Using Sioyek as a pdf viewer in Emacs

[ejuarezg]

Has anyone figured out the configuration to get Sioyek working as a PDF viewer in Emacs? I'm (very) slowly learning Emacs and have only managed to get the following code working

(setq TeX-view-program-list '(("Sioyek" "sioyek %o")))
(setq TeX-view-program-selection '((output-pdf "Sioyek")))
(setq +latex-viewers '(sioyek))

However, I haven't figured out how to get forward and inverse synctex search working.

NB: I'm using the latex module in Doom Emacs for an out-of-the-box working TeX configuration.

[JHonaker]

In order to setup Sioyek for SyncTeX with Emacs, you'll need to modify a few customization options.

First, you will need to add Sioyek to the TeX-view-program-list like you have, but there are a few more things that need to go there to get SyncTeX working. You also have to replace the default PDF viewer in TeX-view-program-selection which determines which program to use based on a series of predicates. For PDFs, you'll want to change the one listed under output-pdf.

(custom-set-variables
  '(TeX-view-program-list
    '(("Sioyek"
      ("sioyek %o --reuse-instance"
        (mode-io-correlate " --forward-search-file %b --forward-search-line %n --inverse-search \"emacsclient --no-wait +%2:%3 %1\""))
       "sioyek")))
 '(TeX-view-program-selection
   '(((output-dvi has-no-display-manager)
      "dvi2tty")
     ((output-dvi style-pstricks)
      "dvips and gv")
     (output-dvi "xdvi")
     (output-pdf "Sioyek") ;; Here. By default this was "Evince" on my machine.
     (output-html "xdg-open")))

This allows you to refer to the "Sioyek" viewer like you would the built-in viewers. mode-io-correlate is a predicate defined in AucTeX that is only active when you have SyncTeX turned on.

Just for reference, the full command would read

sioyek %o --reuse-instance --forward-search-file %b --forward-search-line %n --inverse-search "emacsclient --no-wait +%2:%3 %1"

What each of the substitutions and subcommands are:

• %o - The output pdf
• --reuse-instance - Does what it says on the tin. Reuse the instance instead of opening a new one.
• --forward-search-file %b - Search in %b which expands into the TeX filename used by SyncTeX
• --forward-search-line %n - Go to the current line number in the buffer expanded from %n
• --inverse-search "emacsclient --no-wait +%2:%3 %1" - Gives Sioyek the command to call when you right click with SyncTeX enabled (F4) which is run open emacsclient to the buffer for file %1, line %2, column %3.

To enable SyncTeX you'll need to turn on TeX-source-correlate-mode. Here's how you can do that with a hook that starts when a LaTeX file is loaded. The keybinding allows you to control-click on a place in the buffer, and have it jumped to in Sioyek.

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook #'TeX-source-correlate-mode)
(with-eval-after-load 'latex
  (define-key TeX-source-correlate-map [C-down-mouse-1] #'TeX-view-mouse))

[JHonaker]

Ah yea, that +latex-viewers is a Doom specific thing. I don't use Doom, so I have no idea what it does.

[eshrh]

For anybody else who comes across this issue, on newer auctex versions (Jun 20 2022) it's no longer necessary to add sioyek to TeX-view-program-list, I had sent a patch to add it to the builtins.

You only need to set TeX-view-program-selection to include output-pdf "Sioyek".

[AlexD97]

Has anyone else the problem that sioyek doesn't show anything when auctex compiles the pdf? I have to manually reload the file in sioyek.

[Ziqi-Yang]

in TeX-view-program-list, don't add --reuse-instance argument to ensure showing

[AlexD97]

Somehow I don't encounter the problem anymore. I don't know why this happened.