TexText Command Line Usage

Next to the usage from within Inkscape TexText can also be invoked from the command line. This maybe used in third party apps or for debugging purposes.

Prerequisites 

In order to use TexText from the command line some prerequisites must be met. At first, since TexText uses the Inkscape executable itself for the required pdf -> svg conversion, Inkscape must be installed on your system. Additionally, the path to the Inkscape extension system must be known.

Linux 

Since Inkscape is on your system all required Python libraries are already available for the system Python interpreter. You only have to ensure that the PYTHONPATH variable contains the path to the Inkscape extension framework:

export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:/usr/share/inkscape/extensions

Windows 

On Windows Python is bundled within the Inkscape installation. You need to ensure that the Inkscape binary directory is in the system path so that inkscape.exe and python.exe is found. Additionally, the PYTHONPATH variable must contain the path to the Inkscape extension framework:

set PATH=C:\Program Files\Inkscape\bin;%PATH%
set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\inkscape\extensions

Note

If you are unsure where the Inkscape extension subsystem resides in your system execute the command

inkscape --system-data-directory

and add /extensions (or \extensions on Windows) to the output.

Usage 

On the command line, in principle, TexText operates as follows: It takes the content of an Inkscape SVG-document, does something with it (e.g. inserts a TexText object, modifies an existing TexText object, or re-compiles all existing TexText obejcts) and writes the resulting SVG-content into a new file or to stdout.

The calling syntax is

python __main.py__ [-h] [--output OUTPUT] [--id IDS] [--selected-nodes SELECTED_NODES]
                   [--text TEXT] [--preamble-file PREAMBLE_FILE]
                   [--scale-factor SCALE_FACTOR] [--alignment ALIGNMENT]
                   [--recompile-all-entries] [--tex_command TEX_COMMAND] [INPUT_FILE]

The function returns 0 in case compilation succeeded. It returns 1 (bad setup) or 60 (program or compile errors) if execution failed.

Command Line Arguments 

-h, --help: Show help message and exit.

INPUT_FILE:: The Inkscape SVG-file the content of with is taken and processed by TexText. This file is not modified. See the --output argument for more details.

--output OUTPUT: Path of the file into which the output of TexText is written. If this argument is omitted the output is written to stdout.
--id IDS: The XML id attribute of the selected TexText object (or a list of ids if multiple are selected) in the SVG-Document one would like to modify. If this argument is omitted it is assumed that a new TexText object is going to be created and inserted into the SVG document. If the object is no TexText object nothing happens.

Note

Currently, TexText does only support a single id.
--selected-nodes SELECTED_NODES: Not used by TexText (it is the XML id:subpath:position attribute of selected nodes of a path)
--text TEXT: The LaTeX or typst code to compile. If this argument is omitted the GUI opens if --recompile-all-entries is not set. The GUI will show the content of the TexText object specified by --id or nothing if no id has been specified.
--preamble-file PREAMBLE_FILE: Full path to the preamble file one would like to use for compilation.
--scale-factor SCALE_FACTOR: The scale factor one would like to use for compilation. A scale factor 1.0 means that the compiled LaTeX or typst output is inserted “as is” into the document.
--alignment ALIGNMENT: Only evaluated when a TexText object is re-compiled. It controls how a modified TexText object is aligned with respect to the old object. Possible values are: top left, top center, top right, middle left, middle center, middle-right, bottom left, bottom center, and bottom right.
--recompile-all-entries: Re-compile all TexText objects found in the SVG-document. The --id and --text arguments are ignored in that case.
--tex_command TEX_COMMAND: The command used for compilation of the code passed via the --text argument. Possible values are pdflatex, xelatex, lualatex, and typst. If this argument is omitted the default (pdflatex) is used.

Examples 

With showing the GUI 

Take empty.svg, open the GUI, compile the code typed in there and insert the generated object into the document. Write the result to stdout:
python __main__.py empty.svg
From nonempty.svg take the object the id attribute of which has the value 7 and in case this is a TexText object pass its LaTeX code to the GUI. After modification of the code, compile it and replace the original object by the modified one and write the output to result.svg:
python __main__.py --id 7 --output result.svg nonempty.svg

Without showing the GUI 

Take empty.svg, compile the code $x \in \mathbb{R}$ using the preamble my_preamble.tex and insert the result as a TexText object scaled by 2.0 into the document. Write the result into the file result.svg:
python __main__.py --text "$x \in \mathbb{R}$" --preamble-file "my_preamble.tex" --scale-factor 2.0 --output result.svg empty.svg
Take nonempty.svg, compile the code $x \in \mathbb{R}$ using the preamble my_preamble.tex. Then, replace the TexText object the XML id attribute of which has the value 7 by the compiled result in such a way that the center of the new object matches the center of the old object. Write the result into the file result.svg:
python __main__.py --id 7 --text "$x \in \mathbb{R}$" --preamble-file "my_preamble.tex" --alignment "middle center" --output result.svg empty.svg

Recompile all TexText objects in nonempty.svg and write the result into result.svg:

python __main__.py --recompile-all-entries --output result.svg nonempty.svg