     LaCheck(1)                    11LACHECKREV11                     LaCheck(1)
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     NAME
          lacheck - A consistency checker for LaTeX documents.

     SYNOPSIS
          lacheck filename [ .tex ]

     DESCRIPTION
          LaCheck is a general purpose consistency checker for LaTeX documents.
          It reads a LaTeX document and displays warning messages, if it finds
          bad sequences. It should be noted, that the badness is very
          subjective.  LaCheck is designed to help find common mistakes in LaTeX
          documents, especially those made by beginners.  The things checked
          are: Mismatched groups (braces), environments and math mode
          delimiters.  When a mismatch is found, line numbers for both start and
          end of the mismatch is given. The error messages comes in pairs, one
          for the end match and one for the beginning, marked with `<-' and `->'
          respectively.  Bad spacing including missing a `\ ' after an
          abbreviation, missing an `\@' before a punctuation mark in a paragraph
          that is ended by an capital letter, double spaces like ` ~', bad usage
          of ellipsis (like using ... instead of \ldots, or using \ldots where
          \cdots should be used), missing ~ before a \cite or \ref commands,
          space before footnotes, italic corrections before comma, point, or
          italic text, italic correction after normal text, missing italic
          correction when switching from italic to normal text, and double
          italic correction.  Badly placed punctuation marks around end of math
          mode delimiters. This is, punctuation placed right after display math
          end or punctuation placed right before text math end.  Sequences of
          whitespace followed by punctuation marks are also caught.  Bad use of
          quotation characters, i.e. constructs like "'word" or "word`" are
          warned about, tabs in verbatim environments are caught, certain TeX
          primitives are frowned upon, attempts to give font specifiers
          arguments such as \em{text} are noted, and use of @ in LaTeX macros
          are reported.  LaCheck will read files that are input using \input or
          \include.  Files with suffix `.sty' are omitted, as they probably will
          cause LaCheck to crash.  LaCheck may be invoked from within Emacs(1)
          using compile:

          To run: M-x compile RET lacheck RET , and then C-x ` to parse the
          messages

     OUTPUT
          The output is UNIX-error like, and may be parsed using Emacs(1)
          compile mode. Here is a sample:

          lacheck compiler
          "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 34: missing `\ ' after "etc."
          "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 179: double space at " ~"
          "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 186: <- unmatched "}"
          "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 181: -> unmatched "$$"
               A control space `\ ' should be inserted at line 34, to prevent an

                                        - 1 -        Formatted:  October 6, 2000

     LaCheck(1)                    22LACHECKREV22                     LaCheck(1)
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               end-of-sentence space. Also, at line 179, the first space of the
               sequence " ~" should probably be deleted.  The last two lines is
               an example, where the user mistyped, and probably inserted an
               extra "}" somewhere.

     DIAGNOSTICS
          Some special cases should be explained. In cases where a sentence ends
          with something that LaCheck thinks is an abbreviation an missing `\ '
          error may also occur, if the following sentence begins with a
          lowercase letter.  A mismatch error may cause more to follow, due to
          the chosen algorithm. In such cases just correct the first error and
          run LaCheck again Braces, environments and math mode must be balanced
          within a file.  LaCheck may be confused by unmatched stuff placed
          inside verbatim-like environments called something else than exactly
          `verbatim'.

     FILES
          %%LACHECKPATH%%

     SEE ALSO
          tex(1), emacs(1), latex(1)

     BUGS
          LaCheck gets confused by advanced macros, is fooled by simple macros,
          can't figure out if you use a non-standard way to switch italic on or
          off, does not like TeX at all, does not provide any options to turn
          off specific warnings, and is at best a crude approximation.  Ideas
          for improvements and bug reports are very welcome.  Such should be
          directed to the maintainers, their email address is <auc-
          tex_mgr@iesd.auc.dk>.

     AUTHOR
          Kresten Krab Thorup with modifications by Per Abrahamsen.

                                        - 2 -        Formatted:  October 6, 2000