RTeX for Rails

Installation

  sudo gem install rtex

Rails 2.0.X, 2.1+ in vendor/plugins (not recommended):

  rtex --install /path/to/rails/app

Or, as a Rails 2.1+ gem dependency, just add the following to your config/environment.rb:

  config.gem 'rtex'

Dependencies

• Rails >= 2.0.1

Usage

Create files pdf.rtex extensions (eg, index.pdf.rtex) using standard LaTeX markup.

• Layouts are supported, eg: application.pdf.rtex
• Partials are supported, eg: _item.pdf.rtex

Example

With the following:

  # In config/initializers/mime_types.rb (or environment.rb in older Rails)
  Mime::Type.register "application/pdf", :pdf

  # app/controllers/items_controller.rb
  def index
    @items = Item.find(:all)
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # We support the normal HTML view as well
      format.pdf
    end
  end

  # app/views/items/index.pdf.rtex
  \section*{Items}
  \begin{itemize}
    <%= render :partial => @items %>
  \end{itemize}

  # app/views/items/_item.pdf.rtex
  \item <%=l item.name %> \\

  # app/layouts/application.pdf.rtex
  \documentclass[12pt]{article}
  \begin{document}
    <%= yield %>
  \end{document}

If you hit /items.pdf, you end up with a nice PDF listing of items.

Obviously a simplistic example.