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I want to generate a quiz for my students to be imported within the moodle platform . The quiz includes some figure.

I tried the moodle package from texlive 2018 but I get the following error when using the tikzpicture environment :

ERROR:
Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'pdflatex -shell-escape -halt-on-error -interaction=batchmode -jobname "geometry-tikztemp-1" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob{geometry}\input{geometry}"' did NOT result in a usable output file 'geometry-tikztemp-1' (expected one of .pdf:.jpg:.jpeg:.png:).

Please verify that you have enabled system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-escape'. Sometimes it is also named 'write 18' or something like that.

Or maybe the command simply failed? Error messages can be found in 'geometry-tikztemp-1.log'. 

If you continue now, I'll try to typeset the picture.

Here is an example:

 \documentclass{article}
 \usepackage{tikz}
 \usepackage[draft]{moodle}
 \begin{document}
  \begin{quiz}{geometry}
    \begin{multi}{circle}
      is the shape in the figure a circle?

      \begin{tikzpicture}
       \draw (0,0)circle[radius=1cm];
      \end{tikzpicture}

      \item yes
      \item* no
    \end{multi}

  \end{quiz}
\end{document}
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2

Not an answer but a workaround if you are in a rush. To be honest, I have hardly ever seen as strong "side-effects" as I see here with moodle. Even trying to do the \savebox after loading this package fails. Hope you find an expert who can fix this.

\documentclass{article}
 \usepackage{tikz}
 \usepackage[draft]{moodle}
 \newsavebox\picbox
\begin{lrbox}{\picbox}%
\begin{tikzpicture}
       \draw (0,0) circle(1cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{lrbox}
 \begin{document}
  \begin{quiz}{geometry}
    \begin{multi}{circle}
      is the shape in the figure a circle?

\usebox\picbox

      \item yes
      \item* no
    \end{multi}

  \end{quiz}
\end{document}

enter image description here

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  • 1
    fwiw the error in the original is that \pgfexternal@originalshipout is said to be undefined (at end of expansion of \pgf@externalend. And I see in moodle.sty near end of file that it does rather heavy patching of Tikz, with a \renewenvironment{tikzpicture} at begin document. Thus the issue might need reporting to moodle.sty author. – user4686 Nov 14 '18 at 11:44
  • @jfbu Thanks! Yes, that makes sense, and seems to explain the "side-effects". (If I was the OP, I would consider switching to another package.) – user121799 Nov 14 '18 at 11:48
  • @marmot, is someone aware of another package that helps creating quiz in moodle ? – Hafid Boukhoulda Nov 14 '18 at 21:59
  • @HafidBoukhoulda Someone: probably yes, but unfortunately not me. But you could ask a question, I would also be interested in the result, and asking questions is free. – user121799 Nov 14 '18 at 22:02
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    @HafidBoukhoulda Between us: this seems to be a bit a dangerous package. Why is it necessary for a package whose purpose is to typeset quizzes to (a) force you to externalize tikzpictures and, what is IMHO even worse, (b) to do \renewenvironment{tikzpicture} ? To me this does not make sense, but of course I cannot rule out that there might be reasons for it. Nor did I verify the findings of jfbu but I fully trust this user, who has a very good reputation (which is not reflected by the score). – user121799 Nov 14 '18 at 22:22
2

As moodle manual says, it invokes \usetikzlibrary{external}, therefore calling --shell-escape option in compilation process is a must and then you will get the following picture.

enter image description here

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  • 1
    to compile I have tried the following pdflatex --shell-escape geometry.tex and pdflatex -shell-escape geometry.tex but without any success (the same error) – Hafid Boukhoulda Nov 13 '18 at 20:22
  • I've never gotten externalize to work, either. Try using \tikzexternaldisable. – John Kormylo Nov 13 '18 at 21:08
  • @JohnKormylo I did (very often) get externalize to work and of course the first thing I tried is to compile with -shell-escape. IMHO moodle introduces complications beyond that, which is why I only offered a workaround. I am actually wondering if this answer works for you or anyone else, at least for the OP and me it does not seem to work. – user121799 Nov 13 '18 at 21:36
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    @HafidBoukhoulda I've tried both of pdflatex and xelatex engine with --shell-escape, getting the same results. pdflatex and xelatex versions of my TeX distro. are: pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.19 (TeX Live 2018) XeTeX 3.14159265-2.6-0.99999 (TeX Live 2018) I also updated the picture because I'd erased one line in your file and it produced an award result. – javadr Nov 14 '18 at 1:41
  • If @javadr has got a result can we conclude that the issue is not with the moodle package? and what should we investigate further to eliminate the error? Me too I use pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.19 (TeX Live 2018) ! – Hafid Boukhoulda Nov 14 '18 at 6:46

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