Latexian Help > Preview and Live Preview
Latexian makes it easy to typeset your documents and preview them in a PDF viewer. To preview a document, select "Preview" from the "View" menu. This will open the application that you have selected in the Preferences panel as the Preview application. Once the application opens, your document will be rendered. Even if you haven't saved your document, the rendering will show the unsaved changes. By default, Latexian is the Preview application, and documents will appear in the PDF viewer that is included in Latexian.

To preview in an application different from the one you selected in the Preferences, you can look under the "Preview In Application" item in the "View" menu. You will see a list of common PDF viewers; just select the one that you would like for previewing your document.
With Live Preview, Latexian shows you a preview of your document that automatically updates as you edit it. Live Preview can be enabled by selecting "Show Live Preview" from the "View" menu. When Live Preview is enabled, the command changes to "Hide Live Preview". If you need to refresh the preview, then you can select "Refresh Live Preview" from the "View" menu. This command is helpful if you need the preview to be updated to reflect changes in another LaTeX or image file that is referenced by your document.

The "Preview" section of the Preferences panel allows you to specify whether a horizontal or vertical divider is used to separate the document pane from the Live Preview pane.
The Preview section of Latexian's Preferences include options to use more advanced typesetting behaviors. It is recommended that you use the default settings (all options disabled) in order to get the fastest response times from Preview and Live Preview. You can then use Export to produce your final PDF document with more advanced options. However, enabling the Preview typesetting options may be appropriate if you need Preview and Live Preview to better reflect the final output. These are the options available:
  • BibTeX: Process BibTeX bibliographies when previewing documents.
  • MakeIndex: Process indices when previewing documents.
  • MakeGlossaries: Process "glossaries" package glossaries when previewing documents.
  • Number of Typesetter Runs at End: The number of times the typesetter will run after other options are completed. Run the typesetter twice to ensure that bibliography entries are properly numbered and page numbers are correct, and to generate a table of contents. Some documents require three runs to appear correctly.

Typesetting errors that occur during a Preview or Live Preview operation can be viewed in Latexian's Console, where errors are hyperlinked to the document location where the error occurred. If Latexian is configured to show preview errors in the gutter (in Latexian's "General" Preferences), then error indicators will also appear alongside the text. You can move the mouse over an error indicator to see the details about the error.
Normally, when previewing a document, Latexian typesets the file that you are currently editing. However, there may be occasions where you need Latexian to perform typesetting on a different file. Specifically, when you are editing a file that is included by another file using LaTeX \include or \input commands, you will need to specify a Preview File for Latexian to typeset. The Preview File can be specified in one of two ways:
  • Open the Get Info panel by selecting "Get Info" from the "File" menu. Then, choose a Preview File.
  • At the beginning of the document, include a line %!TEX root=filename, where filename is an absolute or relative path to the Preview File.

Latexian will then typeset the Preview File whenever you perform a Preview, Live Preview, or Export operation.