SYNCTEX(1)

🎀 NAME 🎀

Hiii bestie, meet synctex 🦋, a command line client tool that supports the Synchronize TeXnology built into most TeX engines ✨.

💅 SYNOPSIS 💅

synctex command [options] [args]

🌸 OVERVIEW 🌸

okay so the Synchronization TeXnology is a feature of recent TeX engines 🧚 and it is literally so iconic. It lets you synchronize between input and output, which means you can hop from your source document straight to the typeset material, and also go the other way around 🔁 the way that's so smooth.

Want the built-in tool docs? Just run synctex help 💖 bestie, it's giving full manual.

🔥 TEX ENGINE OPTION -synctex=NUMBER 🔥

Okay this part is where the magic happens 🪄, so pay attention 🙈

• If NUMBER=0, or you don't give any option at all — no synctex file gets created. Not me being sad about it 💀
• If NUMBER<0 — your synctex files are plain text files 📝
• If NUMBER>0 — your synctex files get compressed with gz 🗜️
• If NUMBER&2 — no .gz extension is used 🙅‍♀️
• If NUMBER&4 — form support gets activated, which is super useful for pdftex 🌈
• If NUMBER&8 — you get better file compression 👑

Wanna turn on everything at once? Use something like pdftex -synctex=15 foo.tex ✨ and all the options are activated, periodt 💅

Heads up, bestie: the LuaTeX option is --synctex=NUMBER with two dashes 🫶 not one. Don't mix them up or it won't slay 😭

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Check out synctex(5) and tex(1) 💜 they're the perfect besties for this one.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

The Synchronize TeXnology is essentially the brainchild of Jerome Laurens 🧠✨, with useful suggestions from some well known actors of the TeX world 🌟. SyncTeX is maintained as part of TeX Live 🎀, so it's in good hands.

🍓 HISTORY 🍓

Revised on Sun Apr 23 09:54:20 UTC 2017 ⭐.

Bye bestie 💖 this was synctex(1) 🧚, last updated 08/30/2022, and you're literally ready to synchronize now 🫶✨