September 13, 2012
Update: TeX Writer v1.2 - More Packages, Better Dropbox Syncing and PDF Output

For the impatient: TeX Writer v1.2 in App Store It's very rare these days that Apple can approve an app update in one week (at least from my experience with them as a very small developer), so we are very pleased to know that things has been sped up. It also means we are going to have more frequent updates in the future. We added a lot of packages in this update. Two of them are very important -- color and graphicx. They were introduced in a previous post. You may ask: How do you upload the images to TeX Writer? One way would be using iTunes file sharing. The downside is that iTunes is slow and doesn't support folders. A better way is to upload the images to TeX Writer inside Dropbox/Apps. Then TeX Writer will be able to sync them automatically. Currently only PNG and JPEG images are supported. (Yes, no EPS, I am sorry.) How do you include the images in latex files? Make sure those images are in the same folder as latex file, and use \includegraphics command the same as you always have been doing. Well, not exactly the same. In your desktop setup, you may not need to provide bounding box in the options, but you must do that explicitly in TeX Writer. That sounds scary even to myself. Luckily we have an image previewer in the app. Just find the image in the file list, tap on it, and you will be able to resize the image and let the machine generate the commands for you. What you do is copy and paste. Life is even easier than on desktop. You can find the detailed package listing in the readme document inside the app. Now We are going to talk a little bit about enhanced Dropbox support: 1. Subfolders syncing. Now you can setup a project folder in Dropbox with necessary files, like images, custom packages, and let TeX Writer download them to your iPad. 2. Modified files are displayed in the file list with blue color. After changes are uploaded, it will return to normal. 3. Pull the file list to refresh. Normally you do not have to do it. Syncing should be done automatically. But if it is not, this is the chance that you can force a resyncing. The last major feature, but not the least, is PDF output. Many had been saying PDF from the very beginning, we heard that, and since took it with highest priority. We are very happy to present it in this upate in time. No action is required from your side, just compile like usual, and PDF will be there along side with DVI. DVI is still used for preview purpose. You can export the PDF to other PDF viewers like Good Reader. It is about time you try the update now. Please don't forget to leave a review in App Store, that means world to us, and more importantly, keeps more awesome updates coming!