arxivparse 0.1.0

Convert arXiv papers to plain text using LaTeXML

arxivparser

Convert arXiv papers to clean plain text using LaTeXML. Downloads LaTeX source from arXiv, converts to XML, and extracts body text (title, abstract, sections, math, captions) — no HTML intermediary, no bibliography, no footnotes.

Prerequisites

• Python >= 3.13
• uv (or pip)
• LaTeXML (v0.8.x) — install via Homebrew:

brew install latexml

Verify it's on your PATH:

latexml --VERSION

Install

# From PyPI
pip install arxivparser

# Or from source
git clone <repo-url> arxivparser
cd arxivparser
uv sync

Quick Start

from arxivparser import arxiv_to_text

text = arxiv_to_text("1706.03762")
print(text[:200])

CLI Usage

# Single paper
arxivparser 1706.03762

# Multiple papers (sequential)
arxivparser 1706.03762 2301.07041

# Custom output path
arxivparser -o output.txt 1706.03762

# Custom output directory
arxivparser -d ./papers 1706.03762 2301.07041

# Verbose output (download, convert, extract steps)
arxivparser -v 1706.03762

# Keep temp files for debugging
arxivparser --keep-temp 1706.03762

Each paper produces a <arxiv_id>.txt file.

Library Usage

Simple: get text as a string

from arxivparser import arxiv_to_text

text = arxiv_to_text("1706.03762")

Full pipeline control

from arxivparser.pipeline import convert_arxiv_to_text
from arxivparser.errors import Arxiv2TextError

try:
    output_path = convert_arxiv_to_text("1706.03762")
    text = output_path.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
except Arxiv2TextError as e:
    print(f"Failed: {e}")

Call the CLI from code

from main import main

main(["1706.03762", "2301.07041"])
main(["-o", "output.txt", "1706.03762"])

Arguments

Param	Type	Default	Description
arxiv_id	str	—	arXiv ID (e.g. "1706.03762")
output_path	Path	<arxiv_id>.txt	Where to write the output
keep_temp	bool	False	Keep temp files after conversion

Error Handling

from arxivparser.errors import (
    DownloadError,         # network/HTTP failure
    NoLatexSourceError,    # paper is PDF-only
    ConversionError,       # latexml failed
    MainTexNotFoundError,  # no .tex file found in bundle
)

Build / Publish

# Build a wheel
uv build

# Publish to PyPI
uv publish

# Or with twine
twine upload dist/*

Output Format

QASPER-style plain text: title, abstract, section headings, body paragraphs, inline math (LaTeX notation like h_{t}), and figure/table captions. No bibliography entries, footnotes, author affiliations, or citation numbers.