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Takashi Tamura edited this page Jun 18, 2021 · 147 revisions

FAQ and common issues

Known incompatible Extensions

The following extensions are known to cause issues when active at the same time as LaTeX-Workshop

Using LaTeX Workshop with WSL

Starting with 1.35.0, VS Code supports WSL through Remote - WSL. LaTeX Workshop works well with the extension.

Also, in WSL2 file watchers might not work. For now, you have to set latex-workshop.latex.watch.usePolling to true, and restart VS Code. See https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4739 for more information about the issue. Alternatively, you can set latex-workshop.saveWithoutBuilding: onSave to only trigger a build upon saving a file as it does not require file watchers to work.

Problems with Snap and Flatpak versions of VS Code

These versions are sandboxed and are known to cause problems (e.g. here). We strongly recommend not using the snap and flatpack versions of VS Code. We strongly recommend using other installation options, like the .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu based distributions.

The PDF viewer is blank or has graphical glitches

If the PDF viewer is blank or has graphical glitches, please try restarting VS Code with the option --disable-gpu. See the official document, realted issue, and another issue.

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.

code-server is not supported

LaTeX Workshop does not support code-server.

Gitpod is not supported

LaTeX Workshop does not support Gitpod.

Eclipse Theia is not supported

LaTeX Workshop does not support Eclipse Theia.

Onivim 2 is not supported

LaTeX Workshop does not support Onivim 2.

Visual Studio Codespaces with self-hosted environments is not supported

Visual Studio Codespaces with self-hosted environments is not supported.

Visual Studio Codespaces has an issue with the internal PDF viewer

Visual Studio Codespaces does not work well with the internal PDF viewer. See the issue.

VSCodium is not officially supported

VSCodium is not officially supported. We do not help to resolve issues related to VSCodium.

Visual Studio Live Share is not supported

Visual Studio Live Share is not supported.

The directory ~/node_modules/ may cause errors

The directory ~/node_modules/ in the home directory may cause errors on Mac and Linux. The modules in the directory might be unintentionally loaded by VSCode because of the default behavior of node.js, which would cause errors such as Extension host terminated unexpectedly. We recommend moving the directory ~/node_modules/ to ~/npm/node_modules/.

I cannot build from a subfile

If you cannot build a multi file LaTeX project from a subfile, it means that the root file is not detected properly. See the Multi file projects section for details on how the root file is discovered. Note that you must open the directory (or one of its antecedents) containing all the project files in vscode for this mechanism to work.

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 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.

Encoding issues with file names in the Problem Pane

If you experience encoding issues with file names displayed in the Problem Pane, you can try to set latex-workshop.message.convertFilenameEncoding to false.

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.

Auto build does not work sometimes

Plese try setting latex-workshop.latex.watch.usePolling to true or setting latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run to onSave.

You must reload VSCode to take into account a change in this configuration.

Suggestions for BibTeX files are not updated

Plese try setting latex-workshop.latex.watch.usePolling to true.

You must reload VSCode to take into account a change in this configuration.

The internal PDF viewer is not updated

Plese try setting latex-workshop.latex.watch.usePolling to true.

You must reload VSCode to take into account a change in this configuration.

Disable automatic build on save

Set the configuration variable latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run to "never".

I use build on save but I occasionally want to save without building

When latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run is set to onSave, building is triggered every time a file is saved inside VSCode. If you want to save a file without building it, you can use the Save without Building command from the Command Palette. A keybinding can be associated to the internal command latex-workshop.saveWithoutBuilding to access this feature more easily.

Auto build LaTeX results in always twice or infinite loop

There is a possibility that LaTeX Workshop detects changes on files by build scripts during the build process and starts a new build process. That results in unintended multiple build processes. See #2237 and #2487. In that case, please change the setting latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run to "onSave".

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 or ~ 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. Note that using relative paths instead of absolute ones may lead to other issues, see the following issues for a discussion on this: 1070 and 1137.

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.autoFocus.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.

Some @ snippets are not TAB completed

This is mostly related to the editor.quickSuggestions setting. The following value works well

"editor.quickSuggestions": {
        "other": true,
        "comments": false,
        "strings": false
      }

It is known that setting "other": false will prevent some @ snippets from being TAB expanded.

