I see that many people use these settings:
"args": [
"-synctex=1",
"--shell-escape",
"-interaction=nonstopmode",
"%DOCFILE%"
Can anyone explain what these arguments mean and do?
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MS-SPO
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Firestar-Reimu
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Where did you see people using these setting? Why don't you ask there and those people? These are the only ones who can answer why they use these settings. – cabohah Jan 27 '23 at 07:59
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1Combination of compiling - What does --shell-escape do? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange and tex core - Where to find official (!) and extended documentation for tex/latex's commandline options (especially -interaction modes)? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange and pdftex - What exactly is SyncTeX? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange – user202729 Jan 27 '23 at 08:07
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(the synctex one is also slightly covered in https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/37571/250119) – user202729 Jan 27 '23 at 08:16
1 Answers
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Generally see the manual page of pdftex, xelatex or lualatex for information about the engine options and the manual of your gui/editor/TeX runner for information about its features.
-synctex=1 (or --synctex=1)
Do the basic synchronization between the editor and the PDF viewer. For information about the synchronization see the documentation of your editor and your PDF viewer. Note: Value 1 is not the only available value. The synctex manual explains other numbers (also depending on the features of the editor and the PDF viewer).
--shell-escape
Allow the TeX engine to run every application without any security check. This option is not recommended for foreign documents, you've not inspected before. Because someone could, e.g., delete directories or write other harmful code. For your own documents it is OK, because you should know, what you are doing.
--interaction=nonstopmode
Prevents TeX to stop on the first error. So TeX will try to continue, even if there are syntax errors in your code. This often results in several more errors than really exist.
%DOCFILE%
A placeholder for the (main) document file. This will be replaced by the caller and therefore is not a feature of the TeX engine but the system you are using with this configuration. You can find more information in the corresponding manual.
cabohah
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