Tex2im
tex2im is a simple tool that converts LaTeX formulas into high resolution pixmap graphics for inclusion in text processors or presentations. With tex2im you can write files containing only the formula in latex mathmode and transform them to many different graphic formats. latex2html can do something similar, but only on whole documents. This is the direct solution.
Contents
Usage
tex2im [options] inputfile
The content of input file should be plain latex mathmode code. Alternatively, a string containing the latex code can be specified.
Options
-v- show version
-h- show help
-o file- specifies output filename, default is inputfile with new extension
-f expr- specifies output format; possible examples: gif, jpg, tif (all formates supported by "convert" should work; default: png
-r expr- specifies desired resolution in dpi; possible examples: 100x100, 300x300, 200x150; default is 150x150
-b expr- specifies the background colour; default: white
-t expr- specifies the text colour; default: black
-x file- file containing extra header lines of latex; default:
~/.tex2im_header -z- transparent background; default: off
-n- no-formula mode (do not wrap in
eqnarray*environment); default: off -a- change status of antialiasing; default is on for normal mode and off for transparent mode
For user specific default values, tex2im reads the file '.tex2imrc' in your home-directory. To change a value, put inside one or more of the following 5 commands:
resolution="150x150" format="png" color1="white" color2="black" extra_header="~/.tex2im_header" trans=0 aa=1
In the file '~/.tex2im_header', additional latex header lines can be put, for example '\usepackage{amsmath}' or your own definitions.
The transparency implementation of ImageMagick has some problems in combination with antialiasing. Therefore, by default, antialiasing is off in transparent mode. If you switch it on via the -a flag you can expect pixels with something between background and text colour around the letters. This can look good if the background used in tex2im and the one of your document are identical, but also very bad if this is not the case. True antialising with transparency seems not to be possible. Just play around a bit to find the optimal settings.
Examples
Note: The following examples were taken directly from the official tex2im website with some slight modifications.
Example 1
Generate a file, called "formula1.tex", containing the following:
\psi_{tot}(x,-t_0,r) = \frac{1}{(2\pi)^2} \int\!\!\!\int
\tilde\Psi_{tot}\left(k_x,\frac{c}{2}\sqrt{k_x^2 + k_r^2},r=0\right)
Note that you should not put any \begin{document} or \begin{equation} in the file. Just plain latex mathmode code is required.
Then type on the command line:
% tex2im formula1.tex
The output will be the file "formula1.png" which has the following content:
Example 2
Q = 1 + \sum_{i=1}^n\sum_{k=1}^n\sigma\left(\prod_{j=i}^kS_j\right)
\exp\left\lbrace\frac{-K}{RT}\left(\Delta Lk - \left[\sum_{j=i}^k0.36j\right]
- 0.8\right)^2\right\rbrace
yields
Example 3
You can also use colour. Generate a file "formula2.txt", containing the following:
[C_3] = {\color{red} \langle \vec k_{3L} \vec k_{3L}^{\:\adj} \rangle }=
\left[ \begin{array}{rrrr}
S_{11} & S_{21} & S_{31} \\
S_{12} & S_{22} & S_{32} \\
S_{13} & S_{23} & S_{33} \end{array} \right]
Then type on the command line:
% tex2im -b yellow -t blue formula2.tex
And you'll get this:
Example 4
Finally, you can use tex2im without input file by specifying the latex-code directly on the command line:
% tex2im "\sum_{i=0}^5 x_i^2"
generates a file "out.png" in the local directory (as long as you do not specify another output filename), containing:
Convert to SVG
Once one has the TeX code, one can produce an SVG file via the following, which assume the TeX file is called comm.tex:
latex comm.tex dvips -E -y 2500 -o comm.eps comm.dvi eps2eps -dNOCACHE comm.eps comm2.eps pstoedit -f sk comm2.eps comm.sk inkscape -z -f comm.sk -l comm.svg
Download and install
Note: To use tex2im, you need latex and convert (part of ImageMagick) installed.
To install tex2im, download the archive, uncompress it, and place the contained script "tex2im" in a directory in your path and make it executable.
For example:
tar xzf tex2im-1.8.tar.gz mv tex2im/tex2im /path/of/your/choice chmod 755 /path/of/your/choice/tex2im
