LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
NAME
latexmk - generate LaTeX document
SYNOPSIS
latexmk [options] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
Latexmk completely automates the process of compiling a LaTeX document.
Essentially, it is like a specialized relative of the general make
utility, but one which determines dependencies automatically and has
some other very useful features. In its basic mode of operation la-
texmk is given the name of the primary source file for a document, and
it issues the appropriate sequence of commands to generate a .dvi, .ps,
.pdf and/or hardcopy version of the document.
By default latexmk will run the commands necessary to generate a .dvi
file, which copies the behavior of earlier versions when only latex was
available.
Latexmk can also be set to run continuously with a suitable previewer.
In that case the latex program (or one of its relatives), etc, are re-
run whenever one of the source files is modified, and the previewer au-
tomatically updates the on-screen view of the compiled document.
Latexmk determines which are the source files by examining the log
file. (Optionally, it also examines the list of input and output files
generated by the -recorder option of modern versions of latex (and
pdflatex, xelatex, lualatex). See the documentation for the -recorder
option of latexmk below.) When latexmk is run, it examines properties
of the source files, and if any have been changed since the last docu-
ment generation, latexmk will run the various LaTeX processing programs
as necessary. In particular, it will repeat the run of latex (or a re-
lated program)) often enough to resolve all cross references; depending
on the macro packages used. With some macro packages and document
classes, four, or even more, runs may be needed. If necessary, latexmk
will also run bibtex, biber, and/or makeindex. In addition, latexmk
can be configured to generate other necessary files. For example, from
an updated figure file it can automatically generate a file in encapsu-
lated postscript or another suitable format for reading by LaTeX.
Latexmk has two different previewing options. With the simple -pv op-
tion, a dvi, postscript or pdf previewer is automatically run after
generating the dvi, postscript or pdf version of the document. The
type of file to view is selected according to configuration settings
and command line options.
The second previewing option is the powerful -pvc option (mnemonic:
"preview continuously"). In this case, latexmk runs continuously, reg-
ularly monitoring all the source files to see if any have changed.
Every time a change is detected, latexmk runs all the programs neces-
sary to generate a new version of the document. A good previewer will
then automatically update its display. Thus the user can simply edit a
file and, when the changes are written to disk, latexmk completely au-
tomates the cycle of updating the .dvi (and/or the .ps and .pdf) file,
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and refreshing the previewer's display. It's not quite WYSIWYG, but
usefully close.
For other previewers, the user may have to manually make the previewer
update its display, which can be (e.g., with some versions of xdvi and
gsview) as simple as forcing a redraw of its display.
Latexmk has the ability to print a banner in gray diagonally across
each page when making the postscript file. It can also, if needed,
call an external program to do other postprocessing on generated dvi
and postscript files. (See the options -dF and -pF, and the documenta-
tion for the $dvi_filter and $ps_filter configuration variables.)
These capabilities are leftover from older versions of latexmk, but are
currently non-functional. More flexibility can be obtained in current
versions, since the command strings for running *latex can now be con-
figured to run multiple commands. This also extends the possibility of
postprocessing generated files.
Latexmk is highly configurable, both from the command line and in con-
figuration files, so that it can accommodate a wide variety of user
needs and system configurations. Default values are set according to
the operating system, so latexmk often works without special configura-
tion on MS-Windows, cygwin, Linux, OS-X, and other UNIX systems. See
the section "Configuration/Initialization (rc) Files", and then the
later sections "How to Set Variables in Initialization Files", "Format
of Command Specifications", "List of Configuration Variables Usable in
Initialization Files", "Custom Dependencies", and "Advanced Configura-
tion"
A very annoying complication handled very reliably by latexmk, is that
LaTeX is a multiple pass system. On each run, LaTeX reads in informa-
tion generated on a previous run, for things like cross referencing and
indexing. In the simplest cases, a second run of LaTeX suffices, and
often the log file contains a message about the need for another pass.
