axohelp(1.4)

📦 version 2026.0, in alpine 3.24

💖 axohelp(1.4) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to axohelp — the little helper program that makes the LaTeX package axodraw2 play nice with pdflatex. that's the whole vibe. this page is for version 1.4, slay.

✨ NAME ✨

axohelp — helper program for use of LaTeX package axodraw2 with pdflatex. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

axohelp [options] [filename]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. Axohelp is a program used with axodraw2, which is a LaTeX package for drawing Feynman graphs (and some other simple graphics) in LaTeX documents. Feynman graphs!! in LaTeX!! iconic honestly.

here's the tea: when the axodraw2 package is used with pdflatex (or lualatex or xelatex), it creates a file with extension .ax1. that file is literally just a pile of specifications of the graphics elements. Axohelp converts this to a file with extension ax2 that contains the necessary pdf code. then the .ax2 file gets read by pdflatex (etc) on its next run, and the contents of the .ax2 file are used in the final .pdf output file to draw the desired graphics. it's giving pipeline. it's giving teamwork. 🫶

so like, which files are we even processing? glad you asked:

  • when the filename on the command line is of the form file.ax1, then the input file is file.ax1 and the output file is file.ax2.
  • if the filename on the command line does not have extension .ax1, then this extension is appended. the program just does it. no cap.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

options can be introduced by single or double hyphen characters — yes, both, she's flexible like that. the possible options are:

  • -h, --help — gives usage information. your "wait how do i use this" bestie. 🙈
  • -v, --version — gives version information. who am i? what am i? 💁‍♀️
  • -V — NOT CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTED: give information on each function used.
bestie listen. -V is literally not implemented right now. do not expect it to do the thing. it does not do the thing. 💀

👑 AUTHOR 👑

current version, by John Collins (username jcc8 at node psu.edu) and Jos Vermaseren (username t68 at nikhef dot nl). kings. legends. the way that they built this.

the released version can be obtained from CTAN: http://www.ctan.org/pkg/axodraw2/, and an author's website: https://www.nikhef.nl/~form/maindir/others/axodraw2/axodraw2.html. go get it, it's free, it's beautiful. 🌈

and that's the whole page, babe. this one's from 5 Mar 2021, and it's axohelp(1.4) — aka the source and version, aka the origin story. go draw some Feynman graphs. periodt. 💜✨

📦 where this page comes from