LaTeX help: troubleshooting and limits in Scissor LaTeX

Look at the Problems tab first, then find your symptom on the troubleshooting page. If nothing typesets at all, one command is usually the cause; the pages below say which and what to write instead.

Where to start

Scissor LaTeX typesets a document even when parts of it are wrong: an unknown command is skipped and named in the Problems tab, and a formula it cannot read is shown in red and named there too. So most problems leave a visible trace. Troubleshooting by symptom starts from what you see. When the preview stays empty, read When the whole document does not typeset. For a full list of what behaves differently from a TeX installation, see Differences from a TeX installation.

The common errors page explains the LaTeX mistakes everyone makes, and the package reference says, package by package, what works.

Pages in this section

• Troubleshooting by symptomStart from what you see: no pages at all means an EPS image stops the whole document, red source means one formula could not be read, and missing text, ?? or [key?] point to an unknown command, a label or a citation; the sections below give the fix for each.
• Differences from a TeX installationScissor LaTeX does not run TeX: it converts your LaTeX into another typesetting language in the browser and typesets that, so documents appear instantly and never stop at a single error, but layout comes from the class, packages are look-alikes rather than real code, and some commands are ignored.
• When the whole document does not typesetVery little stops a whole document: a formula that cannot be read is shown in red and named in the Problems tab, and \partial, \langle, \oplus, \hbar and Vmatrix typeset as in LaTeX; the one known cause left is an EPS image, which you convert to PDF, PNG or SVG.