amitdash/pylatex

A Python library for creating LaTeX files

PyLaTeX

PyLaTeX is a Python library for creating and compiling LaTeX files. The goal of this library is being an easy, but extensible interface between Python and LaTeX.

Features

• Document generation and compilation
• Section, table, math, figure, matplotlib and package classes
• A matrix class that can compile NumPy ndarrays and matrices to LaTeX
• Very exstensible base classes that you can use to easily add new features
• Contextmanager style class hierarchy
• Functionality to escape special LaTeX characters
• Bold, italic and verbatim functions
• Every class has a dump method, which writes the output to a filepointer this way you can use snippets in in normal LaTeX files using \input

Everything else you want you can still add to the document by adding LaTeX formatted strings to the container class you want it to be in.

Documentation

Currently the documentation is being worked on. It is clearly not finished yet, but the current version can be found at https://jeltef.github.io/PyLaTeX/.

Dependencies

• Python 3.x or Python 2.7
• ordered-set

Optional dependencies

• pdflatex (only if you want to compile the tex file)
• NumPy (only if you want to convert it's matrixes)
• awkwardduet (only if you want to compile to python 2 source code yourself)

Installation

pip install pylatex

Contributing

Read CONTRIBUTING.md for tips and rules when you want to contribute.

Examples

This is generated by the code below:

import numpy as np

from pylatex import Document, Section, Subsection, Table, Math, TikZ, Axis, \
    Plot, Figure, Package
from pylatex.numpy import Matrix
from pylatex.utils import italic, escape_latex

doc = Document()
doc.packages.append(Package('geometry', options=['tmargin=1cm',
                                                 'lmargin=10cm']))

with doc.create(Section('The simple stuff')):
    doc.append('Some regular text and some ' + italic('italic text. '))
    doc.append(escape_latex('\nAlso some crazy characters: $&#{}'))
    with doc.create(Subsection('Math that is incorrect')) as math:
        doc.append(Math(data=['2*3', '=', 9]))

    with doc.create(Subsection('Table of something')):
        with doc.create(Table('rc|cl')) as table:
            table.add_hline()
            table.add_row((1, 2, 3, 4))
            table.add_hline(1, 2)
            table.add_empty_row()
            table.add_row((4, 5, 6, 7))

a = np.array([[100, 10, 20]]).T
M = np.matrix([[2, 3, 4],
               [0, 0, 1],
               [0, 0, 2]])

with doc.create(Section('The fancy stuff')):
    with doc.create(Subsection('Correct matrix equations')):
        doc.append(Math(data=[Matrix(M), Matrix(a), '=', Matrix(M*a)]))

    with doc.create(Subsection('Beautiful graphs')):
        with doc.create(TikZ()):
            plot_options = 'height=6cm, width=6cm, grid=major'
            with doc.create(Axis(options=plot_options)) as plot:
                plot.append(Plot(name='model', func='-x^5 - 242'))

                coordinates = [
                    (-4.77778, 2027.60977),
                    (-3.55556, 347.84069),
                    (-2.33333, 22.58953),
                    (-1.11111, -493.50066),
                    (0.11111, 46.66082),
                    (1.33333, -205.56286),
                    (2.55556, -341.40638),
                    (3.77778, -1169.24780),
                    (5.00000, -3269.56775),
                ]

                plot.append(Plot(name='estimate', coordinates=coordinates))

    with doc.create(Subsection('Cute kitten pictures')):
        with doc.create(Figure(position='h!')) as kitten_pic:
            kitten_pic.add_image('docs/static/kitten.jpg', width='120px')
            kitten_pic.add_caption('Look it\'s on its back')

doc.generate_pdf()

Future development

I will keep adding functionality I need to this library.

If you add a feature yourself, or fix a bug, please send a pull request. The code is not very difficult and mostly speaks for itself. If you have a question just let me know.

You can submit issues and I will probably respond quite quick. However, it might take a lot more time for me to fix something. I also have a job, education and a personal life to worry about. If you want something done try to fix it yourself as well. Accepting pull requests costs way less time.

Support

This library is being developed in and for Python 3. Because of a conversion script the current version also works in Python 2.7. For future versions, no such promise will be made. Python 3 features that are useful but incompatible with Python 2 will be used. If you find a bug for Python 2 and it is fixable without ugly hacks feel free to send a pull request.

The platform this library is developed for is Linux. I have no intention to write fixes or test for platform specific bugs with every update. Pull requests that fix those issues are always welcome though.

Copyright and License

Copyright 2014 Jelte Fennema, under the MIT license