Issue with Export Draft PDF

Question

I am trying to produce nice looking PDFs of the translated books. I have custom.sty in our project folder. Changes I make to this are reflected in Paratext, but they are not reflected in the PDF produced with the Export to Draft PDF. Changes made to the file PrintDraft-mods.tex are reflected in the resulting PDF.
What am I missing?
Using Paratext 9.0.103.41

Answer 1

KapalaDikili, I’d second the recommendation for PTXprint. It’s a great tool and I’ve switched to using it exclusively instead of Export to Draft.

However, I’ll also try to answer your question. [Replace XXX with your project code]

The .sty files and .tex files are in different systems–ie have different purposes–but everything ought to be working correctly. The style files work in this heirarchy:

• usfm.sty
• XXX\custom.sty
• XXX\PrintDrafts\PrintDraft-mods.sty

Each style sheet overrides the settings of the one above it. I wonder if there are settings in your PrintDraft-mods.sty file which are overriding settings in your custom.sty sheet.

Similarly, changes made to the PrintDraft-mods.tex sheet will override things made in the Draft-XXX-MAT.tex file. You’ll only see that 2nd file if you hold Ctrl down while hitting OK in the Export to Draft dialogue. Holding Ctrl down creates a lot of temporary files (and doesn’t delete them, which is the normal process) and those files can help you track down problems.

Answer 2

KapalaDikili, I strongly recommend you investigate and use the new little app called PTXprint. Go to software.sil.org/ptxprint to download this excellent little app. You’ll find it a great tool, I am sure.

Answer 3

Thank you for the suggestion of PTXprint. I am aware of it, but have not seriously tested it yet. It looks like a very powerful and useful app and I will look forward to using it. However, I also do like “Export Draft PDF” because it is available right inside Paratext and is quick and easy to use. Perfect for a quick job.

Just out of interest I did another test. I deleted the custom.sty file on my project folder and modified the main usfm.sty file on the top level C:\My Paratext 8 Projects folder. When I then created the draft PDF, the modification was reflected there. Of course, modifying usfm.sty is not a good thing to do as future updates may overwrite it. I also checked the PrintDraft-mods.sty file and it doesn’t seem to override my modification. To me it still looks like that the “Export Draft PDF” process ignores custom.sty.

Answer 4

@KapalaDikili, What settings are you trying to change in your custom.sty file that are not showing up in the PDF?

Answer 5

First line indent. I work on Arabic Based Script (ABS) project. Because line spacing is bigger than in Roman script it needs to be balanced with a bigger first line indent.