However, there is a wide variety of add-on macro packages to LaTeX,
with a variety of behaviors. The result is to break simple-minded de-
terminations of how many runs are needed and of which programs. La-
texmk has a highly general and efficient solution to these issues. The
solution involves retaining between runs information on the source
files, and a symptom is that latexmk generates an extra file (with ex-
tension .fdb_latexmk, by default) that contains the source file infor-
mation.
LATEXMK OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS ON COMMAND LINE
In general the command line to invoke latexmk has the form
latexmk [options] [file]
All options can be introduced by single or double "-" characters, e.g.,
"latexmk -help" or "latexmk --help".
Note 1: In the documentation, '*latex' means any of the supported en-
gines, i.e., currently latex, lualatex, pdflatex, xelatex. Mention of
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a specific one of these normally refers that specific engines. Earlier
versions of this documentation weren't so consistent. Which of these
is used to compile a document, depends on the configuration and the
command line arguments.
Note 2: In addition to the options in the list below, latexmk recog-
nizes almost all the options recognized by the *latex programs in their
current TeXLive and MiKTeX implementations. Some of the options for
these programs trigger special action or behavior by latexmk, in which
case they have specific explanations in this document; in this case
they may or may not be passed to *latex as well.
Run latexmk with the -showextraoptions to get a list of the options
that latexmk accepts and that are simply passed through to *latex. See
also the explanation of the -showextraoptions option for more informa-
tion.
Definitions of options and arguments
file One or more files can be specified. If no files are specified,
latexmk will, by default, run on all files in the current work-
ing directory with a ".tex" extension. This behavior can be
changed: see the description concerning the @default_files vari-
able in the section "List of configuration variables usable in
initialization files".
If a file is specified without an extension, then the ".tex" ex-
tension is automatically added, just as LaTeX does. Thus, if
you specify:
latexmk foo
then latexmk will operate on the file "foo.tex".
There are certain restrictions on what characters can be in a
filename; certain characters are either prohibited or problem-
atic for the latex etc programs. These characters are: "$",
"%", "\", "~", the double quote character, and the control char-
acters null, tab, form feed, carriage return, line feed, and
delete. In addition "&" is prohibited when it is the first
character of a filename.
Latexmk gives a fatal error when it detects any of the above
characters in the TeX filename(s) specified on the command line.
However before testing for illegal characters, latexmk removes
matching pairs of double quotes from a filename. This matches
the behavior of latex etc, and deals with problems that occa-
sionally result from filenames that have been incorrectly quoted
on the command line. In addition, under Microsoft Windows, the
forward slash character "\" is a directory separator, so latexmk
replaces it by a forward slash "/", which is also a legal direc-
tory separator in Windows, and is accepted by latex etc.
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-auxdir=FOO or -aux-directory=FOO
Sets the directory for auxiliary output files of *latex (.aux,
.log etc). These are all the generated files, with the excep-
tion of final output files (.dvi, .ps, .pdf, .synctex.gz, .sync-
tex). See the -outdir/-output-directory option for directories
for the main output files, and the -out2dir option for the final
output files.
If the directory specified for the -aux/-aux-directory option is
blank, then the default is used, which is to be the same as the
output directory.
If you also use the -cd option, and the specified auxiliary out-
put directory is a relative path, then the path is interpreted
relative to the document directory.
See the section AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more de-
tails.
-bibtex
When the source file uses bbl files for bibliography, run bibtex
or biber as needed to regenerate the bbl files.
This property can also be configured by setting the $bibtex_use
variable to 2 in a configuration file.
-bibtex-
Never run bibtex or biber. Also, always treat .bbl files as
precious, i.e., do not delete them in a cleanup operation.
A common use for this option is when a document comes from an
external source, complete with its bbl file(s), and the user
does not have the corresponding bib files available. In this
situation use of the -bibtex- option will prevent latexmk from
trying to run bibtex or biber, which would result in overwriting
of the bbl files.
This property can also be configured by setting the $bibtex_use
variable to 0 in a configuration file.
