steps.md

Steps of LaTeX processing

The execution of processing LaTeX documents is build up on steps. There are steps responsible for paring tex documents and creating output/intermediate files and steps processing additional files like bib, idx, nlo. Each step is executed by calling a external command with a given set of parameters. The following table lists all steps with their default configuration.

ID	Command	Input format	Output format	Arguments	Optional	Log extension
latex	latex	tex	dvi	-interaction=nonstopmode --src-specials %input	false	log
pdflatex	pdflatex	tex	pdf	-synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode --src-specials %input	false	log
xelatex	xelatex	tex	pdf	-synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode %input	false	log
lulatex	lulatex	tex	pdf	-synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode --src-specials %input	false	log
bibtex	bibtex	bib	aux	%base	true	blg
biber	biber	bib	bbl	%base	true	blg
makeindex	makeindex	idx	ind	%input -s %style	true	ilg
dvips	dvips	dvi	ps	-R0 -o %output %input	false	log
dvipdfm	dvipdfm	dvi	pdf	%input	false	log
ps2pdf	ps2pdf	ps	pdf	%input	false	log
makeindexnomencl	makeindex	nlo	nls	%input -s %style -o %output	true	ilg

• ID: the unique ID of the step (which is used in latexSteps or buildSteps configuration
• Command: the command to execute
• Input format: the file extension of the input document for the command
• Output format: the file extension of the output document created by the command
• Arguments: the arguments for the command execution
• Optional: if true the processing will stop if the command execution was not successful (return code !=0)
• Log extension: the file extension of the log file created by the command

Cusomizing steps

The step configuration can be overriden in the configuration of the Maven or Gradle plugin. It is also possible to add additional steps to be executed in the process.

The sample configuration/xelatex demonstrate how to change the arguments to the xelatex command.