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Compile

Jerome Lelong edited this page Jul 25, 2024 · 124 revisions

Compiling features

Building the document

A LaTeX file is typically built by calling the command Build LaTeX project from the Command Palette or from the TeX badge. This command is bind to ctrl+alt+b. If you cannot use ctrl+alt in a keybinding, see the FAQ. The recipe called by this command is defined by latex-workshop.latex.recipe.default.

If you have a multi-file project, see multi-files-projects for more details on how the root file is discovered.

You can define several compiling toolchains to build LaTeX projects using LaTeX recipes and then call the command Build with recipe to choose the appropriate toolchain for actually building the project. Alternatively, you can directly select the appropriate recipe from the TeX badge.

The following settings are helpful to customize how to build a project and how to deal with failures.

Setting key Description Default Type
latex-workshop.latex.jobname The jobname argument of the compiling tool "" string
latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run When the extension shall auto build LaTeX project using the default (first) recipe. onFileChange string
latex-workshop.latex.recipes Sequence of tools to run for building JSON object
latex-workshop.latex.tools Tools available for building JSON object
latex-workshop.latex.magic.args Arguments for the TeX program array of strings
latex-workshop.latex.magic.bib.args Arguments for the BIB program array of strings
latex-workshop.latex.build.forceRecipeUsage Force the use of recipes true boolean

Terminating the current compilation

It is possible to terminate the current compilation by calling Kill LaTeX compiler process from the Command Palette (command latex-workshop.kill) or calling Terminate current compilation from the TeX badge in the Build LaTeX project item.

Auto build LaTeX

Besides manually calling the Build LaTeX Project command to compile a document, you may also let the extension automatically start compiling it upon file change. This can be defined in latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run. The recipe called by auto build is defined by latex-workshop.latex.recipe.default.

latex-workshop.latex.jobname

The jobname argument of the compiling tool, which is used by the extension to find project files (e.g., PDF and SyncTeX files).

type default value
string ""

This config should be set identical to the value provided to the -jobname= argument, and should not have placeholders. Leave the config empty to ignore jobname and keep the default behavior.

latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run

When to trigger automatic building.

type default value possible values
string "onFileChange" "never", "onSave", "onFileChange"
  • "never": Disable the auto build feature
  • "onSave": Build the project upon saving a .tex file.
  • "onFileChange": Build the project upon detecting a file change in any of the dependencies. The file can even be modified outside vscode. See here for explanations on what dependencies are and how some of them can be ignored. See the FAQ for how to save without triggering the build when this feature is on.

latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.interval

The minimal time interval between two consecutive auto builds in milliseconds.

type default value
integer 1000

latex-workshop.latex.watch.files.ignore

Files to be ignored from the watching mechanism used for triggering autobuild.

This property must be an array of globs pattern. The patterns are matched against the absolute file path. To ignore everything inside the texmf tree, **/texmf/** can be used.

With the default value, we do not watch files inside the texmf tree of the LaTeX distribution.

type default value
array of strings ["**/*.bbx", "**/*.cbx", "**/*.cfg", "**/*.clo", "**/*.cnf", "**/*.def", "**/*.fmt", "**/*.lbx", "**/*.map", "**/*.pfb", "**/*.tfm", "**/texmf-{dist,var}/**", "C:/**texmf/**", "/usr/local/share/miktex-texmf/**", "/Library/Application Support/MiKTeX/texmfs/**"]

LaTeX recipes

A LaTeX recipe refers to a sequence/array of commands which LaTeX Workshop executes sequentially when building LaTeX projects. It is defined by latex-workshop.latex.recipes. By default, LaTeX Workshop includes several basic recipes defined by the variables latex-workshop.latex.recipes and latex-workshop.latex.tools. Below are two popular examples:

  • The first one simply relies on the latexmk command
  • The second one run the following sequence of commands pdflatexbibtexpdflatexpdflatex.
"latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [
  {
    "name": "latexmk",
    "tools": [
      "latexmk"
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "pdflatex -> bibtex -> pdflatex * 2",
    "tools": [
      "pdflatex",
      "bibtex",
      "pdflatex",
      "pdflatex"
    ]
  }
]

When building the project, the first recipe is used by default. See the setting. You can compile with another recipe by command latex-workshop.recipes. By default latexmk is used. This tool is bundled in most LaTeX distributions, and requires perl to execute.

