1.2.1 Prerequisites

• GNU Emacs 26.1 or higher

  Using preview-latex requires a version of Emacs compiled with image support.

  Windows

  Precompiled versions are available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/.

  macOS

  For an overview of precompiled versions of Emacs for macOS see for example https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS.

  GNU/Linux

  Most GNU/Linux distributions nowadays provide a recent variant of Emacs via their package repositories.

  Self-compiled

  Compiling Emacs yourself requires a C compiler and a number of tools and development libraries. Details are beyond the scope of this manual. Instructions for checking out the source code can be found at https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=emacs.

• A working TeX installation

  Well, AUCTeX would be pointless without that. Processing documentation requires TeX, LaTeX and Texinfo during installation. preview-latex requires Dvips or dvipng for its operation in DVI mode. The default configuration of AUCTeX is tailored for TeX Live-based distributions, but can be adapted easily.

• A recent Ghostscript

  This is needed for operation of preview-latex in both DVI and PDF mode. Ghostscript version 7.07 or newer is required.

• GNU make

  Recent AUCTeX uses GNU make specific capabilities in the Makefiles. If your OS’s default make command is not GNU make, you have to obtain it in order to build AUCTeX by yourself. GNU make is sometimes provided under the name gmake in your OS’s binary package system.

• The Texinfo package

  Strictly speaking, you can get away without it if you are building from the distribution tarball, have not modified any files and don’t need a printed version of the manual: the pregenerated info file is included in the tarball. At least version 4.0 is required.

For some known issues with various software, see Known problems in the preview-latex manual.