Getting SyncTeX working on GNU/Linux

[Rasmus Pank Roulund-2]

Hello,
I just want to summarize how to get SyncTeX working with AUCTeX on
GNU/Linux. As far as I know this is a relatively new feature, at least
on GNU/Linux-systems.

A lot of people including Thomas Lundgaard and Tristero have worked on
getting SyncTeX working with Evince. (There is also a newer patch by
Dongsheng Xing and Johan Brannlund but I have not tried it:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543503)

Evince-synctex can easily be appended to work with AUCTeX-cvs(!).

If you are using Arch Linux it is quite easy. Just install this
AUR-package:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=29148

This build is very nice since it does not depend on gnome.

On other systems one will have to build evince-gtk-synctex 'manually'
but following the PKGBUILD it should be quite easy.

AUCTeX support can be 'enabled' using the following script
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/evince-gtk-synctex/evince-gtk-synctex/synctex-emacs.sh

Note: It needs latexmk, but this can easily be installed with tlmgr
install latexmk.

Cheers,
Rasmus



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[Ralf Angeli-3]

* Rasmus Pank Roulund (2009-09-24) writes:

> AUCTeX support can be 'enabled' using the following script
> http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/evince-gtk-synctex/evince-gtk-synctex/synctex-emacs.sh

Why don't you just use the built-in support for forward search with
SyncTeX which CVS AUCTeX provides?

--
Ralf


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[Rasmus Pank Roulund-2]

Hi Ralf,
> Why don't you just use the built-in support for forward search with
> SyncTeX which CVS AUCTeX provides?

I was not able to get it to work properly.

But if you could tell me how I would be more than happy to use built-in
synctex support. At the moment synctex has to enabled for it to work.

Thanks,
Rasmus



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[Rasmus Pank Roulund-2]

Hi Ralf,
> Why don't you just use the built-in support for forward search with
> SyncTeX which CVS AUCTeX provides?

I was not able to get it to work properly.

But if you could tell me how I would be more than happy to use built-in synctex support. At the moment synctex has to enabled for it to work.

Thanks,
Rasmus


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[Ralf Angeli-3]

* Rasmus Pank Roulund (2009-09-24) writes:

>> Why don't you just use the built-in support for forward search with
>> SyncTeX which CVS AUCTeX provides?
>
> I was not able to get it to work properly.

And instead of reporting it as a bug you advertise a third-party tool?

> But if you could tell me how I would be more than happy to use built-in
> synctex support. At the moment synctex has to enabled for it to work.

What did you try so far?  Did you follow (info "(auctex)I/O Correlation")?

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Ralf


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[Rasmus Pank Roulund-2]

> And instead of reporting it as a bug you advertise a third-party tool?
It is a script written for Emacs. . .
Frankly, direct Synctex-support for specific viewers has /not/ seemed like the
scope of AUCTeX so far. As I am sure you know, one will also need scripts when
using Skim[1] or Sumatra pdf[2].
As you can tell from the above a script is needed on other platforms to
archive full synctex support. Thus, it is natural to assume that the same is
needed on GNU/Linux. If you can provide a direct way of sending synctex-info
to the viewer please share it.

> What did you try so far?  Did you follow (info "(auctex)I/O Correlation")?
I do not have Emacs on this pc. Thus, I was only able to find a patch (for the
manual) and I was not able to find anything useful in it.

I have set tex-output-view-style for ^.pdf to
evince %o -p %(outpage) -a
This will open the relevant page but it will not highlight the active line.

Cheers,
Rasmus

Footnotes:
 [1] http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/skim-app/index.php?
title=TeX_and_PDF_Synchronization
 [2] http://william.famille-blum.org/blog/static.php?page=static081010-000413



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[Ralf Angeli-3]

* Rasmus (2009-09-26) writes:

>> And instead of reporting it as a bug you advertise a third-party tool?
> It is a script written for Emacs. . .
> Frankly, direct Synctex-support for specific viewers has /not/ seemed like the
> scope of AUCTeX so far.

Why do you think so?  AUCTeX has been supporting source specials for a
long time and SyncTeX is a similar functionality.

> As I am sure you know, one will also need scripts when
> using Skim[1] or Sumatra pdf[2].

For forward or inverse search?

> As you can tell from the above a script is needed on other platforms to
> archive full synctex support.

What is "full synctex support"?

> Thus, it is natural to assume that the same is
> needed on GNU/Linux. If you can provide a direct way of sending synctex-info
> to the viewer please share it.

In case you are talking about forward search, you can advise e.g. Evince
to open a certain page by providing a command line option.

>> What did you try so far?  Did you follow (info "(auctex)I/O Correlation")?
> I do not have Emacs on this pc. Thus, I was only able to find a patch (for the
> manual) and I was not able to find anything useful in it.
>
> I have set tex-output-view-style for ^.pdf to
> evince %o -p %(outpage) -a
> This will open the relevant page but it will not highlight the active line.

