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I have just started to use an Apple computer and want to use Texmaker. But forward/inverse search does not work at all. I am trying to follow the instructions but I'm not successful. What could I be doing wrong?

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I can't get it to work either. Have you considered using TeXShop pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop instead? It's much more mature and a lot faster and synchs properly between PDF and source. –  Alan Munn Jan 30 '11 at 1:37
The Texmaker website only claims that Texmaker has forward/inverse search for DVIs. It doesn't say anything about PDFs. Maybe the problem is that you are compiling to PDF? –  Caramdir Jan 30 '11 at 2:48
@Petya: I added an actual question to the question; hope that is okay. Maybe you could provide some details what exactly you have tried? –  Caramdir Jan 30 '11 at 2:51
Have you tried a previous version of the software, I am using a portable version which works fine for me, you can download it from this address: –  Yasser Sobhdel Jan 30 '11 at 7:45
@Petya Assuming you downloaded and installed MacTeX, it should already be installed, so there's really nothing to do except try it. It should be in a folder named TeX in your Applications folder. –  Alan Munn Jan 31 '11 at 2:39
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3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Here is my way to fix the problem I asked - I think it could be helpful.

  1. Install the Skim PDF-viewer. It is free.
  2. In TeXmaker configuration choose the external PDF-viewer and place there the following line:

     /Applications/Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/displayline @ %.pdf  

    (I think it gives the possibility of the forward search.)

  3. In the Skim preferences edit custom command in Sync section. The command must be:


    with argument

    "%file" -line %line

Now you can perform the inverse search. How to do it? Shift-Command-Click and the cursor moves to the corresponding place in the tex-file.

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Have you add the option


for pdflatex, xelatex. However, version 2.2 can do forward/inverse search only on 1 files latex source.

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Does this actually work on a Mac? I have v.2.2 and with -synctex=1 there is still no synching. –  Alan Munn Jan 30 '11 at 19:56
on Mac I don't know. One more possible mistake is pdfsync package. You should not use it. –  S. Boonto Jan 30 '11 at 20:09
@SBoonto But the question specifically asked about Mac. –  Alan Munn Jan 30 '11 at 20:14
Thank you for your answer. Real solution (one possible) is in my own answer. –  Petya Jan 31 '11 at 1:43
@Munn sorry for that. I just thought Texmaker is cross-platform editor and it use its own internal pdf viewer. In YouTube that I saw the solution at xm1math.net/texmaker/log.html, is for Ubuntu. I used the same method on Windows XP,7 and it works very well. So I think may be this will work for Mac too. –  S. Boonto Jan 31 '11 at 8:01
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If you put the -synctex=1 option in the following position then it works!!. At the end of the line it hasn't worked for me!!.

TexMaker -> Preferences -> Commands -> PdfLaTeX

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