WinShell is a free multilingual integrated development environment (IDE) for LaTeX and TeX. The program includes a text editor, syntax highlighting, project management, a spell checker, a table wizard, a BibTeX front-end, different tool bars and user configuration tools. It is not a LaTeX system; an additional LaTeX package is required.

Operating System: Windows 10 or higher.

A LaTeX package is a prerequisite to WinShell. Please install one of the following packages:

TeXLive: https://www.tug.org/texlive/
MiKTeX: https://miktex.org/
W32TeX: http://w32tex.org/

WinShell has a built-in spell checker based on hunspell. Additional hunspell compatible dictionaries can be imported. WinShell's import supports:

Plain .dic/.aff dictionary files: http://hunspell.github.io/
FreeOffice .sox files: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/dictionaries
OpenOffice .oxt files: https://extensions.openoffice.org/
FireFox .xpi files: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/

Please note: Before downloading any dictionary from the above links, please read the download information carefully. The dictionaries are licensed under different open-source licenses (e.g. GPL, LGPL and/or MPL). If you do not accept the license terms for a dictionary, please do not use it with WinShell.

A PDF viewer is a prerequisite to WinShell. Please install one of the following viewers:

Sumatra PDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html
Foxit Reader: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader/
Adobe Reader: https://get.adobe.com/reader/

WinShell supports and recommends Sumatra PDF which supports SyncTeX and allows forward and inverse search in .pdf documents.

A postscript viewer is optional and not necessary if the focus is on creating .pdf documents. To install Ghostscript and the GSViewer to view the .ps documents download from: https://www.ghostscript.com/

WinShell comes as a zip file and as a complete setup program. Only one is required!

Hint: By default, WinShell tries to find the executable files by searching the registry. The LaTeX binary path should be added to the environment variable PATH. That is why WinShell should be installed in the last stage of the complete installation procedure.

• Intuitive user interface with multi language support
• Project environment (Table of Contents, Figures, Tables, Bibliography)
• Built-in spell checker
• BibTeX front-end
• Forward and inverse search
• Table wizard
• User defined programs and macros
• Windows/Unix file format support
• Unicode and Multibyte support

This software is supplied in a binary format ('as is') for free - the source code is not available.

There are many expenses I incur in maintaining the WinShell project that may not be apparent, such as web hosting costs and the costs of new operating systems and software I have purchased especially for writing and testing WinShell. If you desire, you may send me donations of any amount or kind towards my efforts for keeping the WinShell project alive.

Although donations received are very much appreciated, those that do make donations do not automatically receive preferential treatment over those who don't.

Please visit the donation homepage for further details.

The graphical user interface of WinShell contains different parts:

The header bar indicates a subset of commands which are available in WinShell. The 'WS'-Button takes actions on documents and sets the options for WinShell.

The tool bar is displayed across the top of the application window, below the header bar and provides quick mouse access to some of the WinShell features.

The status bar is displayed at the bottom of the WinShell window. The right area of the status bar describes the current line and column of the cursor in the text, as well as the main TeX document.

This area shows the current open documents in a tab view.

In the project window the different projects can be explored.

From symbols and macros window the symbols and macros can be dragged and dropped into the current document.

The console window shows information from the log files, searches and tasks.

The usage of the Project Explorer allows to manage the documents and the information about a project. A project document contains relative pathnames. A demo project is included in the WinShell package which will be loaded at first start. The demo is stored in the folder 'Demo'. Open the demo project. Click on the LaTeX button of the tool bar. Take a look at the demo project with the viewDVI or viewPDF application or generate a .pdf or .ps document. If you get any error message, the LaTeX package could be installed incorrectly.

The project which will be compiled is marked bold in the Project Explorer. If you want to compile a different project (like the "Current document"), you need to activate the project with the "Activate" command in the context menu.

Tool Bar

Right Mouse Button

           

A context menu pops up after a right mouse click depending on the tree entry the mouse focuses.

Left Mouse Button

     

A double click on an item of the project has the following effects:

A .bib document it is automatically shown in the BibTeX front-end if the check mark in the 'General' options tab is checked.
In the upper view one can find an overview list of all the BibTeX entries. By clicking with the mouse on the header the list can be sorted. A triangle indicates an ascending or descending order. Clicking a single line shows the detailed information of the BibTeX entry in the lower view. There is the type and label information followed by the required and the optional fields. Each type has a set of required and optional fields.
For faster navigation in the lower view, one can use the TAB key to navigate to the different fields. If the field to change has been reached, a hit on the RETURN key will change into edit mode of this field.
It is possible to switch between the text view and the editor view via the context menu of the tab of the document:

     

Hint: For a .bib document depending on the upper or lower view of the BibTeX front-end a complete list or a single BibTeX entry will be printed.

Tool Bar

Via the tool bar menu the .bib document as well as the BibTeX types, fields, strings, preamble can be changed. The copy mechanism works from valid BibTeX format text input, also the paste mechanism copies a BibTeX entry in BibTeX format to the clipboard.

Edit a BibTeX Entry

A BibTeX entry can be edited in the lower view where the detailed information is displayed. The edit box on the right of each field can be activated by a mouse click and then be edited.

Edit the Strings

To edit the strings of the .bib document, choose accordingly in the tool bar. A dialog pops up and the strings can be modified.

Edit the Preamble

To edit the preamble of the .bib document, choose accordingly in the tool bar. A dialog pops up and the preamble can be typed in.

