The RTextDoc LaTeX editor put to the test

Functions

RTextDoc supports several structured formats apart from LaTeX, including the AsciiDoc [4] markup language that, unlike SGML or DocBook, avoids cryptic structures, which makes source documents more readable. LaTeX can be considered more of a back end in this context in that it implements much broader structures. In fact, LaTeX recognizes many more lists, tables, and figure types than other markup languages. The same goes for math structures, such as complex formulas and their symbols.

A major strength of structured texts lies in automatic syntax checking, which RTextDoc also supports according to its own description. However, weaknesses show up even when structures are added. LaTeX makes extensive use of curly brackets that group text sections and separate arguments from commands. RTextDoc provides a way to show paired brackets, but not for those added directly by the user, which would require using a special macros in JavaScript or some other similar language.

RTextDoc was developed, according to sources, with the needs of professional LaTeX writers in mind, which is why the editor had to be designed for unknown structures to exist in the code. In practice, however, the program fails in this task. New structures can be added in principle for the folding mechanism, but the documentation is silent about how this actually works. The default editor allowed toggling the folding of source code only in the LaTeX environment.

The search and replace function doesn't have a mechanism for skipping over hits. You either need to replace all hits or manage every single occurrence individually.

Spelling and Grammar

The editor integrates the LibreOffice- and OpenOffice-based LanguageTool for spelling and grammar checking. To configure it, use the following command:

$ java -jar languagetool-standalone.jar

Many distributions provide a script named languagetool that controls configuration and startup. The option settings determine what the program recognizes as errors. Unfortunately, RTextDoc currently doesn't let you set the language manually, which is a limitation for some languages.