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Installing WinEdt

WinEdt setup and default settings have been carefully prepared to make installation and integration with MiKTeX or TeX Live automatic. It is recommended that you install WinEdt and your TeX System as a power user (administrator) in order to allow the programs and their installers to properly update your Windows Registry and/ or PATH, thus making automatic integration with WinEdt possible.

Download and execute the setup file winedt60.exe. The Installer Wizard will guide you through the installation. For most users the default options in the Wizard should be used. However, if you are creating a portable installation you should disable User Profile Creation and enable Create Local Application Data: this way WinEdt will create a Local folder inside its install folder and this folder will contain all your custom settings. After the installation is completed it is recommended that you let the Installer start WinEdt for the first time.

On first opening, WinEdt presents you with its Configuration Wizard where you can perform some further - and important- additional tasks, most notably, filetype associations. If you decide to postpone this for later you may have to start WinEdt with elevated privileges; on Windows Vista or Windows 7 this is done by right-clicking on the icon used to start WinEdt and choosing "Run as Administrator" from the popup menu. With Enabled User Profile Creation WinEdt can be run by restricted users since it stores application data in user-specific folder with write access. However, without elevated privileges WinEdt may not be able to create filetype associations which require write access to Windows Registry.

After these preliminaries, start the Options Interface (from the Options Menu). A Tree Control containing different configuration components will appear above the Navigation Bar:

WinEdt's Help explains how to use this new interface in order to make changes to the default configuration. In particular, you should make any required changes pertaining to your preferred Wrapping and Backup strategy.

IMPORTANT: The default setting for wrapping of TeX Documents uses Soft Wrapping. This was done because many (would-be/ new) users familiar with Notepad-like style of wrapping report as a bug any different behavior. Of course, this may not be everyone's choice! If you are accustomed to work with Smart Wrapping you should remove TeX; or any other unwanted mode from the filter for which Soft Wrapping is enabled:

  // If you don't want TeX Documents to be treated in Soft Mode remove TeX; from the filter!
  // Soft Wrapping (like Notepad):
  SOFT_WRAPPING=1
  SOFT_WRAPPING_FILTER="TeX;HTML;ANSI;Soft|Hard"

This should be done before you start working on your documents!

After you make changes to a particular script you should use the Load Command (the first button in the Option Interface Toolbar) to make the changes effective immediately. It is not necessary to restart WinEdt. In fact, no scripts are loaded at startup: the compiled raw data is stored in WinEdt.dnt (Do Not Touch). This reduces the startup time and reduces the likelihood of error messages during startup.

Upgrading

From version 5.x -- not really: WinEdt 6 installs parallel to WinEdt 5 (you can continue to use WinEdt 5 and possibly uninstall WinEdt 6 if you prefer the old version). You should not attempt to install WinEdt 6 over the existing WinEdt 5.x on your system! You cannot import old settings from WinEdt 5: the new version will have to customized manually!

If you already have a previous version of WinEdt 6 then your local settings will be preserved during the upgrade. You should read What's New (Help Menu) and then decide if you want to load any new default settings or merge your modifications with new defaults. The Options Interface has been slightly changed and the Options Maintenance Menu has been changed to allow easier maintenance of custom settings. Note that the Options Interface now allows you to mark those components that have been modified (see the images above). This can come handy if you want to compare your settings with defaults. The Cleanup command will remove unnecessary local ini and edt scripts (if they are identical to the default ones). Reading the (fairly short) section on the new Options Interface in the Help is essential if you want to learn how to customize WinEdt 6.

IMPORTANT: You should not be "upgrading" to WinEdt 6, if

• you are busily working on a project with a deadline approaching (install it later when you have more time).
• you want everything exactly as it is in your current version (if it ain't broke don't fix it).
• your current custom settings are more important than any of the new features.
• your computer might not be up to running the latest version (eg. legacy Windows)...
• you expect personal assistance with restoring your old settings (whatever they may be).

If you don't fall in any of the above categories read the rest of the instructions and proceed accordingly...

