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-<head>
-<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label minxampl</title>
-</head><body>
-<h3>How to make a &#8220;minimum example&#8221;</h3>
-<p/><a href="FAQ-askquestion.html">Our advice on asking questions</a>
-suggests that you prepare a &#8220;minimum example&#8221; (also commonly known
-as a &#8220;<em>minimal</em> example&#8221;) of failing behaviour,
-as a sample to post with your question. If you have a problem in a
-two hundred page document, it may be unclear how to proceed from this
-problem to a succinct demonstration of your problem.
-<p/>There are two valid approaches to this task: building up, and hacking
-down.
-<p/>
-<b><em>Building up</em></b> starts
-with a basic document structure
-(for LaTeX, this would have <code>\</code><code>documentclass</code>,
-<code>\</code><code>begin{document}</code>, <code>\</code><code>end{document}</code>) and adds
-things. First to add is a paragraph or so around the actual point
-where the problem occurs. (It may prove difficult to find the actual
-line that&#8217;s provoking the problem. If the original problem is an
-error, reviewing
-<a href="FAQ-errstruct.html">&#8220;the structure of TeX errors&#8221;</a>
-may help.)
-<p/>Note that there are things that can go wrong in one part of the
-document as a result of something in another part: the commonest is
-problems in the table of contents (from something in a section title,
-or whatever), or the list of &lt;<i>something</i>&gt; (from something in a
-<code>\</code><code>caption</code>). In such a case, include the section title or caption
-(the caption probably needs the <code>figure</code> or
-<code>table</code> environment around it, but it <em>doesn&#8217;t</em> need
-the figure or table itself).
-<p/>If this file you&#8217;ve built up shows the problem already, then you&#8217;re done.
-Otherwise, try adding packages; the optimum is a file with only one
-package in it, but you may find that the guilty package won&#8217;t even load
-properly unless another package has been loaded. (Another common case
-is that package <i>A</i> only fails when package <i>B</i> has been
-loaded.)
-<p/>
-<b><em>Hacking down</em></b> starts
-with your entire document, and
-removes bits until the file no longer fails (and then of course
-restores the last thing removed). Don&#8217;t forget to hack out any
-unnecessary packages, but mostly, the difficulty is choosing what to
-hack out of the body of the document; this is the mirror of the
-problem above, in the &#8220;building up&#8221; route.
-<p/>If you&#8217;ve added a package (or more than one), add <code>\</code><code>listfiles</code> to
-the preamble too: that way, LaTeX will produce a list of the
-packages you&#8217;ve used and their version numbers. This information may
-be useful evidence for people trying to help you.
-<p/>What if your document simply doesn&#8217;t fail in any of these cut-down
-scenarios? Whatever you do, don&#8217;t post the whole of the document: if
-you can, it may be useful to make a copy available on the web
-somewhere: people will probably understand if it&#8217;s impossible &#8230;
-or inadvisable, in the case of something confidential.
-<p/>If the whole document is necessary, it could be that it&#8217;s an overflow
-of some sort; the best you can do is to post the code &#8220;around&#8221; the
-error, and (of course) the full text of the error.
-<p/>It may seem that all this work is rather excessive for preparing a
-simple post. There are two responses to that, both based on the
-relative inefficiency of asking a question on the internet.
-<p/>First, preparing a minimum document very often leads <em>you</em> to the
-answer, without all the fuss of posting and looking for responses.
-<p/>Second, your prime aim is to get an answer as quickly as possible; a
-well-prepared example stands a good chance of attracting an answer
-&#8220;in a single pass&#8221;: if the person replying to your post finds she
-needs more information, you have to find that request, post again, and
-wait for your benefactor to produce a second response.
-<p/>All things considered, a good example file can save you a day, for
-perhaps half an hour&#8217;s effort invested.
-<p/>The above advice, differently phrased, may also be read on the web at
-<a href="http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html">http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html</a>; source of that
-article may be found at <a href="http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/">http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/</a>, in
-both German and English.
-<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=minxampl">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=minxampl</a>
-</body>