If you want to preset a per-file recipe, you may also consider place the LaTeX Workshop-specific derivative %!LW recipe=recipe-name at the top of your root file, similar to the wider recognized %!TeX root=root-file magic comment.

LaTeX tools

Each tool appearing in the tools field of recipes is defined latex-workshop.latex.tools. To include a tool in a recipe, the tool's name should be included in the recipe's tools list. Its default value is given by

"latex-workshop.latex.tools": [
  {
    "name": "latexmk",
    "command": "latexmk",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "-pdf",
      "-outdir=%OUTDIR%",
      "%DOC%"
    ],
    "env": {}
  },
  {
    "name": "pdflatex",
    "command": "pdflatex",
    "args": [
      "-synctex=1",
      "-interaction=nonstopmode",
      "-file-line-error",
      "%DOC%"
    ],
    "env": {}
  },
  {
    "name": "bibtex",
    "command": "bibtex",
    "args": [
      "%DOCFILE%"
    ],
    "env": {}
  }
]

You can create multiple recipes with different tools. Each recipe is an object in the configuration list, consisting of a name field and a list of tools to be invoked in the recipe.

Each tool is an object consisting of a name, a command to be spawned, its arguments (args) and some specific environment variables (env). The env entry is a dictionary. Imagine you want to use a texmf subdirectory local to your home project, just write

  "env": {
      "TEXMFHOME": "%DIR%/texmf"
  }

You can also override the PATH environment variable. Notice that, in the property, only placeholders, e.g., %DIR%, take effect, and other variables, e.g., $PATH, are not expanded.

Notice that you might have to use "Path" instead of "PATH" on Windows to override the PATH environment variable.

Placeholders

The args and env parameters of LaTeX tools can contain symbols surrounded by %. These placeholders are replaced on-the-fly. LaTeX Workshop registers the following placeholders

Placeholder Replaced by
%DOC% The root file full path without the extension
%DOC_W32% The root file full path without the extension with \ path separator on Windows
%DOCFILE% The root file name without the extension
%DOC_EXT% The root file full path with the extension
%DOC_EXT_W32% The root file full path with the extension with \ path separator on Windows
%DOCFILE_EXT% The root file name with the extension
%DIR% The root file directory
%DIR_W32% The root file directory with \ path separator on Windows
%TMPDIR% A temporary folder for storing auxiliary files
%OUTDIR% The output directory configured in latex-workshop.latex.outDir
%OUTDIR_W32% The output directory configured in latex-workshop.latex.outDir with \ path separator on Windows
%WORKSPACE_FOLDER% The current workspace path
%RELATIVE_DIR% The root file directory relative to the workspace folder
%RELATIVE_DOC% file root file path relative to the workspace folder

As most LaTeX compiler accepts root file name without extension, %DOC% and %DOCFILE% do not include the filename extension. Meanwhile, the texify tool requires the complete filename with its extension, hence the use of %DOC_EXT% in the configuration of texify.

Most commands accept the use of the / path separator even on Windows and most LaTeX tools even require its use. On the contrary, some Windows commands only work with the \ path separator. So, we propose two versions of the placeholders. All placeholders without the _W32 suffix always use the / path separator even on Windows. All placeholders with the _W32 suffix use the \ path separator on Windows. Note on Linux and Unix systems, placeholders with and without the _W32 suffix are equivalent.

