You probably want something like this. I think you need a function that matches the img, so you can get the region and remove flyspell overlays. Also you need to modify the add-hook call a bit. (setq x-gtk-use-system-tooltips nil) (defvar image-tooltip-re (concat "\\\\includegraphics{\\(?1:.*\\." (regexp-opt '("png" "PNG" "JPG" "jpeg" "jpg" "JPEG" "eps" "EPS" "pdf")) "\\)}") "Regexp to match included images") (defun image-tooltip (window object position) (save-excursion (goto-char position) (let (beg end imgfile img s) (while (not (looking-at image-tooltip-re)) (forward-char -1)) (setq imgfile (match-string-no-properties 1)) (if (file-exists-p imgfile) (progn (setq img (create-image (expand-file-name imgfile) 'imagemagick nil :width 800)) (message (propertize "Look in the minibuffer" 'display img))) "No file found")))) (defun img-match (limit) "Match bar in at the end of a word." (when (re-search-forward image-tooltip-re limit t) (flyspell-delete-region-overlays (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1)) t)) (add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda () (font-lock-add-keywords nil '((img-match 1 '(face font-lock-keyword-face help-echo image-tooltip))))))