latex2arxiv 0.5.1

Validates arXiv compatibility and cleans a LaTeX .zip project in one command

latex2arxiv

Validates arXiv compatibility and cleans your LaTeX project in one command.

If you submit papers to arXiv — especially from Overleaf — this tool is for you. Drop in a .zip, get an arXiv-ready .zip back, with pre-flight checks that catch submission-blocking issues before you upload.

On a real statistics paper: 950 → 40 files, 82 MB → 3 MB.

latex2arxiv paper.zip --compile

  main tex: paper.tex
  remove: .DS_Store
  remove: cover_letter.md
  remove: paper.aux
  remove: figures/old_unused.pdf
  ... (43 more)
  [warn] \today used in \date — arXiv may rebuild the PDF and the date will change

Done → paper_arxiv.zip
Summary: 47 removed, 12 kept | 79.1 MB → 3.2 MB | 0 errors, 1 warning

Compiling paper.tex ...
  PDF → paper_arxiv.pdf

The cleaned demo's PDF is attached to every GitHub Release as demo_project_arxiv.pdf — see the output without installing.

What it does

• File pruning — keeps only files reachable from your main .tex; removes everything else (build artifacts, editor files, cover letters, unused figures)
• arXiv compatibility checks — [error] for shell-escape packages (minted, pythontex); [warn] for biblatex without .bbl, output > 50 MB, problematic filenames, and other gotchas
• Comment + draft cleanup — strips % ... comments; removes \todo{}, \hl{}, \note{}, \fixme{}, \begin{comment} blocks, \iffalse...\fi blocks, and draft-only packages
• \pdfoutput=1 auto-injection — arXiv requires it; easy to forget
• BibTeX normalization — canonical field ordering, deduplication, private-field strip (requires bibtexparser)
• Image resizing (optional) — caps longest side at N pixels via Pillow
• Custom revision-markup rules (optional) — YAML config; brace-balanced matcher correctly handles \deleted{see \cite{x}}
• --compile — runs pdflatex and opens the cleaned PDF for review

Dependency tracking respects \input, \include, \subfile, \includegraphics, \graphicspath, and \bibliography. Commented-out commands are ignored.

How does this compare to arxiv_latex_cleaner?

arxiv_latex_cleaner is the established tool in this space — Google-backed, ~5k★, years of usage. If you want the most battle-tested option, use it.

Where latex2arxiv is different

• Pre-flight checks with severity levels. [error] blocks submission and exits non-zero (CI-friendly); [warn] flags risk. Nothing else in this space does this.
• One-command zip-in / zip-out workflow. Drop a .zip, get a .zip back, optionally compile and preview the PDF. No directory dance, no manual repack.
• Brace-balanced config matcher. \deleted{see \cite{x}} and \added{some \emph{nested} text} work correctly — naive regex-based cleaners silently leave nested content behind.
• \pdfoutput=1 auto-injection and BibTeX normalization out of the box.

Where arxiv_latex_cleaner is stronger

• Maturity — thousands of papers cleaned, larger contributor pool, more edge cases discovered.
• Ghostscript-based PDF compression — we don't bundle this.
• PNG → JPG conversion — we don't do this.

Full feature comparison

	latex2arxiv	arxiv_latex_cleaner
Output format	.zip → .zip	Cleaned directory
Pre-flight [error] / [warn]	✅	❌
Non-zero exit on errors	✅	❌
--compile preview	✅	❌
Auto-detect main .tex	✅	❌
Brace-balanced config	✅	❌
BibTeX normalization	✅	❌
\pdfoutput=1 injection	✅	❌
--dry-run	✅	❌
Built-in --demo	✅	❌
Image resizing (Pillow)	✅	✅
PDF compression (Ghostscript)	❌	✅
PNG → JPG conversion	❌	✅
Maturity	New (0.5.0)	~5k★, years

Installation

pip install latex2arxiv

On macOS, if you get an externally-managed-environment error, use pipx:

brew install pipx
pipx install latex2arxiv

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/YuZh98/latex2arxiv
cd latex2arxiv
pip install .

pdflatex is required only for --compile (install via TeX Live or MacTeX).

Once installed, try the built-in demo to see the tool in action — no input file needed:

latex2arxiv --demo --compile

This processes a bundled self-documenting paper and opens the cleaned PDF.

Usage

latex2arxiv input.zip [output.zip] [--main MAIN_TEX] [--resize PX] [--config FILE] [--compile]

Flag	Description
--main FILENAME	Specify the main .tex file (e.g. JASA_main.tex). Auto-detected via \documentclass if omitted.
--resize PX	Resize images so longest side ≤ PX pixels (e.g. --resize 1600). Requires Pillow.
--config FILE	YAML config file for custom removal rules (see below).
--compile	Run pdflatex on the output and open the resulting PDF.
--dry-run	Preview what would be removed/processed without writing any output.
--demo	Run the built-in demo project (no input file needed).

Examples

latex2arxiv paper.zip                                  # auto-detect main, basic conversion
latex2arxiv paper.zip out.zip --main main.tex --compile
latex2arxiv paper.zip --resize 1600 --compile          # shrink images
latex2arxiv paper.zip --config arxiv_config.yaml       # custom rules
latex2arxiv paper.zip --dry-run                        # preview without writing
latex2arxiv --demo --compile                           # run the built-in demo

The tool exits non-zero if any pre-flight error fires (e.g. \usepackage{minted}) — useful for CI gating. Warnings do not affect the exit code.

Custom removal rules (--config)

For revision markup and other project-specific cleanup, create a YAML config file. A template is in arxiv_config.yaml.

# Remove command AND its argument (text is lost)
commands_to_delete:
  - \deleted
  - \revision

# Remove command but KEEP its argument text
commands_to_unwrap:
  - \color{red}       # \color{red}text → text
  - \textcolor{red}   # \textcolor{red}{text} → text
  - \added            # \added{new text} → new text

# Remove entire environments
environments_to_delete:
  - response

# Raw regex replacements
replacements:
  - pattern: '\\added\{([^}]*)\}'
    replacement: '\1'

The config parser is built in (no extra dependencies). The brace-balanced matcher correctly handles nested commands like \deleted{see \cite{x}}.

Known limitations

Dynamically constructed filenames — \includegraphics{\figpath/fig1} cannot be resolved statically and the image will be deleted. Expand path macros before running.

\subfile vs \input path resolution — \input/\include paths resolve relative to the project root; \subfile paths resolve relative to the subfile's own directory. Unusual nested setups may cause images to be incorrectly pruned; use --compile to verify.

Inline \verb|...| — comment-stripping and draft-removal don't currently protect inline \verb|...|. A % or \todo{...} inside \verb|...| may get mangled. Standard verbatim, lstlisting, and minted block environments are protected.

--compile is a local sanity check — a successful local compile doesn't guarantee arXiv will compile it. arXiv pins specific TeX Live versions. Always check the arXiv submission preview after uploading.

Project structure

converter.py        # CLI entry point
pipeline/
    tex.py          # Comment stripping, draft annotation removal
    bibtex.py       # BibTeX normalization
    deps.py         # Dependency graph (tex includes, images, bib files)
    images.py       # Image resizing
    config.py       # User-defined removal rules
arxiv_config.yaml   # Sample config file