The following is a comparison of TeX editors.
Table of editors[edit]
WYSIWYG Web Builder is not available for Mac but there are plenty of alternatives that runs on macOS with similar functionality. The most popular Mac alternative is Pinegrow Web Editor. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Bluefish Editor or Komodo Edit. I give up on WYSIWYG editors a while back. I tried to create one browser based back in 2014, same time I meet my friends at Webflow (they have been doing great work btw, check them out). The smartest and world's most beautiful WYSIWYG rich text editor. High performance and simple design make our JS text editor easy to use for developers and loved by users. The best real-time online HTML editor software kit with dynamic instant live visual preview and inline WYSIWYG editor.
Name | Editing style[Note 1] | Native operating systems | Latest stable version | Costs | License | Configurable | Integrated viewer |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AUCTeX | Source | Linux, macOS, Windows | (2019-10-30) 12.2 | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes |
Authorea | Source / partial-WYSIWYG | Online | N/A | Free | Proprietary | Yes | Yes |
Auto-Latex Equations for Google Docs | Source[Note 2] | Online | (2020-04-06) 48 | Free | Free | Yes | Yes |
CoCalc | Source | Online | N/A | Free | AGPL | Yes | Yes |
GNOME LaTeX | Source | Linux | (2019-03-10) 3.32 | Free | GPL | Yes | No |
Gummi | Source | Linux | (2020-01-26) 0.8.1 | Free | MIT | Yes | Yes (Live update) |
Kile | Source | Linux (macOS, Windows)[Note 3] | (2012-09-23) 2.1.3 | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes (Quick preview) |
LEd | Source | Windows | (2009-10-09) 0.53 | Free | Proprietary | ? | Yes (dvi) |
LyX | WYSIWYM | Linux, macOS, Windows | (2019-06-25) 2.3.3 | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes |
MeWa | Source | Windows | (2007-06-06) 1.4.0 | Free | GPL | Yes | No |
Notepad++ | Source | Windows | (2019-10-29) 7.8.1 | Free | GPL | Yes | No, but can be integrated [Note 4] |
Overleaf | Source | Online | N/A | Free | Unclear | Yes | Yes |
Scientific WorkPlace | WYSIWYM | Windows | (2016-02-23) 6.0.12 | Non-free | Proprietary | Yes | Yes |
TexLab | Source-WYSIWYG | Windows | (2019-04-30) 7.8 | Free | Free | Yes | Yes |
TeXmacs | WYSIWYG | Linux, macOS, Windows | (2020-11-2) 1.99.16 | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes |
Texmaker | Source | Linux, macOS, Windows | (2018-11-01) 5.0.3 | Free | GPL2 | Yes | Yes |
TeXnicCenter | Source | Windows | 2.02 Stable (September 29, 2013) [±] | Free | GPL | Yes | No |
TeXShop | Source | macOS | (2019-10-23) 4.44 | Free | GPL | Yes | Yes |
TeXstudio | Source | Linux, Windows, macOS | (2020-09-01) 3.0.1 | Free | GPL2 | Yes | Yes (pdf, selection with dvi2png) |
TeXworks | Source | Linux, macOS, Windows | (2019-03) 0.6.3 | Free | GPL | No | Yes (pdf) |
Verbosus | Source | Online, Android, iOS | (2016-05-06) 4.1.3 | Free | Proprietary | Yes | Yes (pdf) |
WinEdt | Source | Windows | (2018-05-07) 10.3 | Non-free | Proprietary | Yes | No |
WinShell | Source | Windows | (2013-02-10) 3.3.2.6 | Free | Proprietary | Yes | No |
Name | Editing Style | Native Operating Systems | Latest stable version | Costs | License | Configurable | Integrated viewer |
Inverse search[Note 5] | DDE support[Note 6] | Organises Projects | Menu for inserting symbols | Document comparison | Spell-checking | Multiple undo-redo | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AUCTeX | Yes | No | Partial (master file) | Yes | Yes | Yes[Note 7] | Yes |
Authorea | Yes | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Auto-Latex Equations for Google Docs | Yes | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
CoCalc | Yes | N/A | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
GNOME LaTeX | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Gummi | Yes | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Kile | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
LEd | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
LyX | Yes | ? | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
MeWa | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Notepad++ | Yes, with SumatraPDF | Yes, with a DDE client | Yes | Partial[Note 8] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Overleaf | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Scientific WorkPlace | N/A | ? | ? | Yes | No | Yes | No (one level) |
TexLab | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
TeXmacs | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Texmaker | Yes | No | Partial (master file) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
TeXnicCenter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
TeXShop | Yes | No | No | Yes[Note 9] | No | Yes | Yes |
TeXstudio | Yes | Yes | Partial (master file) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TeXworks | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes[Note 10] | Yes |
