The l2h help pages   © Leon van Dommelen 
The latest version of this document is online at eng.famu.fsu.edu or at dommelen.net.

LaTeX Editors

Introduction

L2h will work with a generic text editor like Notepad (Windows) or gedit (Unix). I recommend that initially you use such an editor to get a basic understanding of LaTeX itself. Something more sophisticated just adds another level of complexity.

However, after you have some basic understanding of LaTeX, there are much better choices. I particularly like TeXstudio at the time of writing. (Personally I use emacs instead, but I would not recommend that to a general audience.) An editor like TeXstudio can speed up document creation, cut down on errors, give help, and provide extras like spell and grammar checking.

Note that to properly create web pages, there are some additional requirements for your LaTeX documents that these editors are not aware of. But if you start off with a l2h example document, there should not be a problem. If necessary, check your LaTeX file index.tex against the examples index1.txt, index2.txt, index3.txt, index4.txt, index5.txt, and index6.txt. Copy and paste whatever is missing into your index.tex. (Your LaTeX source must be called index.tex, that is an l2h quirk.)

Using LyX with l2h

LyX does not produce standard LaTeX source files, but so-called lyx files. These do not work with l2h. Even if you export to LaTeX format, you may have trouble making the document suitable for turning into web pages with l2h. I also find LyX hard to use properly, despite the WYSIWIG-like interface.

Using TeXmaker

I find TeXmaker to be a nice LaTeX editor. You can use it to create the pdf version of your document, and use l2h only for the web pages.

If you want to use TeXmaker with l2h, there is one critical step. You will need to copy the files inside the texinputs folder of l2h in with your document. (Do not copy the folder itself, just the files in it.) (Alternatively, you can start TeXmaker from the terminal inside l2h. Or copy the files from texinputs to inside your latex search path and run mktexlsr.)

Further, TeXmaker assumes by default that you are using pdfLaTeX as your setup. Now when you run l2h in a folder without an index.tex file, l2h will give you a choice of template index.tex files. Two of these are set up to use pdfLaTeX to create pdf files, and LaTeX to create web pages. These two will work fine, but it means that you must have both a noneps and an eps version of each graphic. (pdfLaTeX at this time has problems creating correct web page images.)

You can however configure TeXmaker to use the so-called DVI-PS-PDF route that does work with eps graphics. So then you need only an eps version of each graphic. To do so (at the time of writing), go into the "Options" menu and select "Configure TeXmaker". Then select the "Quick Build" icon. The default is "pdfLaTeX + View PDF", but select instead the "Latex + dvips + View PS" option.

After doing the above, make sure your version of index.tex is one that has eps graphics. Your index.tex should follow the general set up of index1.txt (book) or index2.txt (journal paper).

Note that if you use the Greek/nonWestern European templates, index5.txt (book) or index6.txt (journal paper), you do not want to change the settings of TeXmaker this way. You may instead want to set up TeXmaker to use XeLaTeX. Now you will need to provide a pdf version of each graphic. (No eps is needed here.) To make web pages, at the time of writing XeLaTeX only works with pdf graphics, and pdfLaTeX does not work correctly with any graphics. In fact, I find even XeLaTeX to be somewhat buggy at this time. (However, if you write in these languages, you do not seem to have much choice, realistically speaking.) One problem with TeXmaker is that it does not seem to have the capability of inserting unicode characters directly.

Using TeXstudio

I find TeXstudio to be a very nice LaTeX editor. You can use it to create the pdf version of your document, and use l2h only for the web pages.

Warning: At the time of writing it appears that TeXstudio will not load if there are spaces in the path name. For example, if you name the document folder "hope for the best", you may have to do so.

If you want to use TeXstudio with l2h, there is one critical step. You will need to copy the files inside the texinputs folder of l2h in with your document. (Do not copy the folder itself, just the files in it.) (Alternatively, you can start TeXstudio from the terminal inside l2h. Or copy the files from texinputs to inside your latex search path and run mktexlsr.)

Further, TeXstudio assumes by default that you are using pdfLaTeX as your setup. Now when you run l2h in a folder without an index.tex file, l2h will give you a choice of template index.tex files. Two of these are set up to use pdfLaTeX to create pdf files, and LaTeX to create web pages. These two will work fine, but it means that you must have both a noneps and an eps version of each graphic. (pdfLaTeX at this time has problems creating correct web page images.)

You can however configure TeXstudio to use the so-called DVI-PS-PDF route that does work with eps graphics. So then you need only an eps version of each graphic. To do so (at the time of writing), go into the "Options" menu and select "Configure TeXstudio". Then select "Build", then set "Build & View" to "DVI->PS->PDF" chain.

After doing the above, make sure your version of index.tex is one that has eps graphics. Your index.tex should follow the general set up of index1.txt (book) or index2.txt (journal paper).

Note that if you use the Greek/nonWestern European templates, index5.txt (book) or index6.txt (journal paper), you do not want to change the settings of TeXstudio this way. You may instead want to set up TeXstudio to use XeLaTeX. Now you will need to provide a pdf version of each graphic. (No eps is needed here.) To make web pages, at the time of writing XeLaTeX only works with pdf graphics, and pdfLaTeX does not work correctly with any graphics. In fact, I find even XeLaTeX to be somewhat buggy at this time. (However, if you write in these languages, you do not seem to have much choice, realistically speaking.)

Using TeXworks

TeXworks is included with full versions of LaTeX. It seems to be a good editor to use, but I have not give it much testing. One problem is that it does not seem to have the capability of inserting unicode characters directly.

 Index   Intro to LaTeX