PDFLatex error

Jack

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Dec 29, 2019, 8:51:44 AM12/29/19

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I have just installed TexnicCenter on my Laptop (Win 10) and cannot get
it to build the PDF output file. On a minimal example, a pdflatex error
appears saying

The application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt
platform plugin "windows" in "".

The log file is blank.

Can anyone help?

Vladimir

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Dec 29, 2019, 8:39:44 PM12/29/19

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Hello,

Judging on the information you provided I think the error has nothing to do with latex (pdflatex is one of _engine_ for LaTeX format). I suspect that the problem with your system. Seems that TeXnicCenter uses Qt so the installer installs necessary Qt libraries but the TeXnicCenter cannot load some libraries. I faced with similar problem with Qt applications when I use several programs compiled vs Qt from different projects (neovim, conda qt console) and I had manually set some environment variables. On the other hand, my colleague uses TeXstudio instead of TeXnicCenter and it seems it works fine (I'm on linux and use Emacs+AUCTeX+CDLaTeX so I don't have any experience with both programs). You may give the TeXstudio a try. If for some reason you don't want to use another tex frontend program you have to either figure out what is wrong with your system or provide more information about your system, especially the environment variables.

---
WBR, Vladimir Lomov

Peter Flynn

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Dec 30, 2019, 6:32:06 AM12/30/19

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Did you also install TeX/LaTeX or was it already installed?

If so, what distribution did you use (eg TeX Live, MiKTeX, etc)?

Peter

Bob Tennent

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Dec 30, 2019, 8:09:58 AM12/30/19

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Looks to me like TeXnicCenter is missing something. Try
re-installing. Be sure that you've got the right version and
that the download finishes before installing. You should
be able to apply pdflatex to your "minimal example" in a
command-line window to verify that it's working.

Bob T.

Jack

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Dec 30, 2019, 8:12:32 AM12/30/19

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Used Miktex.
With thanks.

Peter Flynn

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Dec 30, 2019, 4:33:04 PM12/30/19

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On 30/12/2019 13:12, Jack wrote:
> On 30/12/2019 11:32, Peter Flynn wrote:

[...]

>> Did you also install TeX/LaTeX or was it already installed?
>>
>> If so, what distribution did you use (eg TeX Live, MiKTeX, etc)?
>

> Used Miktex.

Di you install it where it wanted to be installed, or did you install it
in some other place on disk?

You should be able to go to the configuration settings in TeXnicCenter
and tell it where MiKTeX is installed. Unless there is a feature to
"Find my LaTeX", you may have to tell MiKTeX where each of the LaTeX
programs needed is located. For each one you need to tell it the full
path to the binary executable, eg for LaTeX itself that might be
C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.something\bin\latex.exe

If you don't know where MiKTeX is installed you will need to find that
out first.

P

Jack

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Dec 31, 2019, 3:49:57 PM12/31/19

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Oh blimey. This is looking way beyond me. I pointed TexnicCenter towards
what looked like the appropriate folder, in the Miktex tree, called
"bin", which is where I have always put it in the past.

Jack

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Dec 31, 2019, 3:59:20 PM12/31/19

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On 30/12/2019 21:32, Peter Flynn wrote:

I see I have got this as the "Path for the (La)Tex compiler"
C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\pdflatex.exe

Peter Flynn

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Dec 31, 2019, 5:06:34 PM12/31/19

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On 31/12/2019 20:59, Jack wrote:
[...]

> I see I have got this as the "Path for the (La)Tex compiler"
> C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\pdflatex.exe

OK, so that bit is fine. It's the Qt libraries which seem to be the
trouble, as Vladimir said. I think the answer lies in the MiKTeX support
groups, though, rather than here.

Peter