LaTeX error message

[Haines Brown]

It seems that for an early stage of a document I had LaTeX working, but
I must have done something so that it no longer works.

My preamble starts:

\documentclass[12pt,titlepage]{article} %
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} %
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} %
\usepackage{achicago}
\bibliographystyle{achicago}
...

It seems an initial LaTeX command on the document with .bbl and other
auxilliary files removed works. I'm simply told there are unresolved
citations. An .aux, .log, and .out file are created.

I then run bibtex. I'm told BibTeX finished successfully. But then
I need to run LaTeX again. Now I get an error:

ERROR: Argument of \UTFviii@three@octets has an extra }.
l.3 ...cite{Allori and Zanghì}{2009}]{Allori2009}

The problem is I don't see any surplus }. In thebibliography, the
stanza with the offending line is:

\bibitem[\UnexpandableProtect\SCcite{Allori and Zanghì}{2009}]{Allori2009}
Allori, Valia, and Nino Zanghì.
\newblock 2009.
\newblock \Wrapquotes{On the Classical Limit of Quantum Mechanics}.
\newblock \textitswitch{Foundations of Physics} 39 (1): 20--32 (January).

In the BibTeX database from which this item was drawn, the BibTex
starts:

@ARTICLE{Allori2009,
author = {Valia Allori and Nino Zanghì},
journal = {Foundations of Physics},
title = {On the Classical Limit of Quantum Mechanics},
volume = {39},
year = {2009},
pages = {20-32},
number = {1},
month = {January},
...

This may not really be a problem with an extra } for when I comment the
offending line in the source, it then comes up with accented character
errors that make no sense either:

ERROR: Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:áre not set up for use
with LaTeX.

l.25 in Physics}, edited by Mauricio Suáre

[Herbert Schulz]

On 2014-04-14 19:04:22 +0000, Haines Brown said:

>
> ERROR: Argument of \UTFviii@three@octets has an extra }.
> l.3 ...cite{Allori and Zanghì}{2009}]{Allori2009}

Howdy,

I rhink you need to give a more complete but minimal example file that
produces the error.

On the other hand I see a ] after the {2009} above and wonder if that
should be there.
--
Good Luck,
Herb Schulz

[Christoph]

I assume that you mixed different file encodings. Your document seems to
be utf8, but your bib file is not (which in general is a good idea
because bibtex does not completely support utf8). You could try one of
the following:

- convert your bib file to utf8 (may work or not)
- convert your tex file to ansi and change \inputenc
- switch encoding locally:
\inputencoding{cp1252}
\bibliography{bibfile}
\inputencoding{utf8}
- use biblatex & biber instead of bibtex

Regards
Christoph

[Joost Kremers]

Christoph wrote:
> I assume that you mixed different file encodings. Your document seems to
> be utf8, but your bib file is not (which in general is a good idea
> because bibtex does not completely support utf8). You could try one of
> the following:
>
> - convert your bib file to utf8 (may work or not)

You should *never* use anything but pure 7-bit ASCII with BibTeX. Any
other encoding will lead to problems, though not necessarily problems
that will cause BibTeX to produce an error. It may be that your
bibliography is sorted incorrectly, or contains weird characters.

> - use biblatex & biber instead of bibtex

That, IMHO, is the only right way to go.

> Am 14.04.2014 21:04, schrieb Haines Brown:
>> l.25 in Physics}, edited by Mauricio Suáre

Change Suáre in your .bib file to Su{\'a}re, and do the same for any
other accented (non-ASCII) characters in your .bib file. Or switch to
BibLaTeX, as Christoph suggested.

--
Joost Kremers joostk...@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

[Haines Brown]

Yes, I suspected an encoding problem.

I was in the habit of using xelatex, but publishers couldn't cope with
it. So I reverted to latex. But in process neglected to preserve
biber/biblatex.

I put the necessary information into the preable, and things now run properly.

Thanks

Haines

[Robin Fairbairns]

Joost Kremers <joost.m...@gmail.com> writes:

> Christoph wrote:
>> I assume that you mixed different file encodings. Your document seems to
>> be utf8, but your bib file is not (which in general is a good idea
>> because bibtex does not completely support utf8). You could try one of
>> the following:
>>
>> - convert your bib file to utf8 (may work or not)
>
> You should *never* use anything but pure 7-bit ASCII with BibTeX. Any
> other encoding will lead to problems, though not necessarily problems
> that will cause BibTeX to produce an error. It may be that your
> bibliography is sorted incorrectly, or contains weird characters.
>
>> - use biblatex & biber instead of bibtex
>
> That, IMHO, is the only right way to go.

sure, but don't change horses in the middle a project!

