Introduction

What is TeXnicCenter?

TeXnicCenter is an integrated development environment (IDE) used to create, edit and compile LaTeX documents on Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. It includes a code editor with syntax highlighting and provides document structure visualization.

The compilation process that converts LaTeX documents into a typeset output can be started by simply choosing a menu item or clicking a toolbar button. LaTeX compiler diagnostics are displayed in a separate window allowing to navigate through the errors, warnings and bad box messages.

A viewer that displays the typeset document can be started using a single click. Viewers that support TeXnicCenter’s forward/inverse search can be used to switch between the typeset document and the corresponding line in the source.

TeXnicCenter’s aim is to support unexperienced LaTeX users by providing shortcuts to important LaTeX commands via menu entries. Furthermore, the execution of the LaTeX compiler and tools such as MakeIndex and BibTeX is handled automatically. TeXnicCenter supports advanced LaTeX users as well by providing a powerful, fully customizable integrated development environment.

Requirements

To typeset LaTeX documents, TeXnicCenter requires a LaTeX distribution to be installed. Major LaTeX distributions supported by TeXnicCetner are MiKTeX and TeX Live. To view typeset PDF documents, a PDF viewer should be installed as well. The recommended PDF viewer is Sumatra PDF which provides an excellent forward/inverse search support.

Conventions used in this manual

The following conventions are used in this manual.

Cancel

Indicates a button, label or user interface option.

thesis.tex

Indicates a filename or directory.

Ctrl + C

Indicates a shortcut or a combination of keys to press.

Note

This is a note.

Warning

An important note that shouldn’t be ignored.