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I installed the widetext package and was happily using it until I decided to edit the style file widetext.sty. Happily, LaTeX immediately picked up the changes and compiled correctly. I then decided to undo those changes to widetext.sty, and I did so, but now latex doesn't seem to pick up this fact (ie it still thinks the changes are present). If I rename widetext.sty to something else, LaTeX properly fails to compile and says it can't find widetext.sty. However, if I intentionally put garbage text in widetext.sty to cause the latex compile to fail, LaTeX doesn't seem to notice and happily compiles the last "working copy" of widetext.sty it seems to have stashed in some form of cache somewhere.

I tried to delete all output files in the working directory. No luck. widetext.sty is located in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\widetext. Thoughts?

Caramdir
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BoB
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  • @BoB: Welcome to tex.sx! Note that it is unusual around here to have any greeting. – lockstep Mar 10 '11 at 19:27
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    @BoB: I would not change a .sty file. Instead, I recommend to use \renewcommand (or \def etc.) to make changes within your document or your own style file. If you edit styles or classes, 1. your document is not portable, it would look different when compiled on other systems, 2. other files would look different or won't work when compiled at your sytems with modified styles. – Stefan Kottwitz Mar 10 '11 at 19:33
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    Most likely you have a second copy of the file somewhere which is used instead. Just try to search for other files called widetext.sty – Martin Scharrer Mar 10 '11 at 19:40
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    Take a look in your log file for the filename widetext.sty and see which version it thinks it is using (I mean, where on your system it is located). – Andrew Stacey Mar 10 '11 at 20:06
  • thanks for the comments everyone.

    @Stefan -- I agree, this was just a quick fix I wanted to try. @Martin/Andrew -- strangely the log file points to the correct copy of the style file...

     – BoB Mar 10 '11 at 23:12
  • @BoB: What do you means with "correct copy" in this case? Normally for "quick fixes" copy the file into the directory of your document. There is will be picked up before the normal one and you can simply delete it if you don't want it anymore. Please note that in comments only the first user mentioned with '@' is noitifed. – Martin Scharrer Mar 10 '11 at 23:28
  • @Martin: correct copy means the copy in my Program Files folder which I expected it to be using. Thanks for the headsup about the '@'. – BoB Mar 11 '11 at 15:50
  • @Stefan Kottwitz: Tried doing this with \renewcommand instead, but the code I'm copy/pasting from the style file into the tex file using the internal command @parindent, which is wreaking havoc on the compile. I cannot seem to find documentation on @parindent online. Thoughts on how to circumvent this? – BoB Mar 11 '11 at 15:53
  • @BoB: Use \mateatletter and \makeatother. Btw., in general, for new problems it would be better use a new question instead of a comment, it's better to see and to discuss for all. If it's a follow-up, a link to the original question would be fine then. – Stefan Kottwitz Mar 11 '11 at 16:12

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Ok I figured it out I think... Unless I'm mistaken, it seems the problem had nothing to do at all with latex. It seems somehow Windows 7's file explorer might have been at fault. Namely, whatever changes I made to the style file and saved, when I opened the file again, the changes were apparently still there. However, when I copied the folder containing those files OUT of the administrator folder Program Files to my desktop, and then opened the files in the folder now on the desktop, the changes had magically been reverted... I don't quite know if this is a known issue with Windows 7 or if I'm misplacing blame here or even if I'm misinterpreting a "feature" of Windows 7.

Conclusion: Now things are working and to fix it, I had to move the folder containing the style file out of Program Files/Miktex to Desktop, make my changes, then move back to Program Files/Miktex.

Thanks anyway everyone!

BoB
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