Introduction

LaTeX is a document preparation system widely used for scientific, technical, and mathematical writing. It provides fine-grained control over typesetting, cross-references, bibliographies, and document structure.

Stencila supports bi-directional conversion between Stencila documents and LaTeX. The .latex extension is used for LaTeX documents (as distinct from plain TeX files using .tex).

Usage

Use the .latex file extension, or the --to latex or --from latex options, when converting to/from LaTeX e.g.

stencila convert doc.smd doc.latex

Implementation

LaTeX support is implemented in the Rust crate codec-latex, with per-node-type encoding derived via codec-latex-trait and codec-latex-derive.

Limitations

Conversion is lossy for Stencila node types that have no LaTeX equivalent (e.g. interactive widgets, styled blocks with CSS).

LaTeX import is limited; complex custom macros and packages may not be fully parsed.

For plain TeX input/output (without LaTeX preamble conventions), use the TeX format.