Decision Guidance ⇒ TeXworks vs. WinEdt: refresh pdf preview

[ltxsun]

If I compile by TeXworks, by default, it launches its own pdf previewer/reader (i think...). After I make some changes and compile again, TeXworks would simply "refresh" the preview window, so that I can immediately see the changes because the preview window shows the pdf print at the about the same position of the document, at the same zoom level. This is very useful for immediate and close comparison of different drawings.

However, WinEdt by default uses Acrobat pdf reader. When compiling (by MikTeX-pdfLaTeX), WinEdt automatically shuts off Acrobat pdf reader, then re-open it. Then I have to re-zoom to the place where I have made the changes. Is there a way to achieve the same effect by TeXworks? probably by telling WinEdt to use a "refreshable" pdf reader?

Ultimately, I would like to use Acrobat pdf reader to preview my document since it shows every thing I want my readers to see (for example, TeXworks cannot show the bookmarks pane, or can it?). Is there a way to disable the read-write protection so that WinEdt can compile without closing Acrobat pdf reader, then tells it to reload?

[josephwright]

This is to do with how Acrobat works, not WinEdt. Acrobat locks files, so they have to be closed to do a TeX run. The viewer that TeXworks uses does not lock the file, so all is good. (BTW, the TeXworks viewer can show bookmarks: Window -> Show -> Contents.) You might take a look at the Sumatra PDF Viewer: it gets a good write-up.

[ltxsun]

Thanks!
I am looking at Sumatra right now! I think I am going to like the reverse sync feature.

[localghost]

The Adobe Reader is a very good PDF viewer ... but not more. Joseph already mentioned an important point. It was never meant to work together with LaTeX editors thus lacks some features that LaTeX users need. One thing to mention is SyncTeX for forward and inverse search between the source and the PDF output.

And as Joseph already suggested, you should take a look at the Sumatra PDF Viewer. It offers only basic features but masters the SyncTeX technolgy. And you can launch the opened document in Adobe Reader from within. It has become the default viewer in the current alpha version of TeXnicCenter 2 (TXC2) even if the Adobe Reader is installed on the system.

In the net you can find instructions on how to make WinEdt work with Sumatra [1]. This way you can have a similar behaviour as if working with TeXworks.

[1] william.familie-blum.org news - Configuring editors with SumatraPDF


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[ltxsun]

Thanks, Thorsten, and Joseph,
I am glad that I found this forum and thanks for your advices!

yanlong

[ltxsun]

A follow-up report:

WinEdt 6 works with Sumatra very smoothly (-TeX.exe, ver. 1.1.1714, maybe other versions too), and almost no additional settings required, except letting WinEdt know that Sumatra is the pdf viewer. After that, forward and backward pdf sync will work by default.

Thanks!