-bibtex-cond
When the source file uses a bbl file for the bibliography and
bibtex is used to generate the bibliography, run bibtex as
needed to regenerate the bbl files only if the relevant bib
file(s) exist. Thus when the bib file(s) are not available,
bibtex is not run, thereby avoiding overwriting of the bbl file.
Also, always treat .bbl files as precious, i.e., do not delete
them in a cleanup operation.
This is the default setting. It can also be configured by set-
ting the $bibtex_use variable to 1 in a configuration file.
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The reason for using this setting is first to allow automatic
switching between the use and non-use of bibtex depending on the
existence or not of a bib file. In addition, when submitting
articles to a scientific journal, it is common to submit only
.tex and .bbl files (plus graphics files), but not a .bib file.
Hence it is often useful to treat .bbl files as true source
files, that should be preserved under a clean up operation.
This property can also be configured by setting the $bibtex_use
variable to 1 in a configuration file.
Note that when biber is used, and a bib file doesn't exist, this
option does not prevent biber from being run, with the bbl file
then being incorrect. See the documentation on $bibtex_use for
more details. However, a bbl file is treated as precious in a
clean up operation.
-bibtex-cond1
The same as -bibtex-cond except that .bbl files are only treated
as precious if one or more bibfiles fails to exist.
Thus if all the bib files exist, bibtex is run to generate .bbl
files as needed, and then it is appropriate to delete the bbl
files in a cleanup operation since they can be re-generated.
This property can also be configured by setting the $bibtex_use
variable to 1.5 in a configuration file.
Note that when biber is used, and a bib file doesn't exist, this
option does not prevent biber from being run, with the bbl file
then being incorrect. See the documentation on $bibtex_use for
more details. However, a bbl file is treated as precious in a
clean up operation.
-bibtexfudge or -bibfudge
Turn on the change-directory fudge for bibtex. See documenta-
tion of $bibtex_fudge for details.
-bibtexfudge- or -bibfudge-
Turn off the change-directory fudge for bibtex. See documenta-
tion of $bibtex_fudge for details.
-bm <message>
A banner message to print diagonally across each page when con-
verting the dvi file to postscript. The message must be a sin-
gle argument on the command line so be careful with quoting
spaces and such.
Note that if the -bm option is specified, the -ps option is as-
sumed.
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-bi <intensity>
How dark to print the banner message. A decimal number between
0 and 1. 0 is black and 1 is white. The default is 0.95, which
is OK unless your toner cartridge is getting low.
-bs <scale>
A decimal number that specifies how large the banner message
will be printed. Experimentation is necessary to get the right
scale for your message, as a rule of thumb the scale should be
about equal to 1100 divided by the number of characters in the
message. The default is 220.0 which is just right for 5 charac-
ter messages.
-commands
List the commands used by latexmk for processing files, and then
exit.
-c Clean up (remove) all regeneratable files generated by latex and
bibtex or biber except dvi, postscript and pdf. These files are
a combination of log files, aux files, latexmk's database file
of source file information, and those with extensions specified
in the @generated_exts configuration variable. In addition,
files specified by the $clean_ext and @generated_exts configura-
tion variables are removed.
This cleanup is instead of a regular make. See the -gg option
if you want to do a cleanup followed by a make.
Treatment of .bbl files: If $bibtex_use is set to 0 or 1, bbl
files are always treated as non-regeneratable. If $bibtex_use
is set to 1.5, bbl files are counted as non-regeneratable condi-
tionally: If the bib file exists, then bbl files are regenerat-
able, and are deleted in a clean up. But if $bibtex_use is 1.5
and a bib file doesn't exist, then the bbl files are treated as
non-regeneratable and hence are not deleted.
In contrast, if $bibtex_use is set to 2, bbl files are always
treated as regeneratable, and are deleted in a cleanup.
Treatment of files generated by custom dependencies: If
$cleanup_includes_cusdep_generated is nonzero, regeneratable
files are considered as including those generated by custom de-
pendencies and are also deleted. Otherwise these files are not
deleted.
-C Clean up (remove) all regeneratable files generated by latex and
bibtex or biber. This is the same as the -c option with the ad-
dition of dvi, postscript and pdf files, and those specified in
the $clean_full_ext configuration variable.
