Conversion from TeXmacs to LaTeX

A TeXmacs document can be exported to LaTeX using File→Export→LaTeX. In the case of certain journal styles like svjour or elsart, the user should also make sure that the appropriate style files can be found by LaTeX, when compiling the result of the conversion. Please consult your LaTeX documentation for how to do this; one solution which usually works is to put the style file in the same directory as your file.

Notice that the exportation of a TeXmacs document with images may cause the creation of additional image files. If your destination file is called name.tex, these files are named name-1.eps, name-2.eps, etc. and they are stored in the same directory. In particular, all pictures drawn with the editor, and all images which are not already in Postscript format, will be converted to encapsulated Postscript files.

In order to ensure that the generated LaTeX document compiles, style files and packages or macros with no LaTeX equivalents are either ignored or replaced by a reasonable substitute. The precise behaviour of the converter may be customized using several user preferences in the Edit→Preferences→Converters→TeXmacs->LaTeX menu:

Replace unrecognized styles

This option (which is set by default) tells TeXmacs to replace style files with no LaTeX equivalents by the letter style. Furthermore, all additional style packages are ignored.

In the case when you know how to write your own style files, then you might wish to create TeXmacs equivalents of certain journal styles which you often use. Similarly, you might wish to create a style package with your own macros together with its LaTeX counterpart. In both cases, you might want to disable the style replacement option.

Replace unrecognized macros

By default, all TeXmacs macros are expanded until they admit direct LaTeX counterparts. Primitives with no LaTeX counterparts (like graphics or trees) are ignored. Moreover, in order to convert certain frequently used macros like theorem or strong, TeXmacs may put additional definitions in the preamble.

In some cases, the user may wish to keep unrecognized macros in their unexpanded form. For instance, this may be convenient if you want to import the generated document back into TeXmacs. Another typical situation is when you defined additional macros in a style package. In these cases, you may disable to macro replacement option. Of course, any missing macro definitions may result in LaTeX errors during the compilation.

Expand user-defined macros

When your document or its preamble contains macro definitions, then TeXmacs will convert these macro definitions into LaTeX macro definitions and keep all macro applications in their unexpanded forms. This allows you to preserve as much structure of your document as possible. When enabling the Expand user-defined macros option, all macro definitions in your document will be ignored and all macro applications will be expanded.

Export bibliographies as links

In order to produce stand-alone LaTeX files whenever possible, it is assumed that you generate your bibliographies from within TeXmacs. When exporting to LaTeX, the generated bibliography will be directly included into your LaTeX file. In some cases however, the user might wish to regenerate the bibliography from the LaTeX and the bibliography files, using BibTeX. In this case, you need to enable the Export bibliographies as links option.

Use catcode definitions in preamble

By default, accented characters like “é” are exported to LaTeX as \'e. In order to increase readability and especially in case that you want to edit the resulting LaTeX file, you may wish to keep the accented characters “as is”. This can be achieved by allowing TeXmacs to put additional catcode definitions into your preamble.

Allow for macro definitions in preamble

Certain TeXmacs macros like strong have no direct LaTeX analogues. For a certain number of frequently used macros, TeXmacs automatically generates macro definitions in the preamble of the LaTeX target file. This allows you to preserve as much structure as possible of your document, which is for instance useful if you import the document back into TeXmacs.

However, certain journals instruct authors to refrain from the definition of additional macros in the preamble. When disallowing for macro definitions in preambles, TeXmacs will automatically expand all corresponding macro applications.

Sometimes, the converter does not produce a satisfactory LaTeX file even after some twiddling with the above preferences. The most frequent problem concerns bad line breaks. Occasionally, certain document fragments are also better converted by hand. In order to minimize the need for corrections in the generated LaTeX file (which would be lost when re-exporting the TeXmacs source file after some modifications), TeXmacs provides a mechanism to specify manual conversions to LaTeX in the TeXmacs source file: using Insert→Specific→Texmacs and Insert→Specific→Latex, you may force certain document fragments to appear only in the source file or the LaTeX target.

For instance, assume that the word “blauwbilgorgel” is hyphenated correctly in the TeXmacs source, but not in the LaTeX conversion. Then you may proceed as follows:

1. Select “blauwbilgorgel”.
2. Click on Insert→Specific→Texmacs to make the text “blauwbilgorgel” TeXmacs-specific.
3. Click on Insert→Specific→Latex.
4. Type the latex code blauw\-bil\-gor\-gel with the correct hyphenation.
5. Press return to activate the LaTeX-specific text.

In a similar fashion, you may insert LaTeX-specific line breaks, page breaks, vertical space, style parameter modifications, etc. You may also force arbitrary content to be exported as an image using Insert→Specific→Image.