Prerequisites ​

  • GNU Emacs 28.1 or higher

    Using preview-latex requires a version of Emacs compiled with image support.

    Windows ​

    Precompiled versions are available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/.

    macOS ​

    For an overview of precompiled versions of Emacs for macOS see for example https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS.

    GNU/Linux ​

    Most GNU/Linux distributions nowadays provide a recent variant of Emacs via their package repositories.

    Self-compiled ​

    Compiling Emacs yourself requires a C compiler and a number of tools and development libraries. Details are beyond the scope of this manual. Instructions for checking out the source code can be found at https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=emacs.

  • A working TeX installation

    Well, AUCTeX would be pointless without that. preview-latex requires Dvips or dvipng for its operation in DVI mode. The default configuration of AUCTeX is tailored for TeX Live-based distributions, but can be adapted easily.

  • A recent Ghostscript

    This is needed for operation of preview-latex in both DVI and PDF mode. Ghostscript version 7.07 or newer is required.

For some known issues with various software, see Known problems in the preview-latex manual.