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This cleanup is instead of a regular make. See the -gg option
if you want to do a cleanup followed by a make.
See the -c option for the specification of whether or not .bbl
files are treated as non-regeneratable or regeneratable.
If $cleanup_includes_cusdep_generated is nonzero, regeneratable
files are considered as including those generated by custom de-
pendencies and are also deleted. Otherwise these files are not
deleted.
-CA (Obsolete). Now equivalent to the -C option. See that option
for details.
-cd Change to the directory containing the main source file before
processing it. Then all the generated files (.aux, .log, .dvi,
.pdf, etc) will be relative to the source file.
This option is particularly useful when latexmk is invoked from
a GUI configured to invoke latexmk with a full pathname for the
source file.
This option works by setting the $do_cd configuration variable
to one; you can set that variable if you want to configure la-
texmk to have the effect of the -cd option without specifying it
on the command line. See the documentation for that variable.
-cd- Do NOT change to the directory containing the main source file
before processing it. Then all the generated files (.aux, .log,
.dvi, .pdf, etc) will be relative to the current directory
rather than the source file.
This is the default behavior and corresponds to the behavior of
the *latex programs. However, it is not desirable behavior when
latexmk is invoked by a GUI configured to invoke latexmk with a
full pathname for the source file. See the -cd option.
This option works by setting the $do_cd configuration variable
to zero. See the documentation for that variable for more in-
formation.
-CF Remove the file containing the database of source file informa-
tion, before doing the other actions requested.
-d Set draft mode. This prints the banner message "DRAFT" across
your page when converting the dvi file to postscript. Size and
intensity can be modified with the -bs and -bi options. The -bm
option will override this option as this is really just a short
way of specifying:
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latexmk -bm DRAFT
Note that if the -d option is specified, the -ps option is as-
sumed.
-deps Show a list of dependent files after processing. This is in the
form of a dependency list of the form used by the make program,
and it is therefore suitable for use in a Makefile. It gives an
overall view of the files without listing intermediate files, as
well as latexmk can determine them.
By default the list of dependent files is sent to stdout (i.e.,
normally to the screen unless you've redirected latexmk's out-
put). But you can set the filename where the list is sent by the
-deps-out= option.
See the section "USING latexmk WITH make" for an example of how
to use a dependency list with make.
Users familiar with GNU automake and gcc will find that the
-deps option is very similar in its purpose and results to the
-M option to gcc. (In fact, latexmk also has options -M, -MF,
and -MP options that behave like those of gcc.)
-dependents
Equivalent to -deps.
-deps- Do not show a list of dependent files after processing. (This
is the default.)
-dependents-
Equivalent to -deps-.
-deps-escape=<string>
Set the kind of escaping used for spaces in the dependency list.
The possible values are "none", "unix", "nmake", corresponding
respectively to no escaping, escaping with a "\" suitable for
standard Unix make, and escaping with "^", suitable for Mi-
crosoft's nmake.
-deps-out=FILENAME
Set the filename to which the list of dependent files is writ-
ten. If the FILENAME argument is omitted or set to "-", then
the output is sent to stdout.
Use of this option also turns on the output of the list of de-
pendent files after processing.
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-dF Dvi file filtering. The argument to this option is a filter
which will generate a filtered dvi file with the extension
".dviF". All extra processing (e.g. conversion to postscript,
preview, printing) will then be performed on this filtered dvi
file.
Example usage: To use dviselect to select only the even pages of
the dvi file:
latexmk -dF "dviselect even" foo.tex
-diagnostics
Print detailed diagnostics during a run. This may help for de-
bugging problems or to understand latexmk's behavior in diffi-
cult situations.
-dir-report
For each .tex file processed, list the settings for aux and out
directories, after they have been normalized from the settings
specified during initialization. See the description of the
variable $aux_out_dir_report for more details.
-dir-report-
Do not report the settings for aux and out directories. (De-
fault)
-dir-report-only
After all initialization is complete, give the settings for the
aux and out directories, and then halt. This option is primar-
ily used for debugging configuration issues.
