# Sudden “Overfull \hbox” warning messages [closed]

(Apologies if this is a duplicate; I didn't see my question among the many overfull \hbox questions already asked.)

My TeX file had been typsetting without any problems for a few days, when suddenly it started to complain of an overfull \hbox at a line that I had not modified since the previous compile. (The output still looks fine to me, for the record.)

The line that causes the problems is

More precisely, let $\P^N$ denote the space of all quadrics in a projective space $\P^n$ (so $N= {n+2 \choose 2}-1$.)

and the warning message is

ERROR: ** Overfull \hbox (1.12373pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 164--164

--- TeX said ---

(amsmath) on input line 53.

--- HELP ---

Because it couldn't find a good place for a line break, TeX put more on this line than it should.

Can anyone diagnose this problem?

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## closed as unclear what you're asking by Joseph Wright♦Aug 7 '13 at 11:27

Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

Welcome to TeX.sx! The "Overfull \hbox message is not an error, but only a warning; the error is due to \choose; with amsmath there's the better \binom{n+2}{2} instead of {n+2\choose 2}. –  egreg Feb 14 '13 at 21:06
Thanks for your help! (I plumped for "error" rather than "warning" because the message I got said "error".) I understand that \choose is sub-optimal, but what I'm really curious about is why such a warning should suddenly appear when LaTeX was compiling the line perfectly happily before. (And, for full disclosure, I felt too lazy to change all the \choose commands to \binom commands.) –  Artie Feb 14 '13 at 21:13
Those messages are probably from your front-end to LaTeX, the style is different. Overfull lines depend on many factors; it's possible that you have modified the paragraph. –  egreg Feb 14 '13 at 21:55
Changing fonts can make lines longer/shorter too. Or a change in style moves the margins. –  vonbrand Feb 15 '13 at 2:19
We can't track down an overfull box based on one fragment: as egreg says, they depend on many things. We'll need a full example to give more help. –  Joseph Wright Aug 7 '13 at 11:27