Visual Studio Code LaTeX Workshop Extension

LaTeX Workshop is an extension for Visual Studio Code, aiming to provide all-in-one features and utilities for LaTeX typesetting with Visual Studio Code.

Features

• Build LaTeX (including BibTeX) to PDF automatically on save.
• View PDF on-the-fly (in VS Code or browser).
• Direct and reverse SyncTeX. Click to jump between location in .tex source and PDF and vice versa.
• Intellisense, including completions for bibliography keys (\cite{}) and labels (\ref{}).
• Syntax highlighting (colorized code) for .tex / .bib files and more.
• LaTeX log parser, with errors and warnings in LaTeX build automatically reported in VS Code.
• Real-time linting of LaTeX with ChkTeX to pick up common LaTeX issues as you type.
  • Code Actions (automatic fixes) are offered for many issues found by ChkTeX.

Requirements

• LaTeX distribution in system PATH. For example, TeX Live.
  • Please note MikTeX does not ship with SyncTeX. See this link for a possible solution.
• Optional: Set your LaTeX toolchain (LaTeX Workshop should just work out of the box for users with latexmk installed).

Installation

Installing LaTeX Workshop is simple. You can find it in Visual Studio Code Marketplace, or simply run ext install latex-workshop in VS Code Quick Open (ctrl/cmd + P).

Alternatively, you can check out this repository and copy it to the VS Code local extensions folder:

• Windows %USERPROFILE%\.vscode\extensions
• Mac/Linux $HOME/.vscode/extensions

Usage

• Open a .tex file, right click and many features have menu entries there.
  • For a complete list, select LaTeX Workshop Actions entry.
• For reverse SyncTeX from PDF to LaTeX, ctrl/cmd + left mouse click in the PDF.
• Alternatively, VS Code commands are provided in VS Code Command Palette (ctrl/cmd + shift + P).
  • Type latex workshop to show all related commands.

Linting with ChkTeX

If you have ChkTeX installed as part of your LaTeX distribution, Latex Workshop can run it against your LaTeX files in order to highlight issues.

To enable linting, set latex-workshop.chktex.enabled: true in settings.

The current file will be linted after a brief pause in typing. The full project will be linted upon opening VS Code for the first time, and each time you hit save. Warnings and errors are shown in the Problems pane - you can click on each entry to go to the relevant position where ChkTeX has found an issue.

For details on how to interpret the reported issues, consult the ChkTeX manual.

Code actions

For many issues, LaTeX Workshop will offer Code Actions to help you correct your LaTeX files. If you take your mouse to a highlighted error, you will see a lightbulb in the gutter if LaTeX Workshop is able to propose a solution to the problem. Alternatively, you can hit ctrl/cmd + . whilst the cursor is on a highlighted area to trigger the same dropdown. Choose the item in the menu to have LaTeX Workshop attempt to fix the issue:

FAQ

LaTeX toolchain?

LaTeX toolchain refers to a sequence/array of commands which LaTeX Workshop will execute sequentially when building LaTeX projects. It is set in File>Preferences>Settings>latex-workshop.latex.toolchain. This configuration item is an array of objects, which should have a command field and an optional args array field. The former defines the command that will be invoked in each step of the toolchain, while the latter defines the arguments that will be passed alongside with the command.

By default latexmk is used. This tool is bundled in most LaTeX distributions, and requires perl to execute. For non-perl users, the following texify toolchain from MikTeX may worth a try:

"latex-workshop.latex.toolchain": [
  {
    "command": "texify",
    "args": [
      "--synctex",
      "--pdf",
      "--tex-option=\"-interaction=nonstopmode\"",
      "--tex-option=\"-file-line-error\"",
      "%DOC%.tex"
    ]
  }
]

LaTeX toolchain must always be defined as a JSON array, even if there is only one command to execute. As you may notice, there is a mystic %DOC% in the arguments. Symbols surrounded by % are placeholders, which are replaced with its representing string on-the-fly. LaTeX Workshop registers the following placeholders:

Placeholder	Replaced by
%DOC%	The LaTeX root file path and name without .tex extension
%DOCFILE%	The LaTeX root file name without .tex extension
%DIR%	The LaTeX root file path

Alternatively, you can also set your commands without the placeholder, just like what you may input in a terminal. For the special commands which has problem to deal with absolute

As most LaTeX compiler accepts root file name without extension, %DOC% and %DOCFILE% do not include .tex extension. Meanwhile, texify requires the extension. So in the above toolchain %DOC% and .tex are concatenated for completeness.

The following is an example of a typical pdflatex>bibtex>pdflatex>pdflatex setting.

"latex-workshop.latex.toolchain": [
  {
    "command": "pdflatex",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "%DOC%"
    ]
  }, {
    "command": "bibtex",
    "args": [
      "%DOCFILE%"
    ]
  }, {
    "command": "pdflatex",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "%DOC%"
    ]
  }, {
    "command": "pdflatex",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "%DOC%"
    ]
  }
]

Root file?

While it is fine to write all contents in one .tex file, it is common to split things up for simplicity. For such LaTeX projects, the file with \begin{document} is considered as the root file, which serves as the entry point to the project. LaTeX Workshop intelligently finds the root file when a new document is opened, the active editor is changed, or any LaTeX Workshop command is executed.

To find the root file, LaTeX Workshop will follow the steps below, stopping whenever one is found:

1. Magic comment % !TEX root = relative/or/absolute/path/to/root/file.tex. If such comments exist in the currently active editor, the referred file is set as root.
2. Self check If current active editor contains \begin{document}, it is set as root.
3. Root directory check LaTeX Workshop iterates through all .tex files in the root folder of the workspace. The first one with \begin{document} is set as root.

If no root file is found, most of the features in LaTeX Workshop will not work.

Magic comments?

LaTeX Workshop supports both % !TEX root and % !TEX program magic comments. The former is used to define the root file, while the latter helps select compiler program.

All command in toolchain which are empty will be replaced with the program set by % !TEX program magic comment in the root file. Suppose there is a line % !TEX program = xelatex in the root file, and the toolchain is set as follows:

"latex-workshop.latex.toolchain": [
  {
    "command": "",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "%DOC%"
    ]
  }
]

Upon building the project, LaTeX Workshop will parse the root file and figure out that xelatex should be used. This program will replace the empty command in the toolchain. Arguments are untouched.

If the command is set empty but no % !TEX program magic comment is found, pdflatex is used.

Spell check?

Code Spellchecker did a great job. The following regexps are recommended to be ignored for LaTeX:

"cSpell.ignoreRegExpList": [
  "\\\\\\w*(\\[.*?\\])?(\\{.*?\\})?",
  "\\$.+?\\$"
]

License

MIT