-dvi Generate dvi version of document using latex. (And turn off any
incompatible requests.)
-dvilua
Generate dvi version of document using lualatex instead of la-
tex. (And turn off any incompatible requests.)
-dvi- Turn off generation of dvi version of document. (This may get
overridden, if some other file is made (e.g., a .ps file) that
is generated from the dvi file, or if no generated file at all
is requested.)
-dvilualatex="COMMAND"
This sets the string specifying the command to run dvi lualatex.
It behaves like the -pdflatex option, but sets the variable
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$dvilualatex.
Note: This option when provided with the COMMAND argument only
sets the command for invoking dvilualatex; it does not turn on
the use of dvilualatex. That is done by other options or in an
initialization file.
-e <code>
Execute the specified initialization code before processing.
The code is Perl code of the same form as is used in latexmk's
initialization files. For more details, see the information on
the -r option, and the section about "Configuration/initializa-
tion (RC) files". The code is typically a sequence of assign-
ment statements separated by semicolons.
The code is executed when the -e option is encountered during
latexmk's parsing of its command line. See the -r option for a
way of executing initialization code from a file. An error re-
sults in latexmk stopping. Multiple instances of the -r and -e
options can be used, and they are executed in the order they ap-
pear on the command line.
Some care is needed to deal with proper quoting of special char-
acters in the code on the command line. For example, suppose
you want to set the latex command to use its -shell-escape op-
tion, then under UNIX/Linux you could use the line
latexmk -e '$latex=q/latex %O -shell-escape %S/' file.tex
Note that the single quotes block normal UNIX/Linux command
shells from treating the characters inside the quotes as spe-
cial. (In this example, the q/.../ construct is a Perl idiom
equivalent to using single quotes. This avoids the complica-
tions of getting a quote character inside an already quoted
string in a way that is independent of both the shell and the
operating-system.)
The above command line will NOT work under MS-Windows with
cmd.exe or command.com or 4nt.exe. For MS-Windows with these
command shells you could use
latexmk -e "$latex=q/latex %O -shell-escape %S/" file.tex
or
latexmk -e "$latex='latex %O -shell-escape %S'" file.tex
The last two examples will NOT work with UNIX/Linux command
shells.
(Note: the above examples show are to show how to use the -e to
specify initialization code to be executed. But the particular
effect can be achieved also by the use of the -latex option with
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less problems in dealing with quoting.)
-emulate-aux-dir
Emulate the use of an aux directory instead of leaving it to the
*latex programs to do it. (MiKTeX supports -aux-directory, but
TeXLive doesn't.)
See the section AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more de-
tails.
-emulate-aux-dir-
Turn off emulation to implement an aux directory and leave it to
the *latex program to handle the case that the aux directory is
different from the output directory. Note that if you use
TeXLive, which doesn't support -aux-directory, latexmk will au-
tomatically switch aux_dir emulation on after the first run of
*latex, because it will find the .log file in the wrong place.
-f Force latexmk to continue document processing despite errors.
Normally, when latexmk detects that LaTeX or another program has
found an error which will not be resolved by further processing,
no further processing is carried out.
Note: "Further processing" means the running of other programs
or the rerunning of latex (etc) that would be done if no errors
had occurred. If instead, or additionally, you want the latex
(etc) program not to pause for user input after an error, you
should arrange this by an option that is passed to the program,
e.g., by latexmk's option -interaction=nonstopmode (which la-
texmk passes to *latex).
-f- Turn off the forced processing-past-errors such as is set by the
-f option. This could be used to override a setting in a con-
figuration file.
-g Go mode: Force latexmk to run each rule at least once, even un-
der situations whre latexmk would normally decide that no
changes in the source files have occurred since the previous
run. This option is useful, for example, if you change the con-
figuration and wish to reprocess all files.
Equivalently: all rules are initially to be regarded as out of
date. This option has the disadvantage that if, for example,
there are very many custom dependencies for making graphics
files, all of them will be run, which could be very time consum-
ing. See also the -gt option, which only forces a rerun of *la-
tex.
