Research Workflow Guidebook
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Step 3

Settings

After building and previewing seed-document.tex in the previous step, review LaTeX Workshop settings in VS Code on Windows. Change only the settings you need, then check the build and preview again.

Start with command names

Before changing settings, run Build LaTeX project and View LaTeX PDF file from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) to check the current build and preview behavior.

  • Build LaTeX project: build the manuscript
  • View LaTeX PDF file: preview the PDF
  • SyncTeX from cursor: find the cursor position in the PDF
  • Clean up auxiliary files: remove build auxiliary files

If you use a command repeatedly, check its current binding in Keyboard Shortcuts and assign a new combination only when it helps.

Press Ctrl+K, then Ctrl+S to open Keyboard Shortcuts. You can also run Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts from the Command Palette.

VS Code Command Palette showing Preferences Open Keyboard Shortcuts

Enter LaTeX Workshop in the Keyboard Shortcuts search box. Check the listed commands and their current bindings, then choose one to change.

VS Code Keyboard Shortcuts filtered to LaTeX Workshop commands

Promote repeat actions

Check the existing binding first. Choose one frequently used command without a convenient shortcut and assign a new one.

For example, add environment to the search box to show LaTeX Workshop commands whose names contain that word.

LaTeX Workshop shortcuts filtered by the word environment

Select the command, press the desired key combination in the shortcut input, then press Enter to save it.

VS Code Keyboard Shortcuts view with one command selected for keybinding entry

SyncTeX from cursor jumps from the source cursor to the corresponding PDF position. On Windows, try its default shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+J; search for the command in Keyboard Shortcuts if you want to change it.

VS Code Keyboard Shortcuts view showing LaTeX Workshop SyncTeX from cursor command

Find your settings files

On Windows, press Ctrl+Shift+P and run Preferences: Open User Settings from the Command Palette. User settings apply to all your VS Code projects.

VS Code Command Palette showing Preferences Open User Settings

To apply a setting only to this project, run Preferences: Open Workspace Settings from the Command Palette. To open the JSON file directly, run Preferences: Open Workspace Settings (JSON). VS Code stores it in the project’s .vscode/settings.json, and it takes precedence over user settings.

To edit settings.json directly, run Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) from the Command Palette. For the default Windows profile, the file is at %APPDATA%\Code\User\settings.json.

Windows File Explorer opened to the VS Code Code User folder

settings.json stores user settings, and keybindings.json stores customized shortcuts. When using the linked settings example repository, add only the entries you need to your current files.

Settings example repository
Windows File Explorer showing settings and keybindings files inside the VS Code user folder

Useful defaults

Check LaTeX Workshop’s defaults first. The options below control building, PDF preview, and auxiliary-file cleanup.

Enter LaTeX Workshop in the Settings search box. Use the User tab for values shared across your projects and the Workspace tab for values specific to this project.

VS Code Settings filtered to LaTeX Workshop extension settings
  • latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run: defaults to onFileChange; use onSave to build when saving
  • latex-workshop.view.pdf.viewer: defaults to tab
  • latex-workshop.latex.autoClean.run: defaults to never
  • latex-workshop.latex.recipe.default: defaults to first

Example settings

To build when you save a .tex file, add the following entry inside the User or Workspace settings.json object you chose above. Keep your other settings in place.

{
  "latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run": "onSave"
}

Add a short test phrase to the body of seed-document.tex and save it. Check that LaTeX Workshop builds automatically and the phrase appears in the PDF preview, then remove the phrase and save again.

Image preview