can choose which "engine" to call when pressing the Typeset button. An "Engine“ is basically a shell script which calls standard TeX commands, and sometimes much more (see the TeXShop help panel or this post for instance). In your case, modifying the pdfTeX command in the TeXShop Preferences changes the standard LaTeX engine. As a result of your modification, TeXShop cannot open the PDF preview automatically after typesetting. One way to restore this behaviour is to write a new engine.

To do so, you can simply create a shell script containing the following code

#!/bin/bash
pdflatex --output-dir=/tmp "$1"
open -a TeXShop /tmp/$(echo $1 | sed 's/\(.*\)\..*/\1\.pdf/')

Make sure the execution bit is active (chmod +x), change the extension to .engine and move the script to the ~/Library/TeXShop/Engines folder. Launch TeXShop and select your new engine in the popup menu next to the Typeset button, then press Typeset.

There may be a more elegant solution, but this works.