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-g- Turn off -g.
-gg "Super go mode" or "clean make": clean out generated files as if
-C had been given, and then do a regular make.
-gt Require at least one run of *latex. I.e., process as normal,
except that at least one run of the *latex rule is to be made,
even when latexmk's normal methods lead it to conclude that a
run of *latex is not needed.
Equivalently, treat the *latex rule as initially out-of-date.
Note that latexmk may separately detect that other rules are
out-of-date by its normal methods. If these are normally run
before *latex, then this will still be done
This option is particularly useful when some changes in configu-
ration have been made or under certain error conditions, where
latexmk would not correctly detect the need to run *latex, but
where the run is needed.
-h or -help
Print help information.
-hnt Generate hnt (HINT) version of document using hilatex. (And
turn off any incompatible requests.)
-jobname=STRING
Set the basename of output files(s) to STRING, instead of the
default, which is the basename of the specified TeX file. (At
present, STRING should not contain spaces.)
This is like the same option for current implementations of the
*latex, and the passing of this option to these programs is part
of latexmk's implementation of -jobname.
There is one enhancement, that the STRING may contain the place-
holder '%A'. This will be substituted by the basename of the TeX
file. The primary purpose is when multiple files are specified
on the command line to latexmk, and you wish to use a jobname
with a different file-dependent value for each file. For exam-
ple, suppose you had .tex files test1.tex and test2.tex, and you
wished to compare the results of compilation by *latex and those
with xelatex. Then under a unix-type operating system you could
use the command line
latexmk -pdf -jobname=%A-pdflatex *.tex
latexmk -pdfxe -jobname=%A-xelatex *.tex
Then the .aux, .log, and .pdf files from the use of pdflatex
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would have basenames test1-pdflatex and test2-pdflatex, while
from xelatex, the basenames would be test1-xelatex and test2-xe-
latex.
Under MS-Windows with cmd.exe, you would need to double the per-
cent sign, so that the percent character is passed to latexmk
rather than being used to substitute an environment variable:
latexmk -pdf -jobname=%%A-pdflatex *.tex
latexmk -pdfxe -jobname=%%A-xelatex *.tex
-l Run in landscape mode, using the landscape mode for the preview-
ers and the dvi to postscript converters. This option is not
normally needed nowadays, since current previewers normally de-
termine this information automatically.
-l- Turn off -l.
-latex This sets the generation of dvi files by latex, and turns off
the generation of pdf and ps files.
Note: to set the command used when latex is specified, see the
-latex="COMMAND" option.
-latex="COMMAND"
This sets the string specifying the command to run latex, and is
typically used to add desired options. Since the string nor-
mally contains spaces, it should be quoted, e.g.,
latexmk -latex="latex --shell-escape %O %S" foo.tex
The specification of the contents of the string are the same as
for the $latex configuration variable. Depending on your oper-
ating system and the command-line shell you are using, you may
need to change the single quotes to double quotes (or something
else).
Note: This option when provided with the COMMAND argument only
sets the command for invoking latex; it does not turn on the use
of latex. That is done by other options or in an initialization
file.
To set the command for running pdflatex (rather than the command
for latex) see the -pdflatex option.
-logfilewarninglist
-logfilewarnings After a run of *latex, give a list of warnings
about undefined citations and references (unless silent mode is
on).
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See also the $silence_logfile_warnings configuration variable.
-logfilewarninglist-
-logfilewarnings- After a run of *latex, do not give a list of
warnings about undefined citations and references. (Default)
See also the $silence_logfile_warnings configuration variable.
-lualatex
Use lualatex. That is, use lualatex to process the source
file(s) to pdf. The generation of dvi, hnt, postscript and xdv
files is turned off.
This option is equivalent to using the following set of options
-pdflua -dvi- -ps-
(Note: Note that the method of implementation of this option,
but not its intended effect, differ from some earlier versions
of latexmk.)
