vim-latex installation confusion

Question

I am a long time user of latex and I have been searching for a good editor to use it with. I have been using TexStudio but recently I feel I need the no distractions feel of using vim. So I stumbled upon vim-latex and here is where my problems started.

I went on their site and followed the instructions but I don't think they are complete or clear enough. I copied everything as per instructions but I can't make it work. Then there is the problem of usage. How does one use vim-latex? Is there a command, a key press?

Is vim-latex the best option for using latex in vim? Or should I look elsewhere?

Cheers

Edit: The details

1) Downloaded the archive from here

2) Unpacked the archive and ended up with a dir called vim-latex-1.10.0 which I then copied to my .vim dir 3) Then I went and did the changes in the .vimrc file, but I had to stop at the tex.vim because it wasn't where the instructions said it was supposed to be.

4) I started vim regardless and issued the helptags ~/.vim/doc command which didn't work. The output was E150: Not a directory: ~/.vim/doc

5) Regarding compilation: I know about reading the manuals and I usually do, but this particular one is not very clear at least to a noob like me when it comes to vim. Here is what it says at

Setting Compilation rules:

"In order to compile LaTeX files into various formats, Latex-Suite needs to know which external programs to call and in which way they need to be called. This information is provided to Latex-Suite via a number of "rules". For each format you want to compile to, you need to specify a rule. A rule is specified by defining a variable of the form:"

Where do you put these rules?

Now what should I do?

Answer 1

Installation into a Vim 8 packpath and an example vimrc

1. ❯ git clone https://github.com/vim-latex/vim-latex ~/.vim/pack/my_latex_plugins/start/vim-latex

2. Typically, you want at least following settings in your vimrc

   ❯ cat ~/.vim/vimrc
   filetype plugin on
   filetype indent on
   let g:tex_flavor='latex'
   

A minimal installation would look like visualized with tree:

~/.vim
❯ tree -L 5
.
├── pack
│   └── my_latex_plugins
│       └── start
│           └── vim-latex
│               ├── Makefile
│               ├── Makefile.in
│               ├── README.md
│               ├── compiler
│               ├── doc
│               ├── ftplugin
│               ├── indent
│               ├── latextags
│               ├── ltags
│               ├── plugin
│               └── vim-latex.metainfo.xml
└── vimrc

Mini Tutorial: Compile a Hello World in LaTeX to pdf

Create a new file with extension tex as following

❯ vim demo.tex

switch to insert mode (type i) and type

EDO

This will trigger a snippet and the buffer should now look like:

You can jump around with <C-j> to adjust the placeholders <++> for the documentclass options, the documentclass and begin typing the document:

I entered a Hello World equivalent for LaTeX with

<Backspace> + <C-j> + article + <C-j> + Hello World! which gives you:

Now press :w for saving the file and start compilation with <leader>ll. This is by default \ll. Note these are lower case L (not \11). Right now this starts latex on windows/linux which generates a dvi file (on a mac pdflatex is called by default). To get immediately a pdf on windows/linux, you have to configure vim-latex a little bit more. But first you should get acquainted with the manual of vim-latex:

In order to read the manual of vim-latex, you need to run

:helptags ALL

or

:helptags ~/.vim/pack/my_latex_plugins/start/vim-latex/doc 

to generate a so-called tags file so vim can find the manual.

You can now open the manual with :h latex-suite (not :h vim-latex).

There is a second help file, the quickstart tutorial under

:h latex-suite-quickstart

As a beginner you should take the time (30-40 min.) to go through the quickstart tutorial. It covers the basics of this feature rich plugin.

The settings for adjusting the compilation can be found under :h customizing-compiling which will tell you about

g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat                                  *ls_11_6_1* *ls_a_dF*
                                                       *Tex_DefaultTargetFormat*


Type             String
Default Value    dvi for windows/*nix and pdf for mac

Use this setting to choose the default target format. For example, setting this
to pdf makes Latex-Suite compile a pdf file when you press \ll and fire up the
pdf viewer on pressing \lv. Make sure that a rules for compiling and viewing
have been defined for this target format as described here [|ls_a_dG|] and here
[|ls_a_dO|].

So on windows/linux you have to add following line to your vimrc to compile directly to pdf:

let g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat = 'pdf'

I am on a mac where 'pdf' is already the default.

More questions about installation of vim-latex

If this answer does not help, consider also following questions with answers:

• https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/112698/how-to-install-vim-latex (detailed answer about installing with pathogen (useful for vim7 user))
• Problems in installing vim-latex (manual installation with explanation that the extracted folder has to be merged with ~/.vim; however, merging with ~/.vim is not recommended: if you have vim8, use packpath (this answer); if you have vim7, use pathogen; or if you want an actual plugin manager, see What is the difference between the vim plugin managers? to choose one for yourself)