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This isn't a real question, so I'm marking it community wiki.

When I was new to LaTeX, I thought that the \usepackage command worked much like the #include command of the C language: just put whatever you need in the preamble, in whatever order you like.

But then bugs began to bite me and I realised, with growing horror, that commutative packages seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

They appear so often that I think it would be useful to have a list here of problematic interactions between pairs of packages, and their correct order.

Also, a question for amusement:

I want to know if there exists three packages A, B and C, such that A has to be included before B and B needs to be included before C, but C needs to be included before A.

Community
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Mateus Araújo
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    Is that last sentence a question if three such packages exist? – TH. Sep 15 '10 at 03:59
  • Hmm. Better reword it. – Mateus Araújo Sep 15 '10 at 04:11
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    Note that C isn't immune to non-commutative inclusions: #include just literally pastes in the relevant source code file at that point before compilation. C header file writers tend to be better at not messing with each other, and C more tolerant for changing definitions. – Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson Sep 15 '10 at 04:51
  • The same way that LaTeX's problems are caused by the packages, not by the command. Actually, once while C programming I managed to make such a tangle of headers that included each other that the compiler gave up and refused to resolve it. – Mateus Araújo Sep 15 '10 at 05:01
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    \usepackage does work like the #include directive, and if you could overwrite existing definitions in C, you'd run into the same issues that LaTeX has. – Philipp Sep 15 '10 at 09:42
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    At least in theory, you could have just two packages that don't "play nice": If both package foo and package bar both redefine two commands, \jedi and \sith, and you want foo's \jedi but bar's \sith, then no order of package loading will get you both... – Seamus Sep 15 '10 at 10:51
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    Yes. SIunits and amssymb fit your description exactly; they both want the \square command (although you have ways to solve the conflict). But that's not what I asked. – Mateus Araújo Sep 15 '10 at 13:36
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    As much as I like using math terminology for non-math situations, this question seemed to be a bit hard to find for non-math people. I changed the title to something more directly descriptive. – Caramdir Oct 24 '10 at 23:24
  • To be honest, I would be glad if a new feature of CTAN would emerge, an underlying graph whose edges connect each two conflicting packages with a short description with details. Then, automatic discovery of currently perilous package orders could be automatically detected by lacheck, latex or other programs. The main idea is to let the package authors register after which packages their package is incompatible. Currently, this knowledge is hidden in its completeness in many, many documentation PDF files for the packages. – user7427029 Jul 11 '23 at 09:29

4 Answers4

38

Freek Dijkstra has put together a nice wiki of Latex package conflicts. Hyperref is the one he singles out for criticism: it has the nasty property that sometimes it conflicts when it is put earlier, sometimes when it is put later than other widely used packages, encouraging cargo-cult document headers.

He's had less trouble with inputenc conflicts that others, judging from complaints that I've seen, mostly, I guess, because he uses Xetex.

Charles Stewart
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    Of course you have less trouble with inputenc in XeLaTeX, simply because you never load inputenc. – Philipp Sep 15 '10 at 09:43
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    Regarding hyperref: it's not the hyperref package that is to be criticized, but rather the LaTeX2e kernel, which seems to combine every possible software development antipattern in a single package. – Philipp Sep 15 '10 at 09:44
  • @Philipp - You might load inputenc if you run xelatex on a document written by someone else who is using Pdftex. – Charles Stewart Nov 24 '15 at 14:25
3

The big list is available at https://github.com/mhelvens/latex-pkgloader/blob/master/pkgloader-recommended.sty with explanations.

Example:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%
%  A list of recommended rules derived from
%  <http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/glossaries/glossaries-user.pdf>,
%  <http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/glossaries/glossariesbegin.pdf>:
%
%    \begin{macrocode}
\Load {hyperref} before  {glossaries}
                 if loaded
                 because {otherwise terms won't be
                          clickable hyperlinks}
\Load {glossaries} after {babel,polyglossia,inputenc,
                          fontenc,doc}
                 if loaded
                 because {the glossaries documentation
                          explicitly says to do so}
%    \end{macrocode}
%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Since this is an open source project, pull requests updating the knowledgebase are very welcome!

koppor
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2
mathtools

needs to go before

mathabx
j0equ1nn
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0

titlesec has to be loaded before beamerarticle as described here

JeT
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