AUCTeX TeX-doc & texdoc

auctex, emacs

Solution

Starting from version 11.89, AUCTeX binds by default C-c ? to `TeX-documentation-texdoc`, which does exactly what is asked.

For previous versions of AUCTeX, see the original answer below.

I find `TeX-doc` (the function bound to C-c ?) overly complicated: in the case of `memoir` class it never calls `texdoc memoir` because the doc file is named `memman.pdf` instead of `memoir.pdf`. That should be fixed upstream.

For the time being, you can use this much simpler function which blindly runs `texdoc <symbol-at-point>` without further checks:

(defun mg-TeX-doc ()
  "Search documentation with texdoc for symbol at point."
  (interactive)
  (call-process "texdoc" nil 0 nil "--view" (thing-at-point 'symbol)))

You can bind it to C-c ? if you want to replace standard `TeX-doc` with the following code:

(eval-after-load "tex"
  '(progn
     (define-key TeX-mode-map (kbd "C-c ?") 'mg-TeX-doc)))

Problem

As far as I can tell from the manual, running C-c ? in AUCTeX ought to run `texdoc %s` on the package name specified. For the vast majority of packages it does, however some just aren't found - M-! `texdoc memoir` works fine, but C-c ? `memoir` fails both at detecting the package under point and then at loading the documentation when I type it in manually. I've been trying to find the variable which controls the invocation of `texdoc`, but can't. M-: `(executable-find "texdoc")` returns `/usr/bin/texdoc` as expected, but that's as far as I got. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Original source