FAQ

FAQ and common issues

• Known incompatible extensions
• The Problem Pane displays wrong messages
• I cannot use ctrl+alt in a shortcut
• Disable automatic build on save
• My file is built when I paste
• Format on save does not work
• My file gets messed up
• Large bibtex files are ignored
• Path containing Chinese characters
• The LaTeX sidebar keeps reopening
• Spell check
• I cannot nest snippets

Known incompatible Extensions

The following extensions are known to cause issues when active at the same time as LaTeX-Workshop, namely a significant delay when using the Enter key in large files.

• Spell Right
• Brackets Pair Colorizer 2
• Prettify Symbols Mode

Cygwin is not supported

LaTeX Workshop does not support TeX Live installed through Cygwin. Please install TeX Live and other TeX distributions independently of Cygwin.

The Problem Pane displays wrong messages

LaTeX compilers usually produce hard wrapped log messages, which makes them really hard to parse. To hopefully deal with complex log messages, we have decided to rely on non hard wrapped log messages. This can be achieved either

• by setting the environment variable max_print_line. This is automatically done within the extension and works for the TeXLive distribution.
• by adding the --max-print-line option to the compilers. This is automatically done within the extension and works for the MiKTeX distribution. Unfortunately, some compilers such as lualatex or xelatex do not understand this option and may therefore fail. To disable the automatic addition of this option, set latex-workshop.latex.option.maxPrintLine.enabled to false.

Note that when log messages are hard wrapped, the Problems Pane is likely to be messed up.

I cannot use ctrl+alt in a shortcut

The default shortcuts for commands related to build and view use the modifiers ctrl+alt. On some keyboard layouts, ctrl+alt is used to emulate AltrGr, which makes these shortcuts unusable. Alternatively, you can use ctrl+l, alt+letter instead of ctrl+alt+letter by setting latex-workshop.bind.altKeymap.enabled to true (you need reload/reopen vscode for the change to be taken into account).

Disable automatic build on save

Set the configuration variable latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.onSave.enabled to false.

My file is built when I paste

Set editor.formatOnPaste to false.

The formatting program latexindent changes the file on disk when formatting and not only the buffer content. VSCode interprets it as a file save and triggers a build if latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.onSave.enabled to true

Format on save does not work

This is a known issue but we cannot do much from the extension side.

The formatting utility latexindent reads its input from the file on the disk and not from the content of the editor. So when using Format on Save, first you format the file on the disk and then you save the content of the buffer. This is obviously done in the wrong order, but we cannot do much from the extension side to fix this. Note that if you save twice, the editor content is indeed formatted. When using RightClick->Format Document, we first save the buffer before calling the formatting program.

My file gets messed up

This is most likely related to the two following variables being set together latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.onTexChange.enabled: true and editor.formatOnSave: true.

Formatting a .tex file actually changes it on the disk and then if latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.onTexChange.enabled is true it saves the file and triggers a build. You will get two formatting processes running together and using the same temporary file. Hence, the mess you see in your file.

Large bibtex files are ignored

Bibtex files listed in a project are parsed for citation completion. This may induce significant slow down with large bibtex files. You can configure the maximum size of bibtex files parsed by the extension with latex-workshop.intellisense.citation.maxfilesizeMB".

Path containing Chinese characters

On some platforms, when the path of a TeX file contains Chinese characters or other non-ASCII characters, the compilation does not work well. In such cases, please use %DOCFILE% instead of %DOC% in your recipes. See also LaTeX recipes.

On some platforms, synctex does not work well with the path containing non-ASCII characters either. In such cases, please use a built-in synctex functionality. See Viewing & Synctex.

The LaTeX sidebar keeps reopening

If you like to work with no sidebar in Visual Studio Code and yet the LaTeX sidebar keeps showing up each time you switch focus from a non TeX file to a TeX file, you need to set latex-workshop.view.autoActivateLatex.enabled to false.

Spell check

Code Spellchecker did a great job. Users may also find other extensions better alternatives, e.g., LanguageTool credited for its multi-lingual support.

I cannot nest snippets

Nesting snippets requires to have intellisense automatically triggered inside snippets. This can be achieved by setting editor.suggest.snippetsPreventQuickSuggestions to false.