How to configure vim-latex to use portable MiKTeX to compile

Recently I have installed vim-latex plugin in gVim. I use portable MiKTeX to compile tex document into pdf documents. Till now, I have used command prompt to compile the tex files. After installing vim-latex plugin I found that there's a compile option under Tex-Suite>Compile menu. But clicking it doesn't do anything. So how can I configure vim-latex to use the portable MiKTeX compiler?

Solution

Initial googling let me to this link: http://vim-latex.sourceforge.net/documentation/latex-suite/customizing-compiling.html#Tex_CompileRule_format. However, I couldn't find any clue to where actually configure this variables. But finally I found the location. For my case it was

C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vimfiles\ftplugin\latex-suite\texrc

The texrc file has all the variables described in the link. As I said in my question, I use miktex portable so first I needed to change the compiler. So I searched for g:Tex_CompileRule_pdf in the file and found this line

TexLet g:Tex_CompileRule_pdf = 'pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode $*'

So, I just replaced pdflatex with the full path

TexLet g:Tex_CompileRule_pdf = 'E:\full\path\of\miktex\pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode $*'

Next thing that needed to be changed is telling vim-latex to use pdflatex to compile by default. So, I searched for the g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat variable in the file and found this line

if has('macunix')
    TexLet g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat = 'pdf'
else
    TexLet g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat = 'dvi'
endif

No need to keep all this checking. so I commented out most of the lines

"if has('macunix')
    TexLet g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat = 'pdf'
"else
"   TexLet g:Tex_DefaultTargetFormat = 'dvi'
"endif

After this, vim-latex was able to compile my files. But the viewer wasn't working. So, needed to make a little more change. Searched for g:Tex_ViewRule_ps and changed the lines under if has('win32') to look like this.

if has('win32')
    TexLet g:Tex_ViewRule_ps = 'gsview32'
    TexLet g:Tex_ViewRule_pdf = 'E:\Share\PortableApps\SumatraPDF-2.4\SumatraPDF.exe'
    TexLet g:Tex_ViewRule_dvi = 'yap -1'

I had to use SumatraPDF because for some reason Adobe Reader 11 was giving the error Unable to find the file. But Sumatra in not so bad. Now I can use vim-latex in peace :)