Challenges Integrating TeX Live with Visual Studio Code

[Carlos]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 07:45:42PM +0100, Ignacio Balasch Sola wrote:
> Dear TeX Live Development Team,
> I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to share some challenges I’ve encountered while attempting to integrate TeX Live into my Visual Studio Code (VS Code) workflow.
> As a developer, I prefer to use VS Code as my primary development environment across various programming languages, including LaTeX. I appreciate its versatility and the convenience of managing multiple projects within a single interface. However, integrating TeX Live with VS Code has proven to be quite challenging.
> 
> Despite dedicating considerable time and effort, I have been unable to achieve a seamless setup. I documented my process in this github discussion post https://github.com/James-Yu/LaTeX-Workshop/discussions/4518 .  The process has been fraught with difficulties, and I find myself at an impasse. I am reaching out to seek your guidance on how to effectively configure TeX Live to work within the VS Code environment.
> I would greatly appreciate any insights or recommendations you could provide to facilitate a smoother integration process. Your assistance would be invaluable in helping me and others who prefer VS Code as their development environment to utilize TeX Live more effectively.
> Thank you for your time and support.
> 

Unfortunately, this time around, VS Code seems to be working fine with the LaTeX Workshop pluugin, so I asked DeepSeek to help me out here. So I removed it, and had DeepSeek guide me through the process. It did a pretty good job. Assuming of course, texlive is installed.

Anyway. This is copied verbatim from DeepSeek

Configuring Visual Studio Code (VS Code) to work with LaTeX without using external plugins is possible, but it requires some manual setup. You’ll need to configure VS Code to compile .tex files using a LaTeX distribution (e.g., TeX Live or MiKTeX) and set up tasks for building and viewing your documents. Here's how you can do it:

Step 1: Install a LaTeX Distribution
Make sure you have a LaTeX distribution installed on your system:

TeX Live (Linux, macOS, Windows): https://www.tug.org/texlive/

MiKTeX (Windows): https://miktex.org/

Step 2: Open Your LaTeX Project in VS Code
Open VS Code.

Open the folder containing your .tex files.

Step 3: Configure a Build Task
VS Code uses tasks to automate builds. You’ll create a custom task to compile your .tex file.

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P on macOS).

Search for and select Tasks: Configure Default Build Task.

Select Create tasks.json file from template.

Choose Others to create a basic template.

Now, edit the tasks.json file to include a LaTeX build task. Here’s an example configuration:

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "Build LaTeX",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "pdflatex",
            "args": [
                "${file}"
            ],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "problemMatcher": [
                "$pdflatex"
            ],
            "detail": "Compile the current LaTeX file using pdflatex"
        }
    ]
}

Explanation:
label: The name of the task (e.g., "Build LaTeX").

command: The LaTeX compiler to use (e.g., pdflatex).

args: Arguments passed to the compiler:

group: Makes this the default build task.

problemMatcher: Helps VS Code parse LaTeX errors.

Step 4: Create an Output Folder
To keep your workspace clean, create an output folder in your project directory. This is where the compiled PDF and auxiliary files will be saved.

Step 5: Build Your LaTeX Document
Open your .tex file in VS Code.

Run the build task:

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P).

Search for and select Tasks: Run Build Task.

Alternatively, press Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+B (macOS).

This will compile your .tex file and generate a PDF in the output folder.

Step 6: View the PDF
To view the compiled PDF, you can:

Open the output folder in your file explorer and double-click the PDF.

Use a VS Code extension like PDF Viewer (optional, but recommended for convenience).


Step 7: Automate PDF Viewing (Optional)
If you want to automatically open the PDF after compilation, you can modify the tasks.json file to include a command to open the PDF. For example, on macOS:

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "Build LaTeX",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "pdflatex",
            "args": [
                "${file}"
            ],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "problemMatcher": [
                "$pdflatex"
            ],
            "detail": "Compile the current LaTeX file using pdflatex"
        },
        {
            "label": "Build and Open PDF",
            "dependsOrder": "sequence",
            "dependsOn": ["Build LaTeX"],
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "open",
            "args": [
                "${workspaceFolder}/output/${fileBasenameNoExtension}.pdf"
            ],
            "group": "build",
            "problemMatcher": []
        }
    ]
}

On Windows, replace "open" with "start", and on Linux, use "xdg-open".

Step 8: Add a Clean Task (Optional)
To clean up auxiliary files (e.g., .log, .aux), add a clean task to your tasks.json:

json

{
    "label": "Clean LaTeX Output",
    "type": "shell",
    "command": "rm",
    "args": [
        "-rf",
        "${workspaceFolder}/output/*"
    ],
    "group": "build",
    "problemMatcher": []
}


> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Ignacio

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