How to Install Auc-TeX in Windows

NOTE:  The links on this page will get you the most recent version of Auc-TeX.  As of August 30, the latest released version of Auc-TeX is 9.9p: if your version differs from this, don't worry -- it should work fine.  If you have any problems, please visit The Auc-TeX Homepage -- if you continue having problems, please email me.

NOTE: use these files (particularly steps 4-5) at your own risk.  Customizations have been made in these files that make it work with the LaTeX for Win95 setup referenced in the previous pages.  They may not perform as expected.  This web page is not supposed to be a redistribution of Per Abrahamsen's excellent product, but rather a model for how you may alter the files to work correctly with Win95 and MiKTeX.  I believe these modifications are in accordance with the GNU license. 

Thank you to Willem Minten for the tex-site.el and .emacs file provided on his site. The files below are slight modifications of his files. Neither he nor I are responsible for any performance problems. Good luck!

1) Download the following

2) Use WinZip to extract them to the c:\emacs\site-lisp directory (you may need to create the c:\emacs\site-lisp and c:\emacs\lock directories if they weren't created when emacs was installed).

3) Rename the directory that was created when you unzipped.  It will probably be named something like "auctex-9.9p" -- depending on what is the most current version.  Change the name to "auctex" by using the Windows Explorer or by typing "rename auctex-9.9p auctex" at a DOS prompt from the c:\emacs\site-lisp directory.

4) Download the following file to c:\emacs\site-lisp

5) Download the following file to c:\emacs

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Browsers think the _emacs file is an html file, and when you left-click on it, it will be displayed.  It is better to right-click the above link and choose the "save link as" option (in Netscape) or "save target as" option (in MSIE).  When you save it, the browser will add an extension on to the file, calling it _emacs.html or _emacs.txt.  You will have to manually change it as I have not found a way to convince my browser that I actually know what I'm doing when I try to save a filename without an extension! Go to a DOS prompt and rename it by typing something like "rename _emacs.html _emacs" from within the c:\emacs directory (if the browser saved it as _emacs.html). Auc-TeX will not work unless Emacs can find the _emacs file in the directory c:\emacs.  It must be named exactly "_emacs". 

6) Re-boot.

7) Associate .tex files with Emacs

a) Now, use the windows explorer to find the file sample2e.tex in the directory 'c:\texmf\tex\latex\base' Right-click on it.

b) A menu will appear with 'open with' as the first entry. Click on 'open with' and a dialog box will appear.

c) In the 'Description of '.tex' files:' box, enter 'TeX Document'.

d) Next, click on the 'Always use this program to open this file' check-box.

e) Next, click on the 'Other' button. Use the 'Look in' box to navigate to the directory 'c:\emacs\bin' and double-click on 'runemacs.exe'.

f) Then click OK, and the a sample tex file will appear in emacs with Auc-TeX running. Note that the menu-bar may appear garbled. Just click once on it, and it should clear up.

7) Try out the Emacs/Auc-TeX command menu and process the sample file.

1. Go to the 'Command" menu and select 'LaTeX'. Emacs may ask you if you want to process the file sample2e.tex. Hit enter. After a while you should get a message that says 'LaTeX: successfully formatted {3} pages'. You have just converted the file sample2e.tex to the file sample2e.dvi. A DVI file (device independent) can be viewed by the YAP program (or other DVI previewers), but we will be converting it to a postscript file and then viewing it with Ghostview. Note: You should also be able to invoke LaTeX by hitting ctrl-F5.
2. Next, from the 'Command' menu, choose 'dviPS'. Hit enter if it asks you to process the file 'sample2e.dvi' into 'sample2e.ps'. This will convert the sample DVI file to its postscript equivalent, 'sample2e.ps'. It may take a while, since fonts have to be generated. As you process more and more documents, the time taken to process fonts will decrease since the programs keep track of previously-generated fonts. Note: You should also be able to invoke DVIPS by hitting ctrl-F7.
3. Next, from the 'Command' menu, choose 'Ghostview' or hit ctrl-F8.

8) If it didn't work, see the note above about making sure the _emacs file is located in the c:\emacs directory and is correctly named.  Also, make sure that the tex-site.el file is correctly located in the c:\emacs directory.  Finally, make sure that you added the line SET HOME=C:\EMACS\ to your autoexec.at file.  If none of this works, please email me.

  NEW! On to LaTeX Sensitive Spell Checking for Windows Emacs