Misc

For non-perl users, the following texify toolchain from MikTeX may worth a try:

"latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [{
  "name": "texify",
  "tools": [
    "texify"
  ]
}],
"latex-workshop.latex.tools": [{
  "name": "texify",
  "command": "texify",
  "args": [
    "--synctex",
    "--pdf",
    "--tex-option=\"-interaction=nonstopmode\"",
    "--tex-option=\"-file-line-error\"",
    "%DOC_EXT%"
  ],
  "env": {}
}]

Beware that thetexify command-line utility does not work properly with BibLaTeX package and its helper program biber. See for instance https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/299171/102825, https://miktex-users.narkive.com/gVVlkEcr/miktex-pdf-texify-using-biber-instead-of-bibtex, https://sourceforge.net/p/miktex/mailman/message/26469477/.

latex-workshop.latex.recipe.default

Define which recipe is used by the Build LaTeX project command. It also applies to auto build. Recipes are referred to by their names as defined in latex-workshop.latex.recipes. Note there are two special values:

  • "first": Use the first recipe defined in latex-workshop.latex.recipes.
  • "lastUsed": Use the last used recipe by the command LaTeX Workshop: Build with recipe.
type default value
string "first"

latex-workshop.latex.build.forceRecipeUsage

Force the use of the recipe system even when a magic comment defines a TeX command.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.latex.build.rootfileInStatus

Include the name of the root file being built in the status bar.

type default value
boolean false

Multi File projects

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 \documentclass[]{} 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.

The root file

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. You can use the command latex-workshop.addtexroot to help you insert the magic comment. Note that magic comments need you to set latex-workshop.latex.build.forceRecipeUsage to false. The default true disables magic comments.

  2. Self check If current active editor contains \documentclass[...]{...} (the [...] is optional) or \begin{document} depending on the value of latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.indicator, 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 containing \documentclass[...]{...} (the [...] is optional) or \begin{document} depending on the value of latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.indicator, and which includes the file in the active editor is set as the root file. To avoid parsing all .tex files in the workspace, you can narrow the search by specifying latex-workshop.latex.search.rootFiles.include and/or latex-workshop.latex.search.rootFiles.exclude.

  4. The subfiles package case The main file is used to provide intellisense. The non-interactive functions autobuild, autoclean and forward synctex rely on the value of the configuration variable latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.useSubFile to choose between the main file and the subfile.

    Note that each subfile has to be compiled from its respective directory, where LaTeX is able to locate all included text files or images. However, following the discussion in 1895 we decided that all paths should be relative to the root file directory. Hence, the recipe is launched from the root file directory and the -cd option must be added to latexmk. As discussed in 1932, this option breaks makeindex (this should be solved in the next release of latexmk). So the solution is to add a .latexmkrc file in the root file directory containing $do_cd = 1;

  5. The .fls files LaTeX compilers when called with the -recorder option produce a file with .fls extension containing all the files input and output during compilation. The list of input files contains all classes, packages, fonts, input .tex files, listings, graphs, ... Using latexmk always produces a .fls file.

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

Note: for all this to work, you have to open the directory (or one of its antecedents) containing the whole LaTeX project.

The dependencies

Once the root file is determined, it is parsed to discover all the files it includes using input, include, InputIfFileExists, subfile, import and subimport and the process goes on recursively. All these files are called dependencies and are considered to define a LaTeX project. If you include some files located in some external directories, you can list these extra directories in latex-workshop.latex.texDirs. If you need to strip off some environments before actually parsing the file, use latex-workshop.latex.verbatimEnvs.

Moreover, when a .fls file with the same basename as the root file exists, it is used to compute the full list of dependencies, ie all classes, packages, fonts, input .tex files, listings, graphs, ... All these files are parsed to provide intellisense completion. When latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run is set to onFileChange, building is automatically triggered whenever any of the dependencies is modified. You can use latex-workshop.latex.watch.files.ignore to prevent some files from being watched. The default is to ignore files inside your TeX distribution and files with .code.tex or .sty suffix.

Relevant settings

latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.indicator

type default value Possible values
enum of strings \documentclass[]{} \documentclass[]{}, begin{document}

Determine if the root file is detected based on the presence of \documentclass[]{} or \begin{document}.

latex-workshop.latex.search.rootFiles.include

Patterns of files to consider for the root detection mechanism.

