AUCTeX: how to jump to PDF (with synctex) without recompile when inline preview has been created?

Question

I'm using Aquamacs 2.4 on MacOS X 10.6.8 with pdflatex (TeXLive 2011).

My problem:

I can create inline previews of formulas, figures etc. in the source code with AUCTeX which is very helpful - e. g. with the command C-C C-P C-D. When I do that, the already compiled PDF output file seems to be removed, so after creating the previews, I can not jump from the source code to the pdf any more (with synctex), but I firstly have to recreate the PDF with pdflatex which takes some time.

So my question is:

• is there anything which I have not configured correctly, or is it normal (or necessary) that during the creation of the AUCTeX previews the original PDF is removed?

MWE:

\documentclass{scrbook}

\begin{document}

this is a dummy text with a dummy formula:

$a+b = c^2$



\end{document}

Answer 1

After digging in the customization options of the preview mode, I can suggest the following solution. Since I can't get preview to work due to other problems, I couldn't test it.

So, M-x customize-group RET preview RET. Select Preview Latex.

Now, you have to find the two following configuration options :

• Preview pdf2dsc command : replace %s.pdf with %s-preview.pdf.
• Preview Latex command : in the first string, insert -job-name='%s-preview' between %'%l and "\nonstopmode....

Screenshots of the relevant options with their default values (in case anything goes wrong):

Answer 2

The problem (I think, since it used to plaque me as well), is that AUCTeX uses the most recent process because it presumes that's what you are interested in. However, I am very rarely interested in the output of preview. I added

(defadvice TeX-view (around always-view-master-file activate)
  (let ((TeX-current-process-region-p nil))
    ad-do-it))

to my .emacs so that whenever I view it thinks that the last command was not on a region. This has fixed the problem for me.

If it really is deleting the pdf (e.g. you can't find it from the Finder), then something is very wrong.