Edit the Types and Fields

To modify the types and fields, choose accordingly in the tool bar. A dialog pops up and the types and fields can be modified.
When a type is selected the required and optional fields are displayed accordingly. An information text about the currently selected type and field is shown and can be edited. Any modification of the information text will be stored.
New types and fields can be added via the 'Add...' button. User types and fields can be deleted via the 'Delete...' button. The standard types and fields cannot be deleted. The 'Default' button resets all the types and fields to the standard ones and all user types and fields will be deleted. With the '>' and '<' buttons it is possible to change the required and optional fields for a type.

Automatic Spell Check

WinShell has a built-in spell checker. Only a dictionary needs to be downloaded, see here.
The spell checker check mark in the tool bar enables or disables the automatic spell checking. Unknown words are squiggly underlined. The color of the squiggly line can be set in the 'Options->Text Editor->Syntax Highlighting' menu. Different features how to handle the unknown word are provided via the context menu (right mouse button click over an unknown word).

The first entries in the context menu are suggestions to replace the unknown word. Choosing one of them replaces the unknown word in the text. Other options are to ignore the unknown word in the text or even store it in the personal dictionary for future spell checking. It is possible to choose the spell checking language from the context menu and edit the personal dictionary. Also, the spell check dialog can be started from the context menu.

     

The dialog spell check button in the 'Execute' tool bar is enabled when a document is loaded. The checking starts from the current mouse position. A dialog pops up to show the unknown word which is also highlighted in the document. A suggestion list is displayed. At the bottom of the dialog the language of the dictionary can be chosen (left image).
A personal dictionary can be created if the word is not in the given suggestion list. The word can be added and the personal dictionary be edited (right image).

Import of Dictionaries

Additional hunspell compatible dictionaries can be imported. WinShell can import .dic/.aff, .sox, .oxt and .xpi files. Links to dictionaries can be found here.

Download a dictionary to your Desktop and click the 'Add' button. A dialog box pops up to choose the downloaded file.

WinShell provides the following command line arguments, used for e.g. forward and inverse search:

-p project_file
-c current_tex_file [-l current line]
project_file
current_tex_file

E.g., the command line to open a document called winshell.tex at line position 23 would be: WinShell.exe -c winshell.tex -l 23

Step 1 Start the table wizard from the tool bar 'Execute - Table Wizard'. A dialog pops up where the user can set values for the columns and rows.
Step 2 The next dialog shows the table with the entries which are editable.

     

	centered text
	right-aligned text
	left-aligned text
	no vertical/horizontal line
	vertical/horizontal line
	double vertical/horizontal line

Step 1 Define the user tool in 'Options - User Tools'. Make the entries for the wanted program and press 'OK'. In this example, makeindex will be used. For more information about makeindex see the makeindex documentation.

The parameters %<p>[s, p, c]<.xxx, .%ex>;%l have the following meaning:

Step 2 The user tool is ready in the 'User Tools' tool bar section for execution.

Step 1 Define the macro in 'Options - Macros'.

Different tags are provided inside a macro for special features after the macro was inserted into the text:

Step 2 Double click or drag&drop the macro from the Symbols/Macros Window. Double click inserts the macro at the current position of the cursor in the text. Drag&Drop gives the freedom to postion the macro at any position in the text.

A double click on an error or warning line in the Output tab of the Console Window jumps to the specific line in the corresponding document. An error line is drawn in red.

Additionally, WinShell jumps automatically to the first error line when the check mark in the 'Options->Text Editor->General' dialog is set.
Hint: Adding the nonstopmode command to the pdfLaTeX program call prevents the pdfLaTeX run to stop at errors and makes a compilation of the complete project or document: 'Options->Program Calls', cmd-line: -interaction=nonstopmode "%s.tex"

A double click on a line in the Tasks tab of the Console Window jumps to the specific line in the corresponding document. Tasks are marked with a '%% todo:' tag in the text. This feature provides some kind of reminder functionality. It can be used within a document or project where the user needs to add e.g. some additional information later.

Auto completion in the text editor is initiated with a '\' followed by a combination of two keystrokes, namely CTRL and SPACE, at a time. After you have typed e.g. 'nbe' followed by CTRL+Space WinShell displays a list box showing likely identifiers. The currently selected item can be chosen by pressing the TAB key or via the mouse.
WinShell has an extended auto completion, meaning that not only the keyword is shown, but also the complete environment is filled into the text editor and the cursor is positioned at a reasonable position.

     

Autocompletion also works with the BibTeX entries. Type the keyword '\cite' and place the cursor is in between the braces (Auto completion will do this automatically). Another CRTL+Space keystroke will show a list of the labels which can be inserted. The list of labels is generated from the BibTeX file(s) which belong to the active project.

     

If the likely identifier list contains only a single item, this single item will be automatically inserted without showing a selection list.

The forward and inverse search allows to jump from WinShell directly into the corresponding position of the .dvi or .pdf document and vice versa.
WinShell provides the following wild cards to use this functionality in WinShell:

Regular expressions for the search and the replace dialog. Please refer to the Scintilla documentation for more information.

Please download the latest version from the WinShell homepage and retry before sending any problem report. Include the following information in your email (in English or German only!) when sending a problem report:

Computer:
 Which Operating System including version and service pack?
 
WinShell:
 Which version of WinShell?

Problem:
 Description of the exact way how this error is reproducible.
 Please provide screenshots and/or sample TeX Documents.