Using MikTex with LaTeX Workshop on Windows

This is a post to mention how to setup Visual Studio Code for LaTeX—through the LaTeX Workshop extension.

In the past, I have used several text editors and for LaTeX. A couple of years ago I replaced TeXstudio for VS Code, and I think that it works just fine. Visual Studio Code is one of the most used IDE right now. One advantage of using VS Code to type your documents is that you can set it up to fit your workflow and use it for several languages/purposes. It is also cross-platform, you will not be worrying for having different workflows in Linux or Windows.

You need to follow these steps to make it work:

• Install Perl. You can use Strawberry Perl in Windows.

• If you don't have administrator privileges you can install the portable version and add the path to the executable to the PATH environment variable.

• Install MikTeX. The creator of LaTeX Workshop suggests to use TeX Live instead because it already comes with Perl and you could skip one step in this list. The disadvantages of using TeX Live instead of MikTeX are more (see here).

• Install LaTeX Workshop.