Relative paths are computed from the workspace folder. To detect the root file and the tex file tree, we parse all the .tex listed here.\nIf you want to specify all .tex files inside directory, say foo, and all its subdirectories recursively, you need to use **/foo/**/*.tex. If you only want to match .tex files at the top level of the workspace, use *.tex. For more details on glob patterns, see here.

type default value
array of strings ["**/*.tex"]

latex-workshop.latex.search.rootFiles.exclude

Patterns of files to exclude from the root detection mechanism.

See also latex-workshop.latex.search.rootFiles.include. For more details on glob patterns, see here.

type default value
array of strings []

latex-workshop.latex.texDirs

List of directories where to look for extra input .tex files.

Absolute paths are required. You may also need to set the environment variable TEXINPUTS properly for the LaTeX compiler to find the .tex files, see the env parameter of recipes.

type default value
array of strings []

latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.useSubFile

When the subfiles package is used, either the main file or any subfile containing \documentclass[main.tex]{subfiles} can be LaTeXing. When set to true, the extension uses the subfile as the rootFile for the autobuild, clean and synctex commands.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.doNotPrompt

When the subfiles package is used, either the main file or any subfile containing \documentclass[main.tex]{subfiles} can be LaTeXing. When set to false, the build and view commands ask the user's choice first. When set to true, the subfile is used when latex-workshop.latex.rootFile.useSubFile is also true, otherwise the rootFile is used.

type default value
boolean false

latex-workshop.latex.verbatimEnvs

List environments with verbatim-like content.

These environments are stripped off the .tex files before any parsing occurs. Note that this variable has no effect on syntax highlighting.

type default value
array of _strings ["verbatim", "lstlisting", "minted"]

Catching errors and warnings

The warnings and errors issued by the compiling toolchain are rendered in the Problems Pane. The following settings enable you to customize what you want to get in that panel. If the messages displayed in the panel seem to be wrong, see the FAQ.

You have to call LaTeX compilers with an option -file-line-error in your recipes. --max-print-line=10000 is another option that you may consider adding to your tool when applicable.

Notice that problems are not displayed when you compile a LaTeX document in draft mode. See an issue.

The raw compiler logs can be accessed in the Output Pane, choose LaTeX Compiler. Alternatively, call View LaTeX compiler logs from the Command Palette, the associated command is latex-workshop.compilerlog. The default is to clear the logs before calling every tool of a recipe. If you prefer to keep the logs from all the tools of a recipe, set latex-workshop.latex.build.clearLog.everyRecipeStep.enabled to false.

Settings Details

latex-workshop.message.log.show

Display LaTeX Workshop debug log in output panel.

This property defines whether LaTeX Workshop will output its debug log to the log panel.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.message.badbox.show

Show badbox information in the problems panel.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.message.biberlog.exclude

Exclude biber log messages matching the given regexp from the problems panel.

type default value
array of strings []

latex-workshop.message.bibtexlog.exclude

Exclude bibtex log messages matching the given regexp from the problems panel.

type default value
array of strings []

latex-workshop.message.latexlog.exclude

Exclude latex log messages matching the given regexp from the problems panel.

type default value
array of strings []

latex-workshop.message.information.show

Display information messages in popup notifications.

type default value
boolean false

latex-workshop.message.warning.show

Display warning messages in popup notifications.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.message.error.show

Display error messages in popup notifications.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.latex.build.clearLog.everyRecipeStep.enabled

Clear the LaTeX Compiler logs before every step of a recipe.

Set this property to false to keep the logs of all tools in a recipe.

type default value
boolean true

Cleaning generated files

LaTeX compilation typically generates several auxiliary files. They can be removed by calling Clean up auxiliary files from the Command Palette or from the TeX badge. The associated internal command latex-workshop.clean is bind to ctrl+alt+c. If you cannot use ctrl+alt in a keybinding, see the FAQ.

