NAME

GladTeX - generate HTML with LaTeX formulas embedded as images

SYNOPSIS

gladtex [OPTIONS] [INPUT FILE NAME]

DESCRIPTION

GladTeX is a formula preprocessor for HTML files. It recognizes a special tag (<eq>...</eq>) and will convert the contained LaTeX formulas into images. The resulting images will be linked into the resulting HTML document. This eases the process of creating HTML documents (or web sites) containing formulas.
The generated images are saved in a cache to not render the same image over and over again. This speeds up the process when formulas occur multiple times or when a document is extended gradually.

The LaTeX formulas are preserved in the alt attribute of the embedded images. Hence screen reader users benefit from an accessible HTML version of the document.

Furthermore it can be used with Pandoc to convert Markdown documents with LaTeX formulas to HTML.

See FILE FORMAT for an explanation of the file format and EXAMPLES for examples on how to use GladTeX on its own or with Pandoc.

OPTIONS

INPUT FILE NAME
Input .htex file with LaTeX formulas (if omitted or -, stdin will be read).
-h --help
Show this help message and exit.
-a
Save text alternatives for images which are too long for the alt attribute into a single separate file and link images to it.
-b BACKGROUND_COLOR
Set background color for resulting images (default transparent).
-c FOREGROUND_COLOR
Set foreground color for resulting images (default 0,0,0).
-d DIRECTORY
Directory in which to store the generated images in (relative path).
-e LATEX_MATHS_ENV
Set custom maths environment to surround the formula (e.g. flalign).
-E ENCODING
Overwrite encoding to use (default UTF-8).
-i CLASS
CSS class to assign to inline math (default: 'inlinemath').
-K

keep LaTeX file(s) when converting formulas

By default, the generated LaTeX document, containing the formula to be converted, are removed after the conversion (no matter whether it was successful or not). If it wasn't successful, it is sometimes helpful to look at the complete document. This option will keep the file.

-l CLASS
CSS class to assign to block-level math (default: 'displaymath').
-n

Purge unreadable caches along with all eqn*.png files.

Caches can be unreadable if the used GladTeX version is incompatible. If this option is unset, GladTeX will simply fail when the cache is unreadable.

-m

Print error output in machine-readable format (less concise, better parseable).

Each line will start with a key, followed by a colon, followed by the value, i.e. line: 5.

-o FILENAME
Set output file name. '-' will print text to stdout. Bydefault, input file name is used and the .htex extension is replaced by .html.
-p LATEX_STATEMENT
Add given LaTeX code to preamble of document. That'll affect the conversion of every image.
-r DPI
Set resolution (size of images) to 'dpi' (100 by default).
-R

Replace non-ascii (unicode) characters by LaTeX commands.

GladTeX can automatically detect non-ascii characters in formulas and replace them through their appropriate LaTeX commands. In the alt attribute of the resulting image, alphabetical characters won't be replaced. That means that the alt text from the image is not exactly the same than the code used for generating the image, but it is far more readable.

For instance, the formula $\text{für alle} a$, would be compiled as $\text{f\ddot{u}r alle} a$ and displayed as "\text{für alle} a" in the alt attribute.

-u URL
Base URL to image files (relative links are default).

FILE FORMAT

A .htex file is essentially a HTML file containing LaTeX formulas. The formulas have to be surrounded by <eq> and </eq>.

By default, formulas are rendered as inline maths, so they are squeezed to the height of the line. It is possible to render a formula as display maths by setting the env attribute to displaymath, i.e. <eq env="displaymath">...</eq>.

EXAMPLES

Sample HTEX document

A sample HTEX document could look like this:

<html><head><!-- meta information like charset --></head>
<body>
<h1>Some text</h1>
<p>Circumference of a circle: <eq>u = \pi\cdot d</eq><p>
<p>A useful matrix: <eq env="displaymath">\begin{pmatrix}
1 &2 &3 &4\\
5 &6 &7 &8\\
9 &10&11&12
\end{pmatrix}</eq></p>
</body></html>

This can be converted using

gladtex file.htex

and the result will be a HTML document called file.html along with two files eqn0000.png and eqn0001.png in the same directory.

Markdown to HTML

GladTeX can be used together with Pandoc. That can be handy to create an online version of a scientific paper written in Markdown. The MarkDown document would look like this:

Some text
=========

Circumference of a circle: $u = \pi\cdot d$

A useful matrix: $$\begin{pmatrix}
1 &2 &3 &4\\
5 &6 &7 &8\\
9 &10&11&12 \end{pmatrix}$$

The conversion is as easy as:

pandoc -s -t html --gladtex file.md | gladtex -o file.html

KNOWN LIMITATIONS

LaTeX2e is NOT unicode aware. If you have any unicode (more precisely, non-ascii characters) signs in your documents, you have the choice to do one of the following:

  1. Look up the symbol in one of the many LaTeX formula listings and replace the symbol with the appropriate command.
  2. Use the -R switch to let GladTeX replace the Umlauts for you.

Please note that it is not possible to use LuaLaTeX. At the time of writing, dvipng does not support the extended font features of the LuaLaTeX engine.

PROJECT HOME

The project home is at http://humenda.github.io/GladTeX. The source can be found at https://github.com/humenda/gladtex.