Below are some common problems and possible solutions.
Macro not found
Unresolved reference
Output crashes the RTF reader
Erratic list indentation
Missing figure or section reference
Linear RTF looks odd
Paragraphs preceding lists are formatted weirdly.
Unresolved references in Word for Windows
The Windows 95 help file contents hierarchy looks wrong
You can get round this by defining a macro file (default name tex2rtf.ini) containing command definitions, such as:
\crazy [2]{{\bf #2} is crazy but #1 is not} \something [0]{} \julian [0]{Julian Smart}New commands may be defined in LaTeX files, but custom macro files will have to be defined when local style files are being used. See Initialisation file syntax for further details.
The 'Macro not found' error can also be caused by a syntax error such as an unbalanced brace or passing the wrong number of arguments to a command, so look in the vicinity of the reported error for the real cause.
Here is one obscure situation that causes this error:
\begin{center} {\large{\underline{A}}} \end{center}The problem is too many curly brackets. This should be rewritten as:
\begin{center} {\large \underline{A}} \end{center}Often you get a 'Macro not found' error for \end{document}. This is a spurious side-effect of an earlier error, usually an incorrect number of arguments to a command. The location of the true error is then anywhere in the document. To home in on the error, try putting a verbatim environment \begin{comment}...\end{comment} around much of the document, and then move the \begin{comment} line down until the error manifests itself.
This could be due to confusing table syntax. Set compatibility to TRUE in .ini file; also check for end of row characters backslash characters on their own on a line, and insert correct number of ampersands for the number of columns. E.g.
hello & world\\ \\becomes
hello & world\\ &\\
Try increasing the value of the variable listItemIndent (default 40 points) to give more space between label and following text. A global replacement of \item [ with \item[ may also be helpful to remove unnecessary space before the item label.
Ensure all labels directly follow captions or sections (no intervening white space).
For viewing by programs other than MS Word, you should set the variable useWord to false. This will turn off some of the special RTF keywords recognised by Word (and possibly other advanced RTF readers).
If a list has spurious spacing in it, e.g. before a \item command, the preceding paragraph can take on some of the list's indentation. This may be a WinHelp bug, or an aspect of RTF I don't fully understand. The solution is to remove unnecessary space.
To get around this, Tex2RTF inserts a book in some places, if there was a book preceding it on the same level. This results in more navigation than necessary, but is better than a wrong contents page.