Michael Neuper has a very nice article on Efficient LaTeX Editing With Emacs. As far as I know, there’s only two reasonable ways of doing that:
- Org Mode
- AUCTeX
Org mode is good for what might be called “light weight” LaTeX. If there’s a minimum of mathematics and special formatting, Org is ideal. Its simple markup is easy to learn and you don’t to need to worry about the more difficult LaTeX syntax. The result is exported to LaTeX so you can add LaTeX formatting as needed and the resulting PDF is still produced by LaTeX so you get the beautiful typesetting that the TeX family promises.
If you need more heavy duty mathematics and formatting, it’s hard to beat AUCTeX. It is, after all, purpose built for writing LaTeX inside Emacs. Neuper concentrates on AUCTeX and shows how to augment it to obtain an efficient LaTeX writing environment.
For AUCTeX itself, he starts by showing how to get a live preview within Emacs. If you’re like me and like to see how the output of a long document is progressing as you write, this is a Godsend. A couple of keystrokes and the current document appears right there in a separate Emacs window. What could be better?
He also looks at using special symbols (in the LaTeX source) and folding. I don’t think those are as important as live preview but some may find them useful.
His next addition is CDLaTeX, which I’ve written about before. It provides some shortcuts for entering LaTeX commands and symbols. It’s also usable inside Org—or anywhere in Emacs, really—so it’s definitely worth knowing about if you write LaTeX, even in Org.
Next he looks at using LatexMK and LSP. Most TeX/LaTeX users know about using LatexMK to make sure forward references are resolved. I didn’t know there was as LSP engine for LaTeX but apparently there is. If you care about such things, Neuper shows you how to set it up.
Xenops is a package that I haven’t heard of before. It basically serves as a sort of in place replacement for live preview. Take a look at the animated GIF in Neuper’s post for a demonstration.
Finally, he considers YASnippet and Calc. Both of these are able to expand some simple text into more complicated LaTeX. The Calc example—also illustrated with an animated GIF—is especially revealing. I vaguely knew you could do this sort of thing but I’ve never seen it in action before. Very nice and very powerful.
If you write in LaTeX at all it’s definitely worth your while to take a look at Neuper’s post.