LATEXML(1p)

💅 LATEXML(1p) — bestie's guide to latexml

okay so. this is the latexml page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation, and it's basically the glow-up machine that takes your TeX/LaTeX file and turns it into XML. no cap. let's get into it 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

latexml — transforms a TeX/LaTeX file into XML. that's the whole vibe. that's literally it. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

latexml [options] texfile

 Options:
 --destination=file sets destination file (default stdout).
 --output=file      [obsolete synonym for --destination]
 --preload=module   requests loading of an optional module;
                    can be repeated
 --preamble=file    sets a preamble file which will
                    effectively be prepended to the main file.
 --postamble=file   sets a postamble file which will
                    effectively be appended to the main file.
 --includestyles    allows latexml to load raw *.sty file;
                    by default it avoids this.
 --path=dir         adds to the paths searched for files,
                    modules, etc;
 --log=file         specifies log file (default is file named after job name)
 --documentid=id    assign an id to the document root.
 --quiet            suppress messages (can repeat)
 --verbose          more informative output (can repeat)
 --strict           makes latexml less forgiving of errors
 --bibtex           processes as a BibTeX bibliography.
 --xml              requests xml output (default).
 --tex              requests TeX output after expansion.
 --box              requests box output after expansion
                    and digestion.
 --noparse          suppresses parsing math
 --nocomments       omit comments from the output
 --inputencoding=enc specify the input encoding.
 --VERSION          show version number.
 --debug=package    enables debugging output for the named
                    package
 --help             shows this help message.

and here's the tea ☕ — if texfile is '-', latexml reads the TeX source straight from standard input. and if texfile has an explicit extension of .bib, it gets processed as a BibTeX bibliography instead. iykyk 💖

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✨ OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS ✨

--destination=file

tells it where to send the goods — by default the XML just gets written to stdout. 💫

--preload=module

asks for an optional module or package to get loaded. lowkey a lifesaver when your TeX code never explicitly asks for the module (like, it doesn't input it or usepackage it). for example, hit it with --preload=LaTeX.pool to force LaTeX mode. periodt. 👑

--preamble=file, --postamble=file

points at a file whose contents effectively get prepended or appended to your main document file's content. super useful when you're processing TeX fragments — in that case the preamble is where you'd stash your documentclass and begindocument control sequences. 🫶

heads up bestie: this option is not used when processing BibTeX files. 🙈

--includestyles

this one lets you process style files — that's files with the extensions sty, cls, clo, cnf. by default these files are just ignored unless there's a latexml implementation of them hanging around (one with an extension of ltxml). ✨

so these style files generally fall into two classes:

• ones that merely affect document style → totally ignorable in the XML, they're not the main character
• ones that define new markup and document structure, often by using deeper LaTeX macros to get what they want

and like. the omission will lead to other errors (missing macro definitions, rip), but it is unlikely that processing the TeX code in the style file will lead to a correct document. so, yeah. choose your fighter. 💀

--path=dir

adds dir to the search paths used when hunting for files, modules, style files, etc — kinda like TEXINPUTS. and yes, you can repeat this option as many times as your heart desires. 💜

--documentid=id

assigns an ID to the root element of the XML document. this ID generally gets inherited as the prefix of the IDs on all the other elements in the document. it's giving... exactly what you want when you're building a site out of multiple documents and you need every single node to have a unique ID. slay. 🌈

--quiet

reduces how chatty the output is during processing. use it twice and it's pretty much silent 🤫

--verbose

increases the verbosity of output during processing — use it twice and it's pretty chatty. genuinely useful when you're chasing down errors and want the details. 🔥

--strict

specifies a strict processing mode. by default, undefined control sequences and invalid document constructs (the ones that violate the DTD) just give you warning messages, but it attempts to continue processing anyway. using --strict makes those generate fatal errors instead. dramatic? yes. effective? also yes. 💅

--bibtex

forces latexml to treat the file as a BibTeX bibliography. 📓

note bestie, the timing is slightly different than the usual case with BibTeX and LaTeX. in the latter case, BibTeX simply selects and formats a subset of the bibliographic entries, and the actual TeX expansion happens when the result gets included in a LaTeX document. in contrast, latexml processes and expands the entire bibliography, and the selection of entries is done during postprocessing. which also means any packages that define macros used in the bibliography must be specified using the --preload option. don't forget or you'll be crying 😭

--xml

requests XML output — which, fun fact, is the default. icon behavior ⭐

--tex

requests TeX output, for debugging purposes. processing only gets carried out through expansion and digestion. and uh, this may not be quite valid TeX, since Unicode may be introduced. 🙈

--box

requests Box output, also for debugging. processing gets carried out through expansion and digestions, and then the result is printed. 🍓

--nocomments

normally latexml preserves comments from the source file, and adds a comment every 25 lines as an aid in tracking the source. the option --nocomments discards all of those comments. bye bye comments 👋

--inputencoding=encoding

specify the input encoding, eg. --inputencoding=iso-8859-1. the encoding must be one known to Perl's Encode package. 🧚

important: this only enables the translation of the input bytes to UTF-8 used internally by LaTeXML — it does not affect catcodes. it is usually better to use LaTeX's inputenc package. and note that this does not affect the output encoding, which is always UTF-8. 💖

--VERSION

shows the version number of the LaTeXML package.. (yes, two periods, i'm keeping it, it's part of the lore) 👑

--debug=package

enables debugging output for the named package. you give the package name without the leading LaTeXML::. 🔍

--help

shows this help message. be nice to it. 🎀

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

latexmlpost, latexmlmath, LaTeXML — go read those too bestie, they're all part of the same little family 🫶🌸

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and that's the whole thing!! made with love by perl v5.40.1, stamped 2025-11-16, filed under LATEXML(1p). go transform some TeX, you gorgeous genius 💅✨💖