auctex: Processor Options
4.1.3 Options for TeX Processors
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There are some options you can customize affecting which processors are
invoked or the way this is done and which output they produce as a
result. These options control if DVI or PDF output should be produced,
if TeX should be started in interactive or nonstop mode, if source
specials or a SyncTeX file should be produced for making inverse and
forward search possible or which TeX engine should be used instead of
regular TeX, like PDFTeX, Omega or XeTeX, and the style error messages
are printed with.
-- Command: TeX-PDF-mode
('C-c C-t C-p') This command toggles the PDF mode of AUCTeX, a
buffer-local minor mode which is enabled by default. You can
customize 'TeX-PDF-mode' to give it a different default or set it
as a file local variable on a per-document basis. This option
usually results in calling either PDFTeX or ordinary TeX.
-- User Option: TeX-DVI-via-PDFTeX
If this is set, DVI will also be produced by calling PDFTeX,
setting '\pdfoutput=0'. This makes it possible to use PDFTeX
features like character protrusion even when producing DVI files.
Contemporary TeX distributions do this anyway, so that you need not
enable the option within AUCTeX.
-- Command: TeX-interactive-mode
('C-c C-t C-i') This command toggles the interactive mode of
AUCTeX, a global minor mode. You can customize
'TeX-interactive-mode' to give it a different default. In
interactive mode, TeX will pause with an error prompt when errors
are encountered and wait for the user to type something.
-- Command: TeX-source-correlate-mode
('C-c C-t C-s') Toggles support for forward and inverse search.
Forward search refers to jumping to the place in the previewed
document corresponding to where point is located in the document
source and inverse search to the other way round. 
I/O
Correlation.
You can permanently activate 'TeX-source-correlate-mode' by
customizing the variable 'TeX-source-correlate-mode'. There is a
bunch of customization options for the mode, use 'M-x
customize-group <RET> TeX-view <RET>' to find out more.
AUCTeX is aware of three different means to do I/O correlation:
source specials (only DVI output), the pdfsync LaTeX package (only
PDF output) and SyncTeX. The choice between source specials and
SyncTeX can be controlled with the variable
'TeX-source-correlate-method'.
Should you use source specials it has to be stressed _very_
strongly however, that source specials can cause differences in
page breaks and spacing, can seriously interfere with various
packages and should thus _never_ be used for the final version of a
document. In particular, fine-tuning the page breaks should be
done with source specials switched off.
Sometimes you are requested, by journal rules or packages, to compile
the document into DVI output. Thus, if you want a PDF document in the
end you can either use XeTeX engine, see below for information about how
to set engines, or compile the document with 'tex' and then convert to
PDF with 'dvips'-'ps2pdf' before viewing it. In addition, current
Japanese TeX engines cannot generate PDF directly so they rely on
DVI-to-PDF converters. Usually 'dvipdfmx' command is used for this
purpose. You can use the 'TeX-PDF-from-DVI' variable to let AUCTeX know
you want to generate the final PDF by converting a DVI file.
-- User Option: TeX-PDF-from-DVI
This option controls if and how to produce a PDF file by converting
a DVI file.
When 'TeX-PDF-mode' is non-nil, if 'TeX-PDF-from-DVI' is non-nil
too the document is compiled to DVI instead of PDF. When the
document is ready, 'C-c C-c' will suggest to run the converter to
PDF or an intermediate format.
If non-nil, 'TeX-PDF-from-DVI' should be the name of the command,
as a string, used to convert the DVI file to PDF or to an
intermediate format. Values currently supported are:
* '"Dvips"': the DVI file is converted to PS with 'dvips'.
After successfully running it, 'ps2pdf' will be the default
command to convert the PS file to PDF.
* '"Dvipdfmx"': the DVI file is converted to PDF with
'dvipdfmx'.
When the PDF file is finally ready, the next suggested command will
be to open the viewer.
This option can also be set as a file local variable, in order to
use this conversion on a per-document basis.
Recall the whole sequence of 'C-c C-c' commands can be replace by
the single 'C-c C-a'.
AUCTeX also allows you to easily select different TeX engines for
processing, either by using the entries in the 'TeXing Options' submenu
below the 'Command' menu or by calling the function 'TeX-engine-set'.
These eventually set the variable 'TeX-engine' which you can also modify
directly.
