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AUCTeX

This manual is for AUCTeX (version 12.3 from 2020-10-10), a sophisticated TeX environment for Emacs.

Copyright © 1992-1995, 2001, 2002, 2004-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License."

AUCTeX is an integrated environment for editing LaTeX, ConTeXt, docTeX, Texinfo, and TeX files.

Although AUCTeX contains a large number of features, there are no reasons to despair. You can continue to write TeX and LaTeX documents the way you are used to, and only start using the multiple features in small steps. AUCTeX is not monolithic, each feature described in this manual is useful by itself, but together they provide an environment where you will make very few LaTeX errors, and makes it easy to find the errors that may slip through anyway.

It is a good idea to make a printout of AUCTeX’s reference card ‘tex-ref.tex’ or one of its typeset versions.

If you want to make AUCTeX aware of style files and multi-file documents right away, insert the following in your ‘.emacs’ file.

(setq TeX-auto-save t)
(setq TeX-parse-self t)
(setq-default TeX-master nil)

Another thing you should enable is RefTeX, a comprehensive solution for managing cross references, bibliographies, indices, document navigation and a few other things. (see (reftex)Installation section ‘Installation’ in The RefTeX manual)

For detailed information about the preview-latex subsystem of AUCTeX, see (preview-latex)Top section ‘Introduction’ in The preview-latex Manual.

There is a mailing list for general discussion about AUCTeX: write a mail with “subscribe" in the subject to auctex-request@gnu.org to join it. Send contributions to auctex@gnu.org.

Bug reports should go to bug-auctex@gnu.org, suggestions for new features, and pleas for help should go to either auctex-devel@gnu.org (the AUCTeX developers), or to auctex@gnu.org if they might have general interest. Please use the command M-x TeX-submit-bug-report RET to report bugs if possible. You can subscribe to a low-volume announcement list by sending “subscribe" in the subject of a mail to info-auctex-request@gnu.org.

• Copying  
• Introduction  Introduction to AUCTeX
• Editing  Editing the Document Source
• Display  Controlling Screen Display
• Processing  Starting Processors, Viewers and Other Programs
• Customization  Customization and Extension
• Appendices  Copying, Changes, Development, FAQ, Texinfo mode
• Indices  

