Frequently asked questions




Question 1. How can I see the LaTeX or TeX code corresponding to what I see on the screen?

Answer. This question is due to a fundamental misunderstanding about TeXmacs. Indeed, TeXmacs is not based on TeX/LaTeX, although it does support (not yet perfect) conversion to and from LaTeX. Furthermore, in theory at least, there is actually no need anymore to look at something like the TeX source, since TeXmacs is guaranteed to be fully WYSIWYG. Conversion to LaTeX may only be useful, when transmitting an accepted paper to the publisher of a journal.

Question 2. Why don't you use a common graphical user interface like GTK for your scrollbars, menus, and so on ?

Answer. When I started to develop TeXmacs about four years ago, the common graphical user interfaces were not as good as nowadays. Moreover, I wanted the GUI to support some special features, like TeX fonts in the menus. Nevertheless, now that graphical user interfaces did become much better, I plan to switch to guile-gtk as soon as possible. Using Guile-gtk in combination with TeXmacs has three main advantages:
  1. One has full access to the GTK widget set, which includes menus, scrollable windows, file choosers, iconbars, etc.
  2. Guile-gtk provides you with a very flexible and customizable way to use these widgets.
  3. The incorporation of Guile-gtk in TeXmacs should be natural, since TeXmacs already supports the Guile/Scheme extension language.


A more complete list of frequently asked questions is in progress...
Do not hesisate to ask questions about TeXmacs yourself!