-- User Option: TeX-engine
This variable allows you to choose which TeX engine should be used
for typesetting the document, i.e. the executables which will be
used when you invoke the 'TeX' or 'LaTeX' commands. The value
should be one of the symbols defined in 'TeX-engine-alist-builtin'
or 'TeX-engine-alist'. The symbols 'default', 'xetex', 'luatex'
and 'omega' are available from the built-in list.
Note that 'TeX-engine' is buffer-local, so setting the variable
directly or via the above mentioned menu or function will not take
effect in other buffers. If you want to activate an engine for all
AUCTeX modes, set 'TeX-engine' in your init file, e.g. by using 'M-x
customize-variable <RET>'. If you want to activate it for a certain
AUCTeX mode only, set the variable in the respective mode hook. If you
want to activate it for certain files, set it through file variables
((emacs)File Variables).
Should you need to change the executable names related to the
different engine settings, there are some variables you can tweak.
Those are 'TeX-command', 'LaTeX-command', 'TeX-Omega-command',
'LaTeX-Omega-command', 'ConTeXt-engine' and 'ConTeXt-Omega-engine'. The
rest of the executables is defined directly in
'TeX-engine-alist-builtin'. If you want to override an entry from that,
add an entry to 'TeX-engine-alist' that starts with the same symbol as
that the entry in the built-in list and specify the executables you want
to use instead. You can also add entries to 'TeX-engine-alist' in order
to add support for engines not covered per default.
-- User Option: TeX-engine-alist
Alist of TeX engines and associated commands. Each entry is a list
with a maximum of five elements. The first element is a symbol
used to identify the engine. The second is a string describing the
engine. The third is the command to be used for plain TeX. The
fourth is the command to be used for LaTeX. The fifth is the
command to be used for the '--engine' parameter of ConTeXt's
'texexec' program. Each command can either be a variable or a
string. An empty string or nil means there is no command
available.
In some systems, Emacs cannot inherit the PATH environment variable
from the shell and thus AUCTeX may not be able to run TeX commands.
Before running them, AUCTeX checks if it able to find those commands and
will warn you in case it fails. You can skip this test by changing the
option 'TeX-check-TeX'.
-- User Option: TeX-check-TeX
If non-nil, AUCTeX will check if it is able to find a working TeX
distribution before running TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, etc. It actually
checks if can run 'TeX-command' command or the shell returns a
command not found error. The error code returned by the shell in
this case can be set in 'TeX-check-TeX-command-not-found' option.
Some LaTeX packages requires the document to be compiled with a
specific engine. Notable examples are fontspec and polyglossia
packages, which require LuaTeX and XeTeX engines. If you try to compile
a document which loads one of such packages and the set engine is not
one of those allowed you will be asked to select a different engine
before running the LaTeX command. If you do not want to be warned by
AUCTeX in these cases, customize the option 'TeX-check-engine'.
-- User Option: TeX-check-engine
This boolean option controls whether AUCTeX should check the
correct engine has been set before running LaTeX commands.
As shown above, AUCTeX handles in a special way most of the main
options that can be given to the TeX processors. When you need to pass
to the TeX processor arbitrary options not handled by AUCTeX, you can
use the file local variable 'TeX-command-extra-options'.
-- User Option: TeX-command-extra-options
String with the extra options to be given to the TeX processor.
For example, if you need to enable the shell escape feature to
compile a document, add the following line to the list of local
variables of the source file:
%%% TeX-command-extra-options: "-shell-escape"
By default this option is not safe as a file-local variable because
a specially crafted document compiled with shell escape enabled can
be used for malicious purposes.
You can customize AUCTeX to show the processor output as it is
produced.
-- User Option: TeX-show-compilation
If non-nil, the output of TeX compilation is shown in another
window.
You can instruct TeX to print error messages in the form
file:line:error which is similar to the way many compilers format them.
-- User Option: TeX-file-line-error
If non-nil, TeX will produce file:line:error style error messages.
ConTeXt users can choose between Mark II and Mark IV versions. This
is controlled by 'ConTeXt-Mark-version' option.
-- User Option: ConTeXt-Mark-version
This variables specifies which version of Mark should be used.
Values currently supported are '"II"', the default, and '"IV"'. It
can be set globally using customization interface or on a per-file
basis, by specifying it as a file variable.
Info Catalog
auctex: Selecting a Command
auctex: Commands