GNU ELPA - tex-parens

Emacs comes with the following useful commands for working with lists, sexps and defuns (see the info nodes Expressions and Defuns):

This package provides analogous commands adapted for tex buffers, with the class of parenthesis-like delimiters (namely, parentheses (), brackets [] and braces {}) expanded to include the following:

• \begin{...} - \end{...} pairs
• math environment delimiters $...$, \(...\), \[...\], $$...$$
• mathematical delimiters: parentheses, brackets, braces, \langle - \rangle, \lvert - \rvert, etc., and compositions of these with modifiers such as \left - \right, \Bigg, etc. See M-x customize-group tex-parens for details.

There is some support in this direction in the built-in tex-mode, in AUCTeX and in latex-extra. There are many packages, such as paredit and lispy, that add further useful commands and bindings to lisp modes, and many other packages, such as smartparens, puni and paredit-everywhere, that aim to give consistent parenthesis-based commands across all modes. There's also the evil-tex package for those that prefer a modal setup. I was unable to get these packages to behave in the desired manner. Smartparens comes close, but doesn't seem to support arbitrary begin/end pairs, and has some issues when one delimiter is a prefix of another (https://github.com/Fuco1/smartparens/issues/1193). This package should work out-of-the-box and behave in tex buffers just like stock Emacs does in lisp buffers.

This package is available via GNU ELPA, so you can install it using package-install or list-packages. You can activate it via M-x tex-parens-mode, which remaps binds for the commands listed above to their tex-parens-* counterparts.

To activate automatically, add the following lines to your config (the first hook applies if use the built-in tex-mode, the second if you use AUCTeX):

(use-package tex-parens
  :hook
  (tex-mode . tex-parens-mode)
  (TeX-mode . tex-parens-mode))

For finer control over how keys are bound, you can avoid tex-parens-mode and instead use something like the following:

(use-package tex-parens
  :bind
  (:map LaTeX-mode-map
	("C-M-f" . tex-parens-forward-sexp)
	("C-M-b" . tex-parens-backward-sexp)
	("C-M-n" . tex-parens-forward-list)
	("C-M-p" . tex-parens-backward-list)
	("C-M-u" . tex-parens-backward-up-list)
	("M-u" . tex-parens-up-list)
	("C-M-g" . tex-parens-down-list)
	("M-_" . tex-parens-delete-pair)
	("C-M-SPC" . tex-parens-mark-sexp)
	("C-M-k" . tex-parens-kill-sexp)
	("C-M-t" . tex-parens-transpose-sexps)
	("C-M-<backspace>" . tex-parens-backward-kill-sexp)
	("M-+" . tex-parens-raise-sexp))
  :hook
  (tex-mode . tex-parens-setup)
  (TeX-mode . tex-parens-setup))

The precise use-package declaration that I use may be found in the LaTeX part of my config (elpaca branch).

Use M-x customize-group tex-parens to configure further. If you tweak the customization variables concerning delimiters and modifiers, then you'll need to reload your tex file, reset the minor mode, or do M-: (tex-parens-setup) for the changes to take effect.

This package contains the following additional functions defined in terms of the sexp/list primitives:

• tex-parens-burp-left, tex-parens-burp-right: Slurp or barf sexps in and out of the current list.
• tex-parens-mark-inner: Mark the innermost balanced group around point.
• tex-parens-beginning-of-list, tex-parens-end-of-list: Move to the beginning or end of the current balanced group.
• tex-parens-kill-to-end-of-list, tex-parens-kill-to-beginning-of-list: Kill text between point and the end or beginning of the current list.

See the C-h f documentation for each function for more details. They may be bound in the same manner as described above.