Syncing between PDF and LaTeX Source in the Editor
This article concerns the
Windows
app.
See other variants:
macOS
iOS

Texifier allows you to synchronise your LaTeX source with the output PDF. There are two ways you may choose to do so, a a one-off sync and a continuous scroll lock.

The data that enables syncing

Texifier relies on the data generated by a tool called SyncTeX supplied by the underlying typesetter to sync between he PDF and the LaTeX source. SyncTeX is a technology built into recent TeX typesetters. It generates the information necessary to convert a position in the typeset PDF with a position in the editor source.

  • For Texifier’s live typesetter TexpadTeX, this data is a by-product of the typeset process and is made available to the sync process when needed. TexpadTeX does not write this data to the disk in order to save time and resources.

  • For external typesetters, such as TeXLive on macOS and our cloud typesetters on iOS, this information is stored as an intermediate file with a .synctex.gz extension in the same folder as the root file. The cloud typesetters are set up to generate and return from the cloud server the corresponding .synctex.gz file with each typeset. Locally, on macOS or Windows, if your TeX distribution supports SyncTeX, Texifier will typeset the project with SyncTeX option automatically on to enable the sync. On macOS, MacTeX has had SyncTeX built in since 2008 so it is overwhelmingly likely that your distribution supports SyncTeX.

As Texifier relies on the sync data produced by the underlying typesetter and ultimately the included packages themselves, it may not always be possible to match the two sides perfectly. We are continually improving the matching system and Texifier users will continue to see improvements as a result over time.

Also note that, SyncTeX is not compatible with all LaTeX document classes; Beamer, for example, often causes trouble.

The Windows variant of this article will be updated in due course. To try out Texifier for Windows before it is publicly released, please sign up for a beta.