tex2docx-converter 0.1.3

Convert LaTeX documents to Word (.docx) preserving TikZ diagrams, cover page, table of contents, acronyms, and bibliography.

tex2docx

Convert LaTeX documents to Word (.docx) while preserving TikZ diagrams, cover pages, table of contents, glossaries, and bibliography.

Academic and technical documents written in LaTeX often need to be shared as Word files for collaboration. tex2docx automates this conversion in a single command, rendering TikZ diagrams as high-resolution PNGs and keeping the rest as editable text.

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✨ Features

LaTeX Element	Word Output
TikZ diagrams	High-res PNG images (300 DPI default)
Cover page (\maketitle)	Image — pixel-perfect from PDF
Table of contents	Image — pixel-perfect from PDF
Glossary (\printacronyms)	Image — pixel-perfect from PDF
Bibliography (thebibliography)	Editable numbered list [1], [2]…
Sections, lists, text	Editable text
Tables	Editable tables
Acronyms (\ac{X}, \acp{X})	Resolved to plain text
Bold, italic, URLs	Preserved

📋 Prerequisites

Tool	Purpose	Install
Python 3.8+	Run the script	python.org
pdflatex (MiKTeX or TeX Live)	Compile LaTeX & TikZ	miktex.org / tug.org/texlive
Pandoc	LaTeX → Word conversion	pandoc.org
PyMuPDF	PDF → PNG rendering	pip install PyMuPDF

🚀 Quick Start

# Install from PyPI
pip install tex2docx-converter

# Convert your document
tex2docx your_document.tex

This generates your_document_word.docx automatically.

📖 Usage

Basic conversion

tex2docx document.tex

Custom output filename

tex2docx document.tex -o deliverable.docx

Higher resolution diagrams

tex2docx document.tex --dpi 400

Exact LaTeX Formatting (Template & Numbering)

To make the Word document look exactly like LaTeX (using Computer Modern font, justified paragraphs, etc.), the tool now automatically downloads and uses a LaTeX-like template by default.

You can also preserve the LaTeX section numbering (1. Introduction, 1.1. Background) using --number-sections:

tex2docx document.tex --number-sections

You can also pass your own custom Word template to apply your corporate/university styles:

tex2docx document.tex --reference-doc my_university_template.docx

Skip cover/TOC/glossary extraction

For documents without a custom cover page or glossary:

tex2docx document.tex --no-pages

Custom page extraction

Extract only specific pages (0-indexed) with custom labels:

# Only cover and TOC (no glossary)
tex2docx document.tex --pages 0,1 --labels portada,indice

# Cover spans 2 pages, glossary on page 4
tex2docx document.tex --pages 0,2,3 --labels portada,indice,glosario

All options

tex2docx --help

usage: tex2docx.py [-h] [--output OUTPUT] [--dpi DPI] [--pages PAGES]
                   [--labels LABELS] [--no-pages] [--workdir WORKDIR] texfile

positional arguments:
  texfile               Input .tex file

options:
  --output, -o          Output .docx filename (default: <input>_word.docx)
  --dpi                 DPI for TikZ rendering (default: 300)
  --pages               Comma-separated 0-indexed page numbers (default: 0,1,2)
  --labels              Comma-separated labels for pages (default: portada,indice,glosario)
  --no-pages            Skip page extraction (no cover/TOC/glossary images)
  --reference-doc REFERENCE_DOC
                        Custom Word template to apply styles
  --number-sections     Number sections in the output Word document
  --workdir WORKDIR     Directory to save extracted images (default: tikz_png)

⚙️ How It Works

document.tex
    │
    ├─[1] pdflatex ──► document.pdf (full compilation)
    │                     │
    │                [2] Extract pages as PNG (cover, TOC, glossary)
    │
    ├─[3] Extract & compile each TikZ diagram as standalone PNG
    │
    ├─[4] Replace \maketitle, \tableofcontents, \printacronyms
    │     with \includegraphics pointing to extracted PNGs
    │
    ├─[4b] Convert \begin{thebibliography} to editable numbered list
    │
    ├─[5] Resolve \ac{X} → X, \acp{X} → Xs
    │
    ├─[6] Write clean intermediate .tex
    │
    └─[7] pandoc -f latex -t docx ──► document_word.docx ✅

📁 Generated Files

your_project/
├── document.tex                ← Your LaTeX source
├── document.pdf                ← Compiled PDF (step 1)
├── document_word.docx          ← Generated Word file ✅
├── document_intermediate.tex   ← Intermediate file (can be deleted)
└── tikz_png/                   ← Generated images (can be deleted)
    ├── page_portada.png
    ├── page_indice.png
    ├── page_glosario.png
    ├── fig_1.png
    ├── fig_2.png
    └── ...

📝 LaTeX Document Requirements

For best results, your .tex document should follow these conventions:

Element	Convention
Cover	\maketitle followed by \newpage
TOC	\tableofcontents followed by \newpage
Glossary	\printacronyms[...] followed by \newpage
Bibliography	\begin{thebibliography}{99}...\end{thebibliography}
Acronyms	\DeclareAcronym{X}{short = X, long = ...}
Diagrams	\begin{tikzpicture}...\end{tikzpicture} in the document body

Note: TikZ pictures defined inside \newcommand in the preamble (e.g., logo placeholders) are automatically ignored. Only diagrams in the document body are processed.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Ideas for contributions

• Support for beamer presentations
• Custom Word template (.dotx) support
• Support for pgfplots charts
• GUI / web interface
• Cross-references and \ref{} resolution
• bibtex / biblatex support (in addition to thebibliography)

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

💡 Tips

• If you need the Word file to be 100% visually identical to the PDF, consider sharing the PDF directly. The Word output is ideal when others need to edit the text.
• Use --dpi 400 for presentation-quality diagrams.
• The intermediate .tex and tikz_png/ directory can be safely deleted after conversion.