Verbosus | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
WinEdt | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
WinShell | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Inverse search | DDE Support | Organises Projects | Menu for inserting symbols | Document comparison | Spell-checking | Multiple undo-redo |
Name | Collapsible sections | Find and replace using RegEx | Intelligenterror handling | Autocompletion of LaTeX commands | Parenthesis matching | Starts up to previous state[Note 11] | Unicode support | RTL Support[Note 12] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AUCTeX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[Note 13] | Yes | Yes |
Authorea | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Auto-Latex Equations for Google Docs | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | ? |
CoCalc | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
GNOME LaTeX | Planned | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | (just same files) | Yes | Yes |
Gummi | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | ? |
Kile | Yes[Note 14] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LEd | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No (just same files) | No | ? |
LyX | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
MeWa | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | ? |
Notepad++ | Yes | Yes | No | Partial[Note 15] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Overleaf | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Scientific WorkPlace | No | ? | ? | N/A | Yes | No | Yes | ? |
TexLab | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
TeXmacs | No | Yes | N/A | N/A | N/A | No | Yes | ? |
Texmaker | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TeXnicCenter | since v2.0 | since v2.0 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | since v2.0 | ? |
TeXShop | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
TeXstudio | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TeXworks | No | Yes[Note 16] | No | Yes[Note 17] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Verbosus | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? |
WinEdt | Yes | Yes (modified) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
WinShell | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (just same files) | Yes | ? |
Name | Collapsible sections | Find and replace using RegEx | Intelligenterror handling | Autocompletion of LaTeX commands | Parenthesis matching | Starts up to previous state[Note 18] | Unicode support | RTL Support[Note 19] |
Editor | Screenshot |
---|---|
LyX | Screenshot |
Texmaker | Screenshot of Texmaker version 4.5 |
TexLab | TeXLab Screenshot |
TeXstudio | Screenshot of TeXstudio (2.12.6) |
Editor | Screenshot |
See also[edit]
Notes and references[edit]
- ^'Source' means you see and edit the TeX source files. 'WYSIWYM' = What You See Is What You Mean, i.e. you see and edit formatted text. WYSIWYG means that see the output file automatically updated during the edit. Note that some PDF viewers (e.g. evince) automatically reload the PDF document when it is updated on the disk. So, any 'source' TeX editor can be turned into partial WYSIWYG editor by opening such a reader in an adjacent window.
- ^Not a full TeX editor. Only limited to math expressions only.
- ^Support for non-linux systems considered experimental.
- ^Notepad++ can execute Tex viewers
- ^Inverse search means that one can locate the relevant part of the source code from the viewer (e.g., double-clicking in dvi or pdf file brings up the appropriate line/paragraph in the latex code)
- ^On Windows some pdf viewers like Sumatra PDF or Adobe Reader don't use command line arguments for forward search, but the editor sends the document position to them using Dynamic Data Exchange
- ^Requires installation of extra package.
- ^A plug-in is required.
- ^LaTeX panel & Matrix panel
- ^Requires installation of extra package
- ^Starts up to previous state including the current editing point.
- ^RTL support means Right to Left language support.
- ^configurable as an option of the Emacs editor
- ^With usual section{} notation, Kile collapses equations and figures, but not sections. Collapsing of sections is possible with non-standard notation begin{section}{}...end{section}{}, but it eliminates sections from Structure View. An alternative possibility is bracketing sections with comments %BEGIN and %END.
- ^This will have to be set up manually.
- ^Provides a subset of the regular expression syntax implemented in the Perl scripting language, but fully supports Unicode ( Issue 194: Add advanced regexp options to Find/Replace )
- ^Template file in resource directory ( Documentation of the code completion feature )
- ^Starts up to previous state including the current editing point.
- ^RTL support means Right to Left language support.