When I first started with TeX I used the TextMate with TeXShop and it was a real good thing. Now as I am looking forward to make more use of LaTeX and BibTex I wanted to have an editor that supports auto-completion. As a eclipse user for creating Java Applications, WebApps and Plugins for eclipse I was electricized after I read about TeXlipse, so I had to give it a try.

Step-by-step guide

Installation of MacTeX

This is a real straight forward process. Go to http://www.tug.org/mactex and download the latest release of MacTeX. Run the installer and you are done. Cool, isn’t it? ;-)

Installation of eclipse

Umm, no, I will not give any attention to that point here. ;-)
Simply point your browser to: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/. This is as easy as installtion MacTeX, so you won’t have any troubles here…

Installation of TeXlipse

After adding the eclipse update site for TeXlipse (http://texlipse.sourceforge.net) I started the automatic installer. It took some time to get all the dependencies resolved, but the tricky part was the configuration of the plugin after the recommended restart. If you need a step-by-step guide for this, please go to http://texlipse.sourceforge.net/manual/installation.html where you will find a in-detail description about the installation process.

Configuration of TeXlipse

Now the very tricky part. After eclipse has restarted open the configuration (CMD+,) and open the section about Texlipse. You will need to change the Builder and Viewer Settings.

Builder Settings

The plugin will manage the settings for you if you enter a valid binary path to all latex tools. Installing MacTeX will put them into the following folder: /usr/local/texlive/2008/bin/universal-darwin. The first time I configured the settings didn’t become active. I had to manually browse to /Library/TeX/Distributions/TeXLive-2008.texdist/Contents/Programs/i386.
After that press the apply button and the configuration will search for the tools in this path and when it finds it, save their path regardless.

Viewer Settings

I wanted the preview to open up in the preview. There are two advantages for that: First the preview is a very small program without wasting lots of resources on the system. Second whenever you save a file in eclipse the builder will recompile the pdf and by reactivating the preview it automatically refreshes the content and stays at the page you where viewing before. To configure this open the Viewer Settings section and click on acroread. Use the button Up until it is the first entry. Click on the button Edit and enter “/usr/bin/open” as the viewer command. Keep “%file” as the viewer arguments and the default system viewer will be started to show the pdf (this is the preview in my case). You may also want to configure the preview exclusive (if it isn’t your default viewer). Then simple change the viewer arguments to “-a /Applications/Preview.app %file” and you’re done.

Done

Now you’re done. Enjoy using TeXlipse on your Mac. :-)