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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label enlarge</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Enlarging TeX</h3>
<p/>The TeX error message &lsquo;capacity exceeded&rsquo; covers a multitude of
problems.  What has been exhausted is listed in brackets after the
error message itself, as in:
<blockquote>
<pre>
! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry
...              [main memory size=263001].
</pre>
</blockquote><p>
Most of the time this error can be fixed
<em>without</em> enlarging TeX. The most common causes are unmatched braces,
extra-long lines, and poorly-written macros. Extra-long lines are
often introduced when files are transferred incorrectly between
operating systems, and line-endings are not preserved properly (the
tell-tale sign of an extra-long line error is the complaint
that the &lsquo;<code>buf_size</code>&rsquo; has overflowed).
<p/>If you really need to extend your TeX&rsquo;s capacity, the proper method
depends on your installation.  There is no need (with modern TeX
implementations) to change the defaults in Knuth&rsquo;s WEB source;
but if you do need to do so, use a change file to modify the values set in
module 11, recompile your TeX and regenerate all format files.
<p/>Modern implementations allow the sizes of the various bits of TeX&rsquo;s
memory to be changed semi-dynamically.  Some (such as emTeX) allow
the memory parameters to be changed in command-line switches when
TeX is started; most frequently, a configuration file is read which
specifies the size of the memory.  On <i>web2c</i>-based systems,
this file is called <i>texmf.cnf</i>: see the documentation that comes
with the distribution for other implementations.  Almost invariably,
after such a change, the format files need to be regenerated after
changing the memory parameters.
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=enlarge">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=enlarge</a>
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