Basic modes of operation

preview-latex has a number of methods for generating its graphics. Its default operation is equivalent to using the ‘LaTeX’ command from AUCTeX. If this happens to be a call of PDFLaTeX generating PDF output (you need at least AUCTeX 11.51 for this), then Ghostscript will be called directly on the resulting PDF file. If a DVI file gets produced, first Dvips and then Ghostscript get called by default.

The image type to be generated by Ghostscript can be configured with

M-x customize-option RET preview-image-type RET

The default is ‘png’ (the most efficient image type). A special setting is ‘dvipng’ in case you have the ‘dvipng’ program installed. In this case, ‘dvipng’ will be used for converting DVI files and Ghostscript (with a ‘PNG’ device) for converting PDF files. ‘dvipng’ is much faster than the combination of Dvips and Ghostscript. ‘dvipng’ is included in standard TeX Live distribution.