Loading the preview function of AUCTeX 11.86 on macports Emacs-app 23.2.1 port

Question

I've installed Emacs-app 23.2.1 via MacPorts and I'm trying to install AUCTeX 11.86 so that it will work on this installation.

I've run the following configure line for AUCTeX and that seems to work.

 ./configure --with-emacs=/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs
 --with-lispdir=/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/
 --with-texmf-dir=/usr/local/texlive/2010basic/texmf-local/

make and make install seem to work, and I've added the following line to my init.el

 (require 'tex-site)

as per the installation instructions. However, when I open a TeX file, the Preview menu does not show up (although the LaTeX menu does.) The following are some of my tests:

 M-x load-library RET preview-latex RET

doesn't seem to do anything.

 M-x load-library RET preview RET

brings up the Preview menu. Is it safe to somehow add the load-library preview to my init.el? Or do I risk mucking up something? I'm new to Emacs and primarily trying to learn it because of the AUCTeX preview features, but I don't feel very safe in this environment yet.

Answer 1

Try adding (load "preview-latex.el" nil t t) to your .emacs file. (see: http://tph16.tuwien.ac.at/cgi-bin/dwww/usr/share/doc/auctex/HTML/preview-latex/preview-latex_1.html#SEC3). That should bring up the menu every time you open a .tex file. Your installation does not seem to be broken, since you can manually bring up the menu. There is no risk of mucking anything up permanently by making additions to your initialization file. At worst, commenting out (or deleting) the offending expression will take care of things.