LaTeX Quick Preview CLI

A lightweight, command-line tool for instantly compiling and previewing LaTeX snippets. This tool provides a simple REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) in your terminal, which calls the pdflatex compiler and displays the output in a clean, borderless pop-up window.

It's designed for quickly testing equations, formatting, or small pieces of LaTeX without the overhead of a full IDE.

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Features ✨

• Interactive CLI: A simple and familiar command-line prompt for entering LaTeX code.
• Instant Pop-up Preview: Renders your code in a borderless window that appears over your terminal for quick viewing.
• Direct PDF Rendering: Uses the high-quality PyMuPDF library to render the PDF directly to an image in memory, with no intermediate files.
• Copy Functionality: Right-click the preview window to copy the underlying, extracted text to your clipboard.
• Minimal Dependencies: Relies only on your existing TeX distribution and a few Python packages.
• Automatic Cleanup: Automatically creates and deletes temporary build files (.log, .aux, etc.) in a latex_temp subdirectory.

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed:

1. Conda: An installation of Anaconda or Miniconda.
2. TeX Distribution: A working LaTeX installation such as TeX Live, MiKTeX, or MacTeX. The pdflatex command must be available in your system's PATH. You can check this by opening a terminal and typing pdflatex --version.

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Installation & Setup 🚀

Follow these steps to set up the project using conda.

1. Create Conda Environment & Install Dependencies

Navigate to your project directory (where you have latex_cli.py and requirements.txt). You can create a new conda environment and install all required packages in a single step using the requirements.txt file.

conda create --name latex_cli --file requirements.txt

This command creates a new, isolated environment named latex_cli and installs all the packages listed in the requirements file.

2. Activate the Environment

Once the environment is created, activate it:

conda activate latex_cli

Your terminal prompt should now show (latex_cli) at the beginning, indicating the environment is active.

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Creating the Launcher (Windows)

To run the script easily from any terminal with a simple command like latex-cli, you should create a PowerShell script launcher. This also ensures the script is executed correctly using the Python interpreter from your conda environment.

1. Create the PowerShell Script (latex-cli.ps1)

A PowerShell script is a plain text file that contains a sequence of commands.

1. Create a dedicated folder for your scripts. A good practice is to create a folder like C:\Scripts.
2. Find your Python interpreter's full path. With your conda environment active, run the command where python. It will show you the path. Copy the one that points inside your latex_cli Conda environment folder.
3. Create a new text file inside C:\Scripts and name it latex-cli.ps1.
4. Edit latex-cli.ps1 and add the following lines, replacing the paths with the full paths to your Python interpreter and your latex_cli.py script.

Example:

& "C:/Users/marti/miniconda3/envs/latex_cli/python.exe" "C:/Users/marti/repositories/latex-cli/latex_cli.py" @Args

2. Add Your Scripts Folder to the System PATH

This final step makes your latex-cli command globally accessible from any terminal.

1. Press the Windows key and type env.
2. Select "Edit the system environment variables".
3. In the System Properties window, click the "Environment Variables…" button.
4. In the top section ("User variables"), find and select the Path variable, then click "Edit…".
5. Click "New" and add the path to the folder where you saved latex-cli.ps1 (e.g., C:\Scripts).
6. Click "OK" on all windows to save.

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Usage

1. Important: Close and re-open any terminal windows for the PATH changes to take effect.
2. Run the tool by simply typing latex-cli in the terminal and pressing Enter.
3. You will see the >>> prompt. Type or paste your LaTeX code. Press Enter for new lines.
4. When you are finished, type :c on a new line and press Enter to compile.
5. A borderless preview window will pop up.
   • Right-click the preview to open a context menu to copy the text.
   • Press the Esc key to close the preview window.
6. To exit the CLI, press Ctrl+C.