Ultimate Latex development container for Visual Studio Code

• Fastest way to code LaTex and produce a pdf file when saving your .tex file
• Uses texlive 2021
• Based on Debian Buster Slim, using qmcgaw/basedevcontainer
• Two Docker images:
  • qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer:latest (default) which uses the TexLive basic scheme and has an uncompressed image size of 467MB
  • qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer:latest-full which uses the TexLive full scheme and has an uncompressed image size of 4.2GB - most packages you would need are already installed.
• Comes with tlmgr to install more LaTex packages as needed
• Latex compilation to pdf with latexmk
• Formatting on save using latexindent
• Latex linting using chktex built from source
• Using the LaTex-Workshop VScode extension
• Compatible with amd64, ARM 64 bit, ARM 32 bit v6 and v7 (TeXLive not available on ARM, create an issue if you need it)
• Cross platform
  • Easily bind mount your SSH keys to use with git
  • Manage your host Docker from within the dev container, more details at qmcgaw/basedevcontainer
• Extensible with docker-compose.yml
• Minimal uncompressed image size of 467MB

• Docker installed and running
  • If you don't use Linux, share the directories ~/.ssh and the directory of your project with Docker Desktop
• Docker Compose installed
• VS code installed
• VS code remote containers extension installed

1. Setup your configuration files

   • With style 💯

     docker run -it --rm -v "/yourrepopath:/repository" qmcgaw/devtainr:v0.4.0 -dev latex -path /repository -name projectname

     Or use the built binary

   • Or manually: download this repository and put the .devcontainer directory in your project.

2. Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container... and choose your project directory

If you need for example the package lastpage, open the integrated terminal in VS Code, select zsh and enter:

tlmgr install lastpage
texhash

1. Pull the docker image

   docker pull qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer

2. Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Remote-Containers: Rebuild and Reopen in Container.... ⚠️ this will erase your container shell history and custom latex packages you added on top of the base image.

• You can change the "postCreateCommand" to be relevant to your situation. For example:

  "postCreateCommand": "tlmgr install acronym pgf && texhash",

• You can change the extensions installed in the Docker image within the "extensions" array

• Other Latex settings can be changed or added in the "settings" object.

• You can build the development image yourself:

  docker build -t qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer -f Dockerfile https://github.com/qdm12/latexdevcontainer.git

• You can extend the Docker image qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer with your own instructions.

  1. Create a file .devcontainer/Dockerfile with FROM qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer

  2. Append instructions to the Dockerfile created. For example:

     FROM qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer
     RUN tlmgr install lastpage

  3. Modify .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml and add build: . in the vscode service.

  4. Open the VS code command palette and choose Remote-Containers: Rebuild container

• You can bind mount a shell script to /home/vscode/.welcome.sh to replace the current welcome script

• qmcgaw/basedevcontainer todos

This repository is under an MIT license unless indicated otherwise.