Probably because Evince did not support this kind of highlighting at the
time I implemented the SyncTeX parser.  But it should not be hard to add
that.

But if Evince opens the right page, then SyncTeX support in AUCTeX is
working, contrary to what you claimed before.

--
Ralf


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[Rasmus Pank Roulund-2]

Ralf,
> > Frankly, direct Synctex-support for specific viewers has /not/
> > seemed like the scope of AUCTeX so far.
> Why do you think so?
Because you need scripts for forward search. Inverse search in done on
the editor side.

> > one will also need scripts when using Skim[1] . . .
> For forward or inverse search?
Forward search obviously.

> What is "full synctex support"?
Highlighting the active line. In Sumatra it will highlight the line in
which the cursor is placed in the editor. Texworks will also highlight
the line. I think Evince-patched highlighted the  part of the line that
is highlighted.

>In case you are talking about forward search, you can advise
> e.g. Evince to open a certain page by providing a command line option.
Yeah. This is not synctex. xpdf does this to.

 > Probably because Evince did not support this kind of highlighting at
 > the time I implemented the SyncTeX parser.
 > But it should not be hard to add
Okay. This would also benefit Sumatra pdf and maybe skim.

 > But if Evince opens the right page, then SyncTeX support in AUCTeX is
 > working, contrary to what you claimed before.
I don't believe I have stated that SyncTeX support in AUCTeX is not
working. However going to the right page is not comparable to
highlighting the correct line or even word. I am sure we can agree on
that. On other platforms AUCTeX has needed scripts to archive 'full'
forward search. Now, finally(!), an independent viewer (unlike Texworks
(excellent) viewer) has emerged for Linux. Not only has an viewer
emerged; somebody even took the time to write and share a script for
AUCTeX that utilize provides `full' forward search. This approach is
identical to the one used on other platforms. IMHO this is good. I never
considered AUCTeX broken. However, Synctex is not very widely adopted
yet so I think it is great that we can get at least a partial solution
until an official version of some Linux viewer gets synctex-support.
Everybody would be better off with `full' support build-in, but then
again this is shaky ground.

Cheers,
Rasmus


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[Ralf Angeli-3]

* Rasmus Pank Roulund (2009-09-27) writes:

>> > Frankly, direct Synctex-support for specific viewers has /not/
>> > seemed like the scope of AUCTeX so far.
>> Why do you think so?
> Because you need scripts for forward search. Inverse search in done on
> the editor side.

You don't seem to be aware that we are talking about Emacs.  With Emacs
Lisp it provides a "scripting language".

>>In case you are talking about forward search, you can advise
>> e.g. Evince to open a certain page by providing a command line option.
> Yeah. This is not synctex. xpdf does this to.

Either you are joking or you don't know what you are talking about.  The
script you advertised does exactly that, i.e. it calls evince with
command line options for the page to be shown and a rectangle to be
highlighted.

>  > Probably because Evince did not support this kind of highlighting at
>  > the time I implemented the SyncTeX parser.
>  > But it should not be hard to add
> Okay. This would also benefit Sumatra pdf and maybe skim.

Correction: I wrote the parser for pdfsync.  For SyncTeX we simply call
the synctex binary which makes the addition of support for highlighting
even easier.

>  > But if Evince opens the right page, then SyncTeX support in AUCTeX is
>  > working, contrary to what you claimed before.
> I don't believe I have stated that SyncTeX support in AUCTeX is not
> working.

You wrote that you were "not able to get it to work properly."

> However going to the right page is not comparable to
> highlighting the correct line or even word. I am sure we can agree on
> that.

Highlighting the correct line might be more fine-grained help, but
getting to the right page is useful even without it.

> On other platforms AUCTeX has needed scripts to archive 'full'
> forward search.

Which platforms?  Which scripts?  For example, AUCTeX has been
supporting forward search with source specials on Windows for a long
time (with DVI output, obviously).  And I guess pdfsync works on Windows
as well.

> Now, finally(!), an independent viewer (unlike Texworks
> (excellent) viewer) has emerged for Linux.

Are you suggesting there were no viewers for DVI or PDF output on
GNU/Linux before Evince?

> Not only has an viewer
> emerged; somebody even took the time to write and share a script for
> AUCTeX that utilize provides `full' forward search.

Yes, instead of contributing to AUCTeX which would have made it possible
to support SyncTeX transparently and out of the box.

> This approach is
> identical to the one used on other platforms. IMHO this is good.

No, it isn't, because it makes the setup of a TeX environment with
AUCTeX more cumbersome for the user.

> Everybody would be better off with `full' support build-in, but then
> again this is shaky ground.

Why?

--
Ralf


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