| — The Detailed Node Listing — Introduction

| | | | [• Summary](/docs/auctex/Summary) |    | Overview of AUCTeX | | [• Installation](/docs/auctex/Installation) |    | Installing AUCTeX | | [• Quick Start](/docs/auctex/Quick-Start) |    | | | Editing the Document Source | | | | [• Quotes](/docs/auctex/Quotes) |    | Inserting double quotes | | [• Font Specifiers](/docs/auctex/Font-Specifiers) |    | Inserting Font Specifiers | | [• Sectioning](/docs/auctex/Sectioning) |    | Inserting chapters, sections, etc. | | [• Environments](/docs/auctex/Environments) |    | Inserting Environment Templates | | [• Mathematics](/docs/auctex/Mathematics) |    | Entering Mathematics | | [• Completion](/docs/auctex/Completion) |    | Completion of macros | | [• Commenting](/docs/auctex/Commenting) |    | Commenting text | | [• Indenting](/docs/auctex/Indenting) |    | Reflecting syntactic constructs with whitespace | | [• Filling](/docs/auctex/Filling) |    | Automatic and manual line breaking | | Inserting Environment Templates | | | | [• Equations](/docs/auctex/Equations) |    | | | [• Floats](/docs/auctex/Floats) |    | | | [• Itemize-like](/docs/auctex/Itemize_002dlike) |    | Itemize-like Environments | | [• Tabular-like](/docs/auctex/Tabular_002dlike) |    | Tabular-like Environments | | [• Customizing Environments](/docs/auctex/Customizing-Environments) |    | | | Controlling Screen Display | | | | [• Font Locking](/docs/auctex/Font-Locking) |    | | | [• Folding](/docs/auctex/Folding) |    | Folding Macros and Environments | | [• Outline](/docs/auctex/Outline) |    | Outlining the Document | | [• Narrowing](/docs/auctex/Narrowing) |    | Restricting display and editing to a portion of the buffer | | [• Prettifying](/docs/auctex/Prettifying) |    | Displaying Greek and math macros as Unicode characters | | Font Locking | | | | [• Fontification of macros](/docs/auctex/Fontification-of-macros) |    | | | [• Fontification of quotes](/docs/auctex/Fontification-of-quotes) |    | | | [• Fontification of math](/docs/auctex/Fontification-of-math) |    | Fontification of math constructs | | [• Verbatim content](/docs/auctex/Verbatim-content) |    | Verbatim macros and environments | | [• Faces](/docs/auctex/Faces) |    | Faces used by font-latex | | [• Known problems](/docs/auctex/Known-problems) |    | Known fontification problems | | Starting Processors, Viewers and Other Programs | | | | [• Commands](/docs/auctex/Commands) |    | Invoking external commands. | | [• Viewing](/docs/auctex/Viewing) |    | Invoking external viewers. | | [• Debugging](/docs/auctex/Debugging) |    | Debugging TeX and LaTeX output. | | [• Checking](/docs/auctex/Checking) |    | Checking the document. | | [• Control](/docs/auctex/Control) |    | Controlling the processes. | | [• Cleaning](/docs/auctex/Cleaning) |    | Cleaning intermediate and output files. | | [• Documentation](/docs/auctex/Documentation) |    | Documentation about macros and packages. | | Viewing the Formatted Output | | | | [• Starting Viewers](/docs/auctex/Starting-Viewers) |    | Starting viewers | | [• I/O Correlation](/docs/auctex/I_002fO-Correlation) |    | Forward and inverse search | | Catching the errors | | | | [• Ignoring warnings](/docs/auctex/Ignoring-warnings) |    | Controlling warnings to be reported | | [• Error overview](/docs/auctex/Error-overview) |    | List of all errors and warnings | | Customization and Extension | | | | [• Multifile](/docs/auctex/Multifile) |    | Multifile Documents | | [• Parsing Files](/docs/auctex/Parsing-Files) |    | Automatic Parsing of TeX Files | | [• Internationalization](/docs/auctex/Internationalization) |    | Language Support | | [• Automatic](/docs/auctex/Automatic) |    | Automatic Customization | | [• Style Files](/docs/auctex/Style-Files) |    | Writing Your Own Style Support | | Language Support | | | | [• European](/docs/auctex/European) |    | Using AUCTeX with European Languages | | [• Japanese](/docs/auctex/Japanese) |    | Using AUCTeX with Japanese | | Automatic Customization | | | | [• Automatic Global](/docs/auctex/Automatic-Global) |    | Automatic Customization for the Site | | [• Automatic Private](/docs/auctex/Automatic-Private) |    | Automatic Customization for a User | | [• Automatic Local](/docs/auctex/Automatic-Local) |    | Automatic Customization for a Directory | | Writing Your Own Style Support | | | | [• Simple Style](/docs/auctex/Simple-Style) |    | A Simple Style File | | [• Adding Macros](/docs/auctex/Adding-Macros) |    | Adding Support for Macros | | [• Adding Environments](/docs/auctex/Adding-Environments) |    | Adding Support for Environments | | [• Adding Other](/docs/auctex/Adding-Other) |    | Adding Other Information | | [• Hacking the Parser](/docs/auctex/Hacking-the-Parser) |    | Automatic Extraction of New Things | | Copying, Changes, Development, FAQ | | | | [• Copying this Manual](/docs/auctex/Copying-this-Manual) |    | | | [• Changes](/docs/auctex/Changes) |    | | | [• Development](/docs/auctex/Development) |    | | | [• FAQ](/docs/auctex/FAQ) |    | | | [• Texinfo mode](/docs/auctex/Texinfo-mode) |    | | | Copying this Manual | | | | [• GNU Free Documentation License](/docs/auctex/GNU-Free-Documentation-License) |    | License for copying this manual. | | Indices | | | | [• Key Index](/docs/auctex/Key-Index) |    | | | [• Function Index](/docs/auctex/Function-Index) |    | | | [• Variable Index](/docs/auctex/Variable-Index) |    | | | [• Concept Index](/docs/auctex/Concept-Index) |    | | | | | |