Setting key Description Default Type
latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.cleanAndRetry.enabled Enable cleaning and building once more after errors in the build toolchain true boolean
latex-workshop.latex.autoClean.run Define when LaTeX auxillary files should be deleted. "never" string
latex-workshop.latex.clean.method Define the method used by the clean command to remove temporary files command enum of strings
latex-workshop.latex.clean.command Define the command used to remove temporary files when latex-workshop.latex.clean.method is set to command latexmk string
latex-workshop.latex.clean.args Arguments of latex-workshop.latex.clean.command ["-outdir=%OUTDIR%", "-c", "%TEX%"] array of string
latex-workshop.latex.clean.fileTypes Extensions of files to clean array of strings
latex-workshop.latex.clean.subfolder.enabled Clean LaTeX auxillary files recursively in sub-folders of latex-workshop.latex.outDir false boolean

latex-workshop.latex.autoClean.run

type default value possible values
string "never" "never","onFailed", "onBuilt"
  • "never": Disable the auto cleaning feature
  • "onFailed": Clean the project upon failed compilation.
  • "onBuilt": Clean the project upon completing a compilation, whether it is successful or not.

latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.cleanAndRetry.enabled

Delete LaTeX auxiliary files when errors occur during build and retry.

This property defines whether LaTeX Workshop will try to clean and build the project once again after errors happen in the build toolchain.

type default value
boolean true

latex-workshop.latex.clean.subfolder.enabled

Delete LaTeX auxiliary files recursively in sub-folders of latex-workshop.latex.outDir.

type default value
boolean false

latex-workshop.latex.clean.fileTypes

Files to be cleaned.

This property must be an array of strings. File globs such as *.removeme, something?.aux can be used.

Users can also specify glob patterns like emptyfolder*/ to remove empty folders. Non-empty folders will be ignored. The folder globs must end with a slash (/ on Linux and Unix systems, and \ for Windows) and the last path component must not contain the globstar **, otherwise the folders will not be removed. For example, configuration ["_minted-*/**", "_minted-*/"] will remove the auxiliary style files generated by minted package (e.g. _minted-%TEX%/*.pygtex), as well as the auxiliary folder (e.g. _minted-%TEX%/). The tailing slash of pattern _minted-*/ is required, otherwise the folders will be ignored.

type default value
array of strings [ "*.aux", "*.bbl", "*.blg", "*.idx", "*.ind", "*.lof", "*.lot", "*.out", "*.toc", "*.acn", "*.acr", "*.alg", "*.glg", "*.glo", "*.gls", "*.fls", "*.log", "*.fdb_latexmk", "*.snm", "*.synctex(busy)", "*.synctex.gz(busy)", "*.nav" ]

latex-workshop.latex.clean.command

The command to be used to remove temporary files when latex-workshop.latex.clean.method is set to command.

type default value
string latexmk

latex-workshop.latex.clean.args

The arguments of latex-workshop.latex.clean.command. The %TEX% placeholder is the full path of the tex file from which the clean command is called.

type default value
array of strings ["-outdir=%OUTDIR%", "-c", "%TEX%"]

latex-workshop.latex.clean.method

Define the method used by the clean command to remove temporary files.

type default value
enum of strings "command"

External build command

Versatile though the recipe mechanism described above may be, it may fail to match your needs when building the whole LaTeX project is done by a personal script or a Makefile. For this particular case, we provide an external build command mechanism, which completely bypasses the recipe machinery. Just define your command along with its arguments using the following two configuration variables

latex-workshop.latex.external.build.command

The external command to execute when calling latex-workshop.build.

This is useful when compiling relies on a Makefile or a bespoke script. When defined, it completely bypasses the recipes and root file detection mechanism. The command is launched from the workspace directory.

type default value
string ""

latex-workshop.latex.external.build.args

The arguments of latex-workshop.latex.external.build.command when calling latex-workshop.build

If the rootFile is defined, you can use any of the placeholders defined in the section on LaTeX Recipes.

type default value
string[] []

Magic comments

Notice that magic comment is disabled by default. You have to enable it if you want to use the feature. See the setting.

