[OS X TeX] A question from a new member

[Herbert Schulz]

On Oct 16, 2006, at 7:25 AM, Frederic Andres wrote:

> Hi to all!
>
> My name is Frederic and I have just switched to MacOS, and I am  
> rather pleased of the result.
>
> I am a PhD student in Economics and as such, I typeset with LaTeX,  
> and I used to use Winedt under Windows. For the moment, I still use  
> it on my iMac under Windows via Parallels. Eventually, I would like  
> to be able to typeset directly on the Mac. Here are the stuf I  
> would like to be able to do:
>
> 1. I like seeing the structure of my document in order to be able  
> to easily switch between sections for instance. I have tried  
> ITexMacs, but I don't see this feature. But it is present in Texmaker.
>

Howdy,

TeXShop will automatically add \section, \subsection, etc. items to a  
tag list in a drop down menu. You can manually add other tags to the  
list. Don't know if this satisfies your needs.

> 2. I always compile using PDF, but under Texmaker for instance, it  
> does not recall the last position of the pdf, and it also does not  
> display my graphics, whereas it does under iTexMac.
>

TeXShop will take you back to the same page. There is a small bug  
that shifts displayed page breaks upward slightly with each compile  
under certain circumstances but it isn't that annoying.

> 3.in-line spellchecking if possible, since I write in english, and  
> it is not my native language;
>

As with other Cocoa editors, using CocoAspell will give you this  
feature and it also ``knows'' about LaTeX (and the list is extensible).

> 4. shortcuts for greek letters, like Alt+G+A for alpha...
>

If you use an available Command Completion file you can generate  
Greek letter by using, e.g., \xa and then Esc to get \alpha, \xcg and  
then Esc for \Gamma and \xvth for \vartheta. It also has shortcuts  
for common environments and again is extensible.

> 5. if possible, shortcuts for things like bold, emphasize...
>

Write a macro that does it and assign a keyboard shortcut to it.  
Right now the usual shortcuts, Cmd-I and Cmd-B, can't be reassigned  
easily but others work.

> Is there an editor that would allow me to do all that? My first  
> tries with texmaker or iTexmac were unsuccessful...
>
> Thanks for the help!
>
> Frederic

It also allows you to jump from the pdf file to a pretty close  
location in the source file and the other way without any special  
package inclusion. You can also write custom engine files if you need  
special processing.

I'd try it and see if it works for you. Feel free to ask questions  
about its usage here. I wouldn't say it's perfect but I keep learning  
more and have been amazed at how some of the built-in features allows  
you to do some neat things.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/