How can I keep browsing my pdf with synctex at the same time as LaTeX is rebuilding it?

Question

As discussed here pdflatex preview problem: white pdf pages with only hyperref-rectangles visible during compile? when working on my dissertation which takes a long time to compile (even when compiling single chapters with includeonly it takes 1..3 minutes to compile with latexmk, I can not view the last version of the pdf to continue working during compiling time which breaks my workflow and makes me wasting time waiting while I could continue editing my document.

I'm working with TeXShop 2.43 on MacOS 10.6.8 with TeXLive 2011. The question is

• how can I keep browsing my pdf (in the last compiled version) as long as pdflatex compiles
• and how can I use synctex for jumping from the source file to the pdf and back?

A first suggestion (thanks, jonalv) was

latexmk -pdf text.tex && mv text.pdf viewMe.pdf

However synctex will not be working with the changed file name, especially as it is different from the name of the main file. Is there a way to do it with synctex working?

Answer 1

I'm using the following lines for pdflatex and for the previewer in my .latexmkrc file

$preview_prefix="__preview__";
$preview_file = "$preview_prefix%R__.pdf";
$sync_file = "$preview_prefix%R__.synctex.gz";

$pdflatex="pdflatex -synctex=1 %O %S; cp %R.pdf $preview_file; cp %R.synctex.gz $sync_file";
$pdf_previewer = "start okular %O $preview_file > /dev/null 2>&1";

If your main file name is e.g. main.tex, then it will copy after pdflatex has finished processing your tex file the resulting main.pdf and main.synctex.gz into __preview__main.pdf and __preview__main.synctex.gz and start the previewer with __preview__main.pdf. Works fine for me under Linux: by shift+clicking in okular I get back to my editor (after setting up okular correctly) and further, also for pretty large documents copying is usually fast enough, so that I don't have any lags in viewing.

Answer 2

If you are on a Mac, TeXShop Version 2.43 (not sure if this is available on other platforms) seems to exhibit the behaviour exactly as you desire.

After compiling the PDF file is opened and I can use Sync to open the corresponding source form the PDF. This feature still seems to function while a new version is begin compiled (if you don't delete the .aux file between subsequent runs). Of course if the source is changed such that the corresponding location of the source is changed all bets are off.