Latex Dev Container

Ultimate Latex development container for Visual Studio Code

Features

• Fastest way to code LaTex and produce a pdf file when saving your .tex file
• Uses texlive 2023
• Based on Debian Bullseye Slim, using qmcgaw/basedevcontainer
• Compatible with amd64 and aarch64
• Two Docker images:
  • qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer:latest (default) which uses the TexLive basic scheme and has an uncompressed image size of 467MB
  • qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer:latest-full which uses the TexLive full scheme and has an uncompressed image size of 4.2GB - most packages you would need are already installed.
• Comes with tlmgr to install more LaTex packages as needed
• Latex compilation to pdf with latexmk
• Formatting on save using latexindent
• Latex linting using chktex built from source
• Using the LaTex-Workshop VScode extension
• Compatible with amd64, ~ARM 64 bit, ARM 32 bit v6 and v7~ (TeXLive not available on ARM, create an issue if you need it)
• Cross platform
  • Easily bind mount your SSH keys to use with git
  • Manage your host Docker from within the dev container, more details at qmcgaw/basedevcontainer
• Extensible with docker-compose.yml
• Minimal uncompressed image size of 467MB

Requirements

• Docker installed and running
  • If you don't use Linux, share the directories ~/.ssh and the directory of your project with Docker Desktop
• Docker Compose installed
• VS code installed
• VS code remote containers extension installed

Setup for a project

1. Setup your configuration files

   • With style 💯

     docker run -it --rm -v "/yourrepopath:/repository" qmcgaw/devtainr:v0.4.0 -dev latex -path /repository -name projectname
     

     Or use the built binary

   • Or manually: download this repository and put the .devcontainer directory in your project.

2. Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container... and choose your project directory

Install LaTex packages

If you need for example the package lastpage, open the integrated terminal in VS Code, select zsh and enter:

tlmgr install lastpage
texhash

Update the Latex Docker image

1. Pull the docker image

   docker pull qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer
   

2. Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Remote-Containers: Rebuild and Reopen in Container.... ⚠️ this will erase your container shell history and custom latex packages you added on top of the base image.

More

devcontainer.json

• You can change the "postCreateCommand" to be relevant to your situation. For example:

  "postCreateCommand": "tlmgr install acronym pgf && texhash",
  

• You can change the extensions installed in the Docker image within the "customizations/vscode/extensions" array

• Other Latex settings can be changed or added in the "customizations/vscode/settings" object.

Development image

• You can build the development image yourself:

  docker build -t qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer -f Dockerfile https://github.com/qdm12/latexdevcontainer.git
  

• You can extend the Docker image qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer with your own instructions.

  1. Create a file .devcontainer/Dockerfile with FROM qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer

  2. Append instructions to the Dockerfile created. For example:

     FROM qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer
     RUN tlmgr install lastpage
     

  3. Modify .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml and add build: . in the vscode service.

  4. Open the VS code command palette and choose Remote-Containers: Rebuild container

• You can bind mount a shell script to /home/vscode/.welcome.sh to replace the current welcome script

TODOs

• qmcgaw/basedevcontainer todos

License

This repository is under an MIT license unless indicated otherwise.