Format

Formatting

LaTeX files

Install latexindent.pl for formatting support if it is not provided by your LaTeX distribution.

See the FAQ for possible issues with formatting.

Relevant settings

latex-workshop.latexindent.path

Define the path of the latexindent executable. If latexindent is in the PATH, setting this variable to the executable name is fine.

type	default value
string	"latexindent"

latex-workshop.latexindent.args

Define the command line arguments for latexindent. Available placeholders are:

• %DOC%: The LaTeX root file path and name without the .tex extension.
• %DOCFILE%: The LaTeX root file name without the .tex extension.
• %DIR%: The LaTeX root file path.
• %TMPFILE%: would be replaced with the path of file which contains raw TeX source to be formatted. At this moment you need to use it as an input file of latexindent.
• %INDENT%: The indent character of the file, typically \t, ' ', ' '.

Note: For the moment the -c option requires trailing slash."

type	default value
Array of strings	[ "-c", "%DIR%/", "%TMPFILE%", "-y=defaultIndent: '%INDENT%'" ]

Bibtex files

There are three commands for formatting .bib files:

• latex-workshop.bibsort: to sort the file,
• latex-workshop.bibalign: to align fields,
• latex-workshop.bibalignsort: to perform both at once.

These commands can be accessed through Visual Studio Code's Command Pallet (default ctrl+shift+p or ⌘+shift+p).

Sorting

latex-workshop.bibtex-format.sortby

The commands latex-workshop.bibsort and latex-workshop.bibalignsort will sort a .bib file according to an array of sorting keys specified in latex-workshop.bibtex-format.sortby. Valid keys are: any bibtex field (e.g. author, year, title) or year-desc for the year in descending order, or key for the bibtex key.

For example, set this to ["author", "year-desc", "title"] to sort by author, then year in descending order, then title

Type	Default Value
array of strings	[ "key" ]

latex-workshop.bibtex-format.handleDuplicates

When sorting BibTeX files, how to handle duplicates that appear. Duplicates are decided by latex-workshop.bibtex-format.sortby.

Type	Default Value	Possible Values
enum of string	"Highlight Duplicates"	"Ignore Duplicates", "Highlight Duplicates", "Comment Duplicates"

Aligning

The commands latex-workshop.bibalign and latex-workshop.bibalignsort provide basic alignment of bibliography entries. This action can be configured through the following options.

latex-workshop.bibtex-format.tab

What kind of indentation to use before each field.

Type	Default Value	Possible Values
enum of string	"2 spaces"	"2 spaces", "4 spaces", "tab"

latex-workshop.bibtex-format.surround

Whether to surround each field value in quotation marks or curly braces.

Type	Default Value	Possible Values
enum of string	"Curly braces"	"Curly braces", "Quotation marks"

latex-workshop.bibtex-format.case

Whether to use upper- or lowercase field names. (E.g. AUTHOR = ... vs author = ...).

Type	Default Value	Possible Values
enum of string	"lowercase"	"UPPERCASE", "lowercase"