-lualatex="COMMAND"
This sets the string specifying the command to run lualatex. It
behaves like the -pdflatex option, but sets the variable $luala-
tex.
Note: This option when provided with the COMMAND argument only
sets the command for invoking lualatex; it does not turn on the
use of lualatex. That is done by other options or in an initial-
ization file.
-M Show list of dependent files after processing. This is equiva-
lent to the -deps option.
-MF file
If a list of dependents is made, the -MF specifies the file to
write it to.
-MP If a list of dependents is made, include a phony target for each
source file. If you use the dependents list in a Makefile, the
dummy rules work around errors the program make gives if you re-
move header files without updating the Makefile to match.
-makeindexfudge
Turn on the change-directory fudge for makeindex. See documen-
tation of $makeindex_fudge for details.
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-makeindexfudge-
Turn off the change-directory fudge for makeindex. See documen-
tation of $makeindex_fudge for details.
$min_sleep_time [0.01]
This is the minimum nonzero value allowed for $sleep_time.
-MSWinBackSlash
This option only has an effect when latexmk is running under MS-
Windows. This is that when latexmk runs a command under MS-Win-
dows, the Windows standard directory separator "\" is used to
separate directory components in a file name. Internally, la-
texmk uses "/" for the directory separator character, which is
the character used by Unix-like systems.
This is the default behavior. However the default may have been
overridden by a configuration file (latexmkrc file) which sets
$MSWin_back_slash=0.
-MSWinBackSlash-
This option only has an effect when latexmk is running under MS-
Windows. This is that when latexmk runs a command under MS-Win-
dows, the substitution of "\" for the separator character be-
tween directory components of a file name is not done. Instead
the forward slash "/" is used, the same as on Unix-like systems.
This is acceptable in most situations under MS-Windows, provided
that filenames are properly quoted, as latexmk does by default.
See the documentation for the configuration variable
$MSWin_back_slash for more details.
-new-viewer
When in continuous-preview mode, always start a new viewer to
view the generated file. By default, latexmk will, in continu-
ous-preview mode, test for a previously running previewer for
the same file and not start a new one if a previous previewer is
running. However, its test sometimes fails (notably if there is
an already-running previewer that is viewing a file of the same
name as the current file, but in a different directory). This
option turns off the default behavior.
-new-viewer-
The inverse of the -new-viewer option. It puts latexmk in its
normal behavior that in preview-continuous mode it checks for an
already-running previewer.
-nobibtex
Never run bibtex or biber. Equivalent to the -bibtex- option.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
-nobibtexfudge or -nobibfudge
Turn off the change-directory fudge for bibtex. See documenta-
tion of $bibtex_fudge for details.
-noemulate-aux-dir
Turn aux_dir emulation off. Same as -emulate-aux-dir-.
-nomakeindexfudge
Turn off the change-directory fudge for makeindex. See documen-
tation of $makeindex_fudge for details.
-norc Turn off the automatic reading of initialization (rc) files.
N.B. Normally the initialization files are read and obeyed, and
then command line options are obeyed in the order they are en-
countered. But -norc is an exception to this rule: it is acted
on first, no matter where it occurs on the command line.
-outdir=FOO or -output-directory=FOO
Sets the directory for the output files of *latex.
If the aux directory is not set or is the same as the output di-
rectory, then all output files of *latex are sent to the output
directory.
If the aux directory is set, e.g., by the option -auxdir, and is
not equal to the output directory, then only the primary output
files (.dvi, .ps, .pdf, .synctex, .synctex.gz) are sent to the
output directory. Other generated files are sent to the aux di-
rectory.
See the section AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more de-
tails.
-out2dir=FOO
(Experimental new feature.)
Sets the directory for the final output files of a whole round
of compilations.
The use of this directory solves, among other things, the prob-
lem that when multiple runs of *latex and other programs are
needed, files like the main pdf file from pdflatex, etc will be
changed multiple times. A viewer like SumatraPDF that reloads
the file whenever it detects changes will show a distracting se-
quence of intermediate states of the pdf file, rather than just
the final version after all the repeated runs of *latex etc have
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
been done. Instead, when a distinct final-output directory is
set, by the -out2dir option or the equivalent $out2_dir variable
is set, the viewer will only see a changed pdf (etc) file after
full sequence of repeated runs of *latex etc has finished.
By default the final output directory is the same as the output
directory (as specified by the -outdir option or the setting of
the variable $out_dir configuration variable).
-output-format=FORMAT
This option is one that is allowed for latex, lualatex, and
pdflatex. But it is not passed to these programs. Instead la-
texmk emulates it in a way suitable for the context of latexmk
and its workflows.
-If FORMAT is dvi, then dvi output is turned on, and postscript,
pdf and xdv output are turned off. This is equivalent to using
the options -dvi -ps- -pdf- -xdv-.
If FORMAT is pdf, then pdf output is turned on, and dvi, post-
script and xdv output are turned off. This is equivalent to us-
ing the options -pdf -ps- -dvi- -xdv-.
If FORMAT is anything else, latexmk gives an error.
-p Print out the document. By default the file to be printed is
the first in the list postscript, pdf, dvi that is being made.
But you can use the -print=... option to change the type of file
to be printed, and you can configure this in a start up file (by
setting the $print_type variable).
However, printing is enabled by default only under UNIX/Linux
systems, where the default is to use the lpr command and only on
postscript files. In general, the correct behavior for printing
very much depends on your system's software. In particular, un-
der MS-Windows you must have suitable program(s) available, and
you must have configured the print commands used by latexmk.
This can be non-trivial. See the documentation on the $lpr,
$lpr_dvi, and $lpr_pdf configuration variables to see how to set
the commands for printing.
This option is incompatible with the -pv and -pvc options, so it
turns them off.
-pdf Generate pdf version of document using pdflatex. (And turn off
any incompatible requests.)
(If you wish to use lualatex or xelatex, you can use whichever
of the options -pdflua, -pdfxe, -lualatex or -xelatex applies.)
To configure latexmk to have such behavior by default, see the
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
section on "Configuration/initialization (rc) files".
-pdfdvi
Generate dvi file and then pdf version of document from the dvi
file, by default using dvipdf. (And turn off any incompatible
requests.)
The program used to compile the document to dvi is latex by de-
fault, but this can be changed to dvilulatex by the use of the
-dvilua option or by setting $dvi_mode to 2.
-pdflua
Generate pdf version of document using lualatex. (And turn off
any incompatible requests.)
-pdfps Generate dvi file, ps file from the dvi file, and then pdf file
from the ps file. (And turn off any incompatible requests.)
The program used to compile the document to dvi is latex by de-
fault, but this can be changed to dvilulatex by the use of the
-dvilua option or by setting $dvi_mode to 2.
-pdfxe Generate pdf version of document using xelatex. (And turn off
any incompatible requests.)
Note that to optimize processing time, latexmk uses xelatex to
generate an .xdv file rather than a pdf file directly. Only af-
ter possibly multiple runs to generate a fully up-to-date .xdv
file does latexmk then call xdvipdfmx to generate the final .pdf
file.
(Note: The reason why latexmk arranges for xelatex to make an
.xdv file instead of the xelatex's default of a .pdf file is as
follows: When the document includes large graphics files, espe-
cially .png files, the production of a .pdf file can be quite
time consuming, even when the creation of the .xdv file by xela-
tex is fast. So the use of the intermediate .xdv file can re-
sult in substantial gains in processing time, since the .pdf
file is produced once rather than on every run of xelatex.)
-pdf- Turn off generation of pdf version of document. (This can be
used to override a setting in a configuration file. It may get
overridden if some other option requires the generation of a pdf
file.)
If after all options have been processed, pdf generation is
still turned off, then generation of a dvi file will be turned
on, and then the program used to compiled a document will be la-
tex (or, more precisely, whatever program is configured to be
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
used in the $latex configuration variable).
-pdflatex
Set the generation of pdf files by pdflatex. (And turn off any
incompatible requests.)
Note