LaTeX is a document preparation system, which builds .pdf documents from text and commands for formatting. I use it to write academic research papers and other documents, like my résumé.

I wanted an easy setup for a powerful LaTeX environment using an extensible IDE with Grammar.ly integration, running in Docker so my system stays clean.

Requirements

So the requirements for the setup were:

• Works on Windows and Linux
• Uses Visual Studio Code (vscode) as editor
• Grammar.ly integration
• Uses texlive-full together with biber and latexmk
• … but without installing them to my system
• Should not require more than a few clicks (or commands) to set up

Setup

Thanks to the awesome vscode extension latex-workshop, which recently added Docker support, this was quite easy to achieve.

Requirements:

• Docker
• vscode

Here are the steps:

1. Install these two vscode extensions: latex-workshop, Grammarly
2. Set “latex-workshop.docker.enabled”: true in your vscode settings
3. Build your project with latex workshop

Additional Setup

If you have a Grammarly account, log in by specifying

"grammarly.username": "your grammarly email",  
"grammarly.password": "your grammarly password",

I also like to add the following configuration values:

// Grammarly academic writing style  
"grammarly.domain": "academic",

// always open pdf preview in new vscode tab  
"latex-workshop.view.pdf.viewer": "tab",

I also use the vscode Material Icon Theme plugin in my LaTeX projects.

Which vscode plugins do you use in your LaTeX projects?

Have fun!

Header picture by ron dyar on Unsplash