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Emacs lisp programmers probably know the lisp-complete-symbol
command, usually bound to M-tab. Users of the wonderful
ispell mode know and love the ispell-complete-word command from
that package. Similarly, AUC TeX has a TeX-complete-symbol
command, usually bound to M-tab. Using
LaTeX-complete-symbol makes it easier to type and remember the
names of long LaTeX macros.
In order to use TeX-complete-symbol, you should write a backslash
and the start of the macro. Typing M-tab will now
complete as much of the macro, as it unambiguously can. For example, if
you type ``\renewc'' and then `M-tab, it will expand
to ``\renewcommand''.
Command: TeX-complete-symbol
(M-tab) Complete TeX symbol before point.
A more direct way to insert a macro is with TeX-insert-macro,
bound to C-c C-m. It has the advantage over completion that it
knows about the argument of most standard LaTeX macros, and will
prompt for them. It also knows about the type of the arguments, so it
will for example give completion for the argument to `\include'.
Some examples are listed below.
(C-c C-m) Prompt (with completion) for the name of a TeX macro, and if AUC TeX knows the macro, prompt for each argument.
As a default selection, AUC TeX will suggest the macro last inserted
or, as the first choice the value of the variable
TeX-default-macro.
User Option: TeX-default-macro
Default macro to insert when invoking TeX-insert-macro first time.
A faster alternative is to bind the function TeX-electric-macro
to `\'. This can by setting the variable TeX-electric-escape
User Option: TeX-electric-escape
If this is non-nil when AUC TeX is loaded, the TeX escape
character `\' will be bound to TeX-electric-macro
The difference between TeX-insert-macro and
TeX-electric-macro is that space will complete and exit from the
minibuffer in TeX-electric-macro. Use tab if you merely
want to complete.
Prompt (with completion) for the name of a TeX macro, and if AUC TeX knows the macro, prompt for each argument. Space will complete and exit.
By default AUC TeX will put an empty set braces `{}' after a
macro with no arguments to stop it from eating the next whitespace.
This can be stopped by entering LaTeX-math-mode,
see section Entering Mathematics, or by setting TeX-insert-braces to nil
User Option: TeX-insert-braces
If non-nil, append a empty pair of braces after inserting a macro.
Completions work because AUC TeX can analyze TeX files, and store symbols in emacs lisp files for later retrieval. See section Automatic Customization, for more information.
AUC TeX will also make completion for many macro arguments, for
example existing labels when you enter a `\ref' macro with
TeX-insert-macro or TeX-electric-macro, and BibTeX
entries when you enter a `\cite' macro. For this kind of
completion to work, parsing must be enabled as described in
see section Automatic Parsing of TeX files.. For `\cite' you must also make sure that
the BibTeX files can be found in TeX-style-path and have been
saved at least once after you enabled automatic parsing on save.
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