REGISTRATION: WinEdt 6 series requires a new registration number. You can take advantage of the trial period and see if you want to use this version or you prefer the older WinEdt 5.x series. Should you opt for WinEdt 6 and already have a license for WinEdt 5, you will need to purchase an upgrade license from www.winedt.com (see the Tables at the Registration page: upgrade rates are at the bottom). Exceptions will be made (upon request) to users that have purchased a license or an upgrade within the last year and to users that make contributions to winedt.org, or help with WinEdt project in some other way... This is your chance to get involved!

NOTE: At this stage many components on www.winedt.org will not automatically install into WinEdt 6 unless they have been updated and they state that they are WinEdt 6-compatible. This applies to all components that involve changes to the Menu and/or Toolbar... Advanced users can, of course, install such components manually and make them WinEdt 6-compatible by rewriting the relevant scripts (.ini files) in the new format.

Upgrading WinEdt 6 series from here on will be easy (using the items in Options -> Maintenance Menu) or for more selective users the new Options Interface (see also "Private Settings" section in the Advanced portion of the Options Interface)...

Troubleshooting

WinEdt is by default configured to run as a front-end for MiKTeX. However, it is quite straightforward to configure WinEdt for a different TeX System (eg. TeX Live), or even define a completely different set of accessories. By default, Options -> Configurations Menu already contains a few alternative configurations!

WinEdt does its best to automatically detect your TeX System and Accessories (such as PDF Viewer). However, should automatic detection fail it is easy to manually configure WinEdt to find your TeX System or any problematic accessory: in the Options Menu, start the Execution Modes Interface. Entering the location of your TeX Root folder is pretty much all that has to be done (no need to modify any macro scripts):

This interface can also be used to diagnose your system, fine-tune the execution of console applications (such as TeX), and more... Help in the Execution Modes Interface explains the details!

Uninstalling

If you use the Uninstall Command (eg. from Windows Control Panel) to uninstall WinEdt the folder where you installed WinEdt and WinEdt's Application Data folder (if you created a User Profile) will be removed (as they should!). Thus make sure that you don't place your documents in the same folder. By default the root folder and application data folder are:

  {program files}\WinEdt Team\WinEdt 6
  {user application data}\WinEdt Team\WinEdt 6

These are certainly no places for your own documents! However, should you decide to specify a custom folder during WinEdt's Installation keep the above warning in mind: uninstall will delete it!

Whatever custom location you might specify it should end with "\WinEdt". In particular, \WinEdt is not automatically appended to the specified location (as one might erroneously assume with possibly serious consequences should WinEdt be uninstalled and thus the destination folder erased)!

Installer

WinEdt uses a reputable open source installer: NSIS. The installer will make sure that WinEdt is installed with elevated privileges and thus placed in proper (usually write-protected) folder inside Program Files.

NSIS Installer Usage

Generated installers and uninstallers accept a few options on the command line. These options give the user a bit more control over the installation process.

Common Options

• /NCRC disables the CRC check, unless CRCCheck force was used in the script.
• /S runs the installer or uninstaller silently. See section 4.12 for more information.
• /D sets the default installation directory ($INSTDIR), overriding InstallDir and InstallDirRegKey. It must be the last parameter used in the command line and must not contain any quotes, even if the path contains spaces. Only absolute paths are supported.

Uninstaller Specific Options

• _?= sets $INSTDIR. It also stops the uninstaller from copying itself to the temporary directory and running from there. It can be used along with ExecWait to wait for the uninstaller to finish. It must be the last parameter used in the command line and must not contain any quotes, even if the path contains spaces.

        installer.exe /NCRC

        installer.exe /S

        installer.exe /D=C:\Program Files\NSIS

        installer.exe /NCRC /S /D=C:\Program Files\NSIS

        uninstaller.exe /S _?=C:\Program Files\NSIS

        # uninstall old version
        ExecWait '"$INSTDIR\uninstaller.exe" /S _?=$INSTDIR'

IMPORTANT: On Windows Vista or Win7 enabling the creation of user profiles during the installation is essential (this is a default settings and should not be disabled). If you want to change anything in WinEdt's installation Folder later you will have to Run WinEdt as an administrator. This applies to changing the profile settings as well as entering registration data for all users! To start WinEdt with administrative privileges right click on its icon (link) and choose "Run as Administrator" from the context popup menu: only then can WinEdt write or modify global data (such as secure registration data for all users) in its program files folder. Elevated privileges are also required in order to create filetype associations on these platforms.

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