AUCTeX: only use monospace for rendering macros?

Question

I've been using the fontify features of AUCTeX, as well as magic-latex-buffer, to display my TeX code in a more readable way.

But I'm wondering if I can crank this up to 11: is there a way to render the document text in a variable width font, but have any actual LaTeX code (macros, etc.) rendered using a monospace font.

This isn't a true WYSIWYG, but it at least would make the buffer contents feel more like the final document.

Answer 1

You can make the face used for math and the so-called sedate face used for macro names inherit from fixed-pitch, and activate variable-pitch-mode in the LaTeX mode hook:

(set-face-attribute 'font-latex-sedate-face nil :inherit 'fixed-pitch)
(set-face-attribute 'font-latex-math-face nil :inherit 'fixed-pitch)
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook #'variable-pitch-mode)

Answer 2

Alternatively, you can use the mixed-pitch-mode package to do precisely this.

If you don't like the presets, you can remove/add faces to mixed-pitch-fixed-pitch-faces. For example, if you want to fontify section headers, remove font-latex-sectioning-5-face. To enable by default set the LaTeX mode hook:

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook #'variable-pitch-mode)