>> Am 14.04.2014 21:04, schrieb Haines Brown:
>>> l.25 in Physics}, edited by Mauricio Suáre
>
> Change Suáre in your .bib file to Su{\'a}re, and do the same for any
> other accented (non-ASCII) characters in your .bib file. Or switch to
> BibLaTeX, as Christoph suggested.

note that all this accented stuff will still work in biblatex, but (imo)
the _real_ answer is to switch to xetex or luatex as well, so everything
is utf-8 from the start. however, that change comes with even stronger
urges to do the work "out of line".
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge

[Haines Brown]

Robin Fairbairns <rf...@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes:

> note that all this accented stuff will still work in biblatex, but (imo)
> the _real_ answer is to switch to xetex or luatex as well, so everything
> is utf-8 from the start. however, that change comes with even stronger
> urges to do the work "out of line".

My difficulty arose because of a retreat from xelatex (which I have used
for some time and very much like) to latex-bilatex.

The reason for the retreat is that publishers's software doesn't know
anything about xelatex or luatex. I am using latex-biblatex, but it
will require pasting the content of the .bbl file in place of
/printbibliography before shipping a document off unless the publisher
can handle the .bbl file.

I don't know how much of the .bbl file gets pasted. The concents of the
\refsection{0}, the \sortlist{entry}{nyt}, or just the sequence of
\entry{...)?

Haines

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Sun, 20 Apr 2014 06:43:56 -0400 schrieb Haines Brown:


>
> The reason for the retreat is that publishers's software doesn't know
> anything about xelatex or luatex. I am using latex-biblatex, but it
> will require pasting the content of the .bbl file in place of
> /printbibliography before shipping a document off unless the publisher
> can handle the .bbl file.
>
> I don't know how much of the .bbl file gets pasted. The concents of the
> \refsection{0}, the \sortlist{entry}{nyt}, or just the sequence of
> \entry{...)?

You can't replace \printbibliography by the bbl. But you can use a
bbl like this:
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/166518/biblatex-include-bbl-problem-with-verb-field

--
Ulrike Fischer
http://www.troubleshooting-tex.de/

[Haines Brown]

Ulrike, thank you for pointing to some very interesting discussion,
including its referenced prior discussion. I had misunderstood
discussions elsewhere and thought there was some way to past
biber-generated .bbl content in lieu of \printbibliography. Clearly that
cannot be done.

As best I could make out, the only generic answer is simply to use
bibtex rather than biblatex-biber. The referenced discussion was whether
there was any way to use biber's .bbl file with publishers who don't
support biblatex. A suggestion was to have \printbibliography acquire
its content not from biber's .bbl file, but from bbl contents inserted
in the document's preface. However there was no way found to do this
that would satisfy all publishers and also produce valid bibliography
output. If my understanding is correct, biblatex is useless unless you
know otherwise.

Haines

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Wed, 23 Apr 2014 07:47:26 -0400 schrieb Haines Brown:

> Ulrike Fischer <ne...@nililand.de> writes:
>
>> Am Sun, 20 Apr 2014 06:43:56 -0400 schrieb Haines Brown:
>
>>> I don't know how much of the .bbl file gets pasted. The concents of the
>>> \refsection{0}, the \sortlist{entry}{nyt}, or just the sequence of
>>> \entry{...)?
>>
>> You can't replace \printbibliography by the bbl. But you can use a bbl
>> like this:
>> http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/166518/biblatex-include-bbl-problem-with-verb-field
>
> Ulrike, thank you for pointing to some very interesting discussion,
> including its referenced prior discussion. I had misunderstood
> discussions elsewhere and thought there was some way to past
> biber-generated .bbl content in lieu of \printbibliography. Clearly that
> cannot be done.
>
> As best I could make out, the only generic answer is simply to use
> bibtex rather than biblatex-biber. The referenced discussion was whether
> there was any way to use biber's .bbl file with publishers who don't
> support biblatex. A suggestion was to have \printbibliography acquire
> its content not from biber's .bbl file, but from bbl contents inserted
> in the document's preface.

That was only because the publisher didn't accept an external bbl.
So one had to hide it in the document. The standard biber .bbl would
have worked too.

> However there was no way found to do this that would satisfy all
> publishers and also produce valid bibliography output. If my
> understanding is correct, biblatex is useless unless you know
> otherwise.

Well it depends on the requirements of the publishers and how they
process the files you sent them. The method described in the
discussion works well if they don't try to call bibtex themselves
but accept your bbl.

Also you always could try to push the publisher(s) towards biblatex:
the more requests they get the better ;-).