Write LaTeX in VS Code. See a beautiful PDF the moment you save.
LaTeX Studio turns VS Code into a complete LaTeX authoring environment — no TeX install, no command line, no extra setup. Open a .tex file, press Ctrl+K V, and start writing. The real, compiled PDF appears next to your editor and refreshes automatically every time you save.
- Zero setup. The first time you build, LaTeX Studio downloads a self-contained Tectonic engine for your OS. You never have to install TeX Live or MiKTeX, and you never have to manage packages — Tectonic fetches what your document needs on demand.
- What you see is what you ship. The preview shows the actual compiled PDF rendered by PDF.js — not an HTML approximation. Floats, page breaks, microtypography, math, bibliography, and hyperlinks all look exactly like the final document.
- Publication-quality output. Built on the XeTeX engine for full Unicode, system fonts, and OpenType math. Fonts are embedded as vector subsets and PDFs come out clean and print-ready.
- Feels like Markdown preview. Same keybindings (
Ctrl+K V), same side-by-side workflow, same auto-refresh-on-save. If you can use Markdown preview, you already know how to use this. - Stays out of your way. Errors and warnings land in the Problems panel with file + line numbers. The build log is one click away in the Output panel. Build artifacts live in a single
.latex-build/folder you can.gitignore.
- Install LaTeX Studio from the VS Code Marketplace.
- Open any
.texfile. - Press
Ctrl+K V(macOS:Cmd+K V) to open the preview to the side. - Press
Ctrl+Alt+Bto build — or just save. That's it.
First-run heads-up: the first time you build, you'll see a one-time prompt to download the LaTeX engine (~30 MB). Click Download and grab a coffee — it's a one-shot setup. Builds after that are fast and offline. If you'd rather use a TeX distribution you already have installed, see Bring your own engine below.
LaTeX Studio is deliberately small. The actual LaTeX toolchain is downloaded on demand so the extension stays lightweight.
| When | What happens | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Install the extension | Nothing extra is downloaded | ~35 KB | Pure JS, ships from the Marketplace |
| First build(one-time prompt) | Downloads the Tectonic engine for your OS | ~30 MB | Stored inside the extension folder |
| First time a document uses a LaTeX package | Tectonic fetches it from CTAN and caches it locally | varies | Per-user cache, reused across projects |
| Subsequent builds | Fully offline | 0 | No network access |
Behind a corporate proxy or air-gapped? Either configure a system proxy so the first-run downloads can reach github.com and ctan.org, or set latexStudio.engine to xelatex / lualatex / pdflatex to use an existing TeX install instead — nothing extra will be downloaded in that case.
A side-by-side webview shows the actual compiled PDF. Scroll, zoom, fit-to-width, search inside the PDF, and toggle a dark/inverted mode for night writing. The preview re-renders only the pages that changed, so your scroll position is preserved between builds.
Auto-rebuild fires every time you save (toggle off if you prefer). All output — the PDF, log, and intermediates — goes into .latex-build/ next to your root .tex.
The build log is parsed into VS Code's Problems panel with file and line numbers, so failures click straight back to the offending line. The full log is always available via LaTeX: Show Build Log.
Working in a folder with a main.tex and a bunch of chapter files? Drop a magic comment at the top of any sub-file and LaTeX Studio will always compile the right root:
% !TEX root = ../main.texThis is the same convention used by TeXShop and LaTeX Workshop, so existing projects just work.
Tectonic detects biber/bibtex automatically and runs the right number of passes — no latexmk config to babysit.
Snippets for the things you type all day: doc-article, sec, ssec, fig, tab, eq, align, itemize, enumerate, env, texroot. Completion suggestions for \ref, \cite, and \includegraphics file paths.
- Forward search —
Ctrl+Alt+Jjumps the preview to your cursor position. - Inverse search —
Ctrl+Clickanywhere in the PDF jumps the editor to that source line.
Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and type "LaTeX":
| Command | Keybinding |
|---|---|
| LaTeX: Build PDF | Ctrl+Alt+B |
| LaTeX: Open Preview to the Side | Ctrl+K V |
| LaTeX: Jump to PDF (SyncTeX Forward Search) | Ctrl+Alt+J |
| LaTeX: Clean Build Artifacts | — |
| LaTeX: Show Build Log | — |
| LaTeX: Download/Update Tectonic Engine | — |
| LaTeX Studio: Reset Everything (Before Uninstall) | — |
All settings live under latexStudio.* in your VS Code settings.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
latexStudio.engine | tectonic | Engine to compile with: tectonic, xelatex, lualatex, or pdflatex. |
latexStudio.tectonicPath | (empty) | Path to a Tectonic executable to use instead of the bundled one. |
latexStudio.build.onSave | true | Rebuild the PDF every time you save a .tex file. |
latexStudio.build.outputDirectory | .latex-build | Where compiled PDFs and intermediates go (relative to the root .tex). |
latexStudio.preview.invertColors | false | Dark mode for the PDF preview. |
latexStudio.preview.renderScale | 1.5 | Preview render scale, 0.5–3.0. Higher is sharper but uses more memory. |
latexStudio.preview.openOnBuild | true | Open the preview to the side after your first successful build. |
Prefer the TeX distribution you already have? Set latexStudio.engine to xelatex, lualatex, or pdflatex. LaTeX Studio will drive it via latexmk if available. You can also point latexStudio.tectonicPath at a Tectonic binary you maintain yourself.
- On first build, LaTeX Studio downloads the official Tectonic binary from its GitHub releases page.
- Tectonic itself downloads any LaTeX packages your document references from CTAN, into a local cache on your machine.
- No telemetry. No accounts. Your documents never leave your computer.
Run LaTeX Studio: Reset Everything (Before Uninstall) before removing the extension. That command cleans up the downloaded engine and cached state.
This repository contains the extension source under app/. For the architecture and technical design, see Design.md.
See LICENSE (if present in this repository) or the marketplace listing for license terms.
Crafted by Bipul Raman. Made with ♥ for LaTeX.