How to pass -shell-escape to latexmk

Some packages such as minted requires LaTeX compilers to use the -shell-escape flag. Passing this flag can be achieved in several different ways.

  1. Modify the section of latex-workshop.latex.tools related to latexmk in the following way

    "name": "latexmk",
"command": "latexmk",
"args": [
    "-shell-escape",
    "-synctex=1",
    "-interaction=nonstopmode",
    "-file-line-error",
    "-pdf",
    "-outdir=%OUTDIR%",
    "%DOC%"
]

  2. Directly specify -shell-escape in the compiler flag of latexmk. Modify the section of latex-workshop.latex.tools related to latexmk in the following way

    "name": "latexmk",
"command": "latexmk",
"args": [
    "-synctex=1",
    "-interaction=nonstopmode",
    "-file-line-error",
    "-pdf",
    "-pdflatex=pdflatex -shell-escape %O %S",
    "-outdir=%OUTDIR%",
    "%DOC%"
]

  3. Create a .latexmkrc config file (in your home directory or in the working directory) containing at least

    $pdflatex='pdflatex -shell-escape';

LaTeX-Workshop shadows vscode's default keybindings

LaTeX-Workshop uses Ctrl+L as the first key of many keybindings

Since vscode 1.32.0, Ctrl+L has been set to expandLineSelection. We define a new keybinding for expandLineSelection: Ctrl+L, Ctrl+L.

LaTeX-Workshop uses Ctrl+M for fonts keybindings

vscode sets Ctrl+M to editor.action.toggleTabFocusMode. We define a new keybinding for editor.action.toggleTabFocusMode: Ctrl+L, Ctrl+M.

Syntax Highlighting does not work for most elements

Please change VS Code theme you are using. For example, Visual Studio Dark and Visual Studio Light do not work with LaTeX Workshop.

Install an older version of LaTeX Workshop

You can install older versions of LaTeX Workshop by right-clicking it in the extension panel of VS Code and selecting Install Another Version.

Donwgrade VS Code to an older version

You can downgrade VS Code to an older version with binaries in each release note.

Customizing a Color Theme

To customize a color theme, you can refer to the official documentation. The following is an example to make fonts black in math environment. Writing it in your settings.json, you can enable that. To find an appropriate scope for each element in a TeX document, you can use the scope inspector of VS Code. Please refer to this document.

    "editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
        "textMateRules": [
            {
                "scope": [
                    "support.class.math.block.environment.latex",
                ],
                "settings": {
                    "foreground": "#000000"
                }
            }
        ]
    }

Move the structure view and others to other places

You can move the structure view and others with dragging and dropping. See the release note. You can also hide the views in your right-click context menu. See the document.

Overriding snippets

You can override some snippets provided by the extension by using the latex-workshop.intellisense.commandsJSON.replace configuration variable. Since VS Code v1.52, you can hide snippets. See the release note.

Where can I find the definitions of the placeholders

Compile#placeholders

Autocompletion for \includegraphics seems incomplete

Autocompletion for includegraphics takes into account the paths listed by the \graphicspath command if any. In such a case, we only list the files located under these directories. See also the configuration variables referenced here

Environment variables in .bashrc don't take effect with VS Code Remote

Use .bash_profile or .profile instead of .bashrc. See superuser and the reference manual.

After editing these files, you have to kill vscode-server on the remote host and restart it. Select Remote-SSH: Kill VS Code Server on Host... from the Command Palette (F1).

Environment variables in .zshrc don't take effect with VS Code Remote

Use .zshenv or .zprofile instead of .zshrc. See stackexchange.

After editing these files, you have to kill vscode-server on the remote host and restart it. Select Remote-SSH: Kill VS Code Server on Host... from the Command Palette (F1).

You cannot use a tilde ~ in PATH

You can not use a tilde ~ in the environment variable PATH as an abbreviation of your home directory.

terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux doesn't take effect

The setting terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux is not related to the environment variable on the extension host. You cannot set PATH for LaTeX Workshop through the setting.

What kinds of LaTeX commands does Hover Preview support?

We implement Hover Preview with MathJax. Please see the following for LaTeX commands supported by MathJax:

Notice that MathJax does not support LaTeX packages.

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