TeX program and options

LaTeX Workshop supports % !TEX program magic comment to specify the compiler program. However, it is advised to use the recipe system instead of magic program to define the building process, since the latter is only implemented for backward compatibility.

For % !TEX program magic comment, its arguments are defined in latex-workshop.latex.magic.args:

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

Alternatively, you can directly define the args in the .tex file by using the magic comment % !TEX options, which overrides latex-workshop.latex.magic.args. Note that it must contain the file to proceed. For instance, to reproduce the default behavior, you should use

% !TEX options = -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error "%DOC%"

Suppose there is a line % !TEX program = xelatex in the root file. Upon building the project, LaTeX Workshop will parse the root file and figure out that xelatex should be used.

BIB program and options

When using % !TEX program with bibliographies, a bib compiler must be defined with % !BIB program comment, e.g., % !BIB program = bibtex. Otherwise the extension will only run one-pass compilation with the specified LaTeX compiler. If needed, you can pass extra arguments to the % !BIB program using the latex-workshop.latex.magic.bib.args variable:

"latex-workshop.latex.magic.bib.args": [
  "%DOCFILE%"
]

Alternatively, you can directly define the args in the .tex file by using the magic comment % !BIB options, which overrides latex-workshop.latex.magic.bib.args. Note that it must contain the file to proceed. For instance, to reproduce the default behavior, you should use % !BIB options = "%DOCFILE%".

Building a .jnw file

Files associated to the jlweave language mode can be compiled using two different approaches, depending on how you would like code to be rendered

  1. Using the Verbatim environment. Once executed the Julia code and its output are rendered using the Verbatim environment. This approach requires to add the following instructions to the .jnw file

    \usepackage{fancyvrb}
    
    \DefineVerbatimEnvironment{juliaout}{Verbatim}{}
    \DefineVerbatimEnvironment{juliacode}{Verbatim}{fontshape=sl}
    \DefineVerbatimEnvironment{juliaterm}{Verbatim}{}

    Then, the file can be compiled using the following built-in recipe

      {
        "name": "Compile jnw files",
        "tools": [
          "jnw2tex",
          "latexmk"
        ]
      }

    with the jnw2tex tool defined by

      {
        "name": "jnw2tex",
        "command": "julia",
        "args": [
          "-e",
          "using Weave; weave(\"%DOC_EXT%\", doctype=\"tex\")"
        ],
        "env": {}
      }
  2. Using the minted environment. Once executed the Julia code and its output are rendered using the minted environment. This approach requires to add the following instructions to the .jnw file

    \usepackage{minted}

    and to pass the -shell-escape to the LaTeX compiler. See the FAQ for explanations on how to add this flag.

    To compile the file, you need to define a new recipe containing

      {
        "name": "Compile jnw files",
        "tools": [
          "jnw2texminted",
          "latexmk"
        ]
      }

    with the jnw2tex tool defined by

      {
        "name": "jnw2texminted",
        "command": "julia",
        "args": [
          "-e",
          "using Weave; weave(\"%DOC_EXT%\", doctype=\"texminted\")"
        ],
        "env": {}
      }

    and create a .latexmkrc file in the workspace directory containing

    $pdflatex='pdflatex -shell-escape';

When using auto-build and the file has not been compiled inside the extension yet, we use the first recipe with name (converted to lowercase) containing either jnw or jlweave.

Building a .rnw file

Files associated to the rsweave language mode can be automatically compiled using the following built-in recipe.

  {
    "name": "Compile Rnw files",
    "tools": [
      "rnw2tex",
      "latexmk"
    ]
  }

with the rnw2tex tool defined by

  {
    "name": "rnw2tex",
    "command": "Rscript",
    "args": [
      "-e",
      "knitr::opts_knit$set(concordance = TRUE); knitr::knit('%DOCFILE_EXT%')"
    ],
    "env": {}
  }

When using auto-build and the file has not been compiled inside the extension yet, we use the first recipe with name (converted to lowercase) containing either rnw or rsweave.

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