On Sat, Jun 06, 2009 at 07:33:50AM +0200, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote: > Enrico Forestieri wrote: > > > Shall I update the docs? > > > > Yes, please. > > done (in branch). > > > > BTW2 we should also mention synctex in the docs, since it is about to > > > supersede pdfsync (I don't know if any of the viewers already supports > > > ths, though). > > > > SumatraPDF has support for it. However, I don't think that we can get > > any advantage from synctex with respect to pdfsync. If I understand it > > correctly, synctex is more precise, but our precision in cursor positioning > > is limited to paragraph scope (I believe), so we cannot use the extra > > precision allowed by synctex. Then, it seems that the files produced > > by synctex are huge and thus I think that using pdfsync is the best choice. > > From my tests it seems very reliable. > > The advantage of synctex is that it is part of the pdftex core. You do not > need to have to call a package for each and every document, not care about PDF > vs. DVI output, but just change the converter to > > pdflatex -synctex=1 $$i
I tried synctex with SumatraPDF, but it doesn't understand compressed output, so I had to use -synctex=-1, instead. I experimented with several complex documents but never experienced the problems mentioned below, so I think that it could happen but it must be quite rare. > Also, synctex is said to be more reliable in general. See > http://markelikalderon.com/blog/2008/09/11/synctex-why-it-matters/ Maybe, but I really don't see a clear advantage of synctex over pdfsync. LyX can only position the cursor somewhere in a paragraph near the point where you clicked. However, if the paragraph is large, it may not be so near... > The most severe issue seems to be that pdfsync affects the output layout > (while synctex does not). The pdfsync README states: > > "* Bugs > ====== > pdfsync uses extremely sensible code. > You should not use pdfsync on final documents because > it can change the layout rather significantly > (different page/line breaks are the most obvious changes), > despite this is rather rare, > 17th Murphy's law states that it will happen to you when it absolutely must > not..." > > I also doubt pdfsync will be developed any longer now that the pdftex core has > its genuine rs capability (the more so as both pdfsync and synctex were > developed by the same person, so synctex is the "real" successor). Fine, but until LyX cannot take advantage of the extended precision granted by synctex, using it or pdfsync is a matter of personal taste, IMHO. Unless you incur in the above problems, of course :) -- Enrico
