SyncTeX Errors

There are sometimes problems with using SyncTeX to jump from the preview to the source window when certain packages are in use.

In these cases, if you try to double-click the preview or use the arrow buttons that sit on the divider bar between the source pane and the preview pane, an error message will be displayed:

Couldn't find the corresponding source file.

This is known to happen in documents using the TikZ shadows or fadings library. The todonotes package in TL2020 also loads the fadings library, so may also cause SyncTeX to fail. This is also the case if the [most] option of the package tcolorbox is used.

Note also that the main .tex document of an Overleaf project should be in the top-level of the project (i.e. not in a folder) for SyncTeX to work.

When using \input and \include, do not use a preceding ./ to your file paths. That is to say: \include{./chapters/intro} would cause SyncTeX to fail; but it would work fine with \include{chapters/intro}. Each .tex file name should not contain characters like ()[], other symbols, nor space characters.

If you see this error in a project which doesn't fall into one of the above scenarios , you can send us a support request and we can investigate further.