How to get SyncTeX for Windows to allow Atom pdf-view to synch?

Question

I would like to use Atom in Windows as my primary editor for LaTeX documents. However, the synchronization features of Atom's pdf-view (which is leveraged by latex-plus) requires a synctex binary. It will use the binary if it is in the %PATH%, or it can be specified in the settings.

The MikeTeX package I've been using does not seem to ship with any such binary.

Q - What is the best way to obtain the synctex binary that pdf-view is looking for?

References

• ig0774 confirms MikeTeX does not include synctex binary
• Reporting a possible enhancement for latex-plus plugin to be more graceful

Background

I'm using MikeTeX 2.9.5496 on a Windows machine, and trying to get Atom set up as my default editor in that environment.

I've been using TeXStudio for a couple years now using the proTeX installer in Windows (and on Ubuntu too with TexLive powering it) and have been very happy with it, but am trying to set up an alternative.

As stated on the LaTeX Editors/IDEs entry, it should work with a combination of plugins for best performance.

I've installed the following plugins to get this working:

• language-latex
• linter-chktex
• latexer
• latex-plus
• pdf-view

Everything is working except for the synchronization features.

Answer 1

The binary in question is distributed (only) as part of TeXLive and should be installed in the TeXLive binary folder (something like C:\texlive\2016\bin\win32\synctex.exe). Note, however, that its only installed if you select the full scheme (which is the default). You can probably get away with installing TeXLive, copying the executable and kpathseaXXX.dll to another folder on your PATH and removing the rest of TeXLive, but I've never really tried that.

Incidentally, SyncTeX isn't just built into pdflatex. It consists of both an extension to pdflatex (and friends) which writes a .synctex file and a library for parsing those files into usable records. This latter part is usually embedded in the viewer binary, but TeXLive also provides a binary (synctex) that allows access to the same parsing information via the command line.

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Edit: As @ChrisCharabaruk points out in the comments, synctex and the related kpathseaXXX.dll can now be installed using Chocolatey, a package manager for Windows. If you don't have Chocolatey installed, you can install it using the installation instructions found here. Once you have Chocolatey installed, you can install the synctex package, which should be as easy as:

choco install synctex

Answer 2

For those who found that the above answer did not work.

You can get SyncTeX to work on Atom via the following:

1. Download synctex.exe and kpathsea623.dll.
2. Place these inside \MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64 or any %PATH%folder for Atom to find.

This should work for VSCode as well.

Remark: The file kpathsea623.dll is what synctex asked for when I clicked the executable; not kpathsea622.dll as the above answer states. Moreover, it worked without kpathsea622.dll being present, so I am not too sure whether it is related to synctex. In any case, if kpathsea623.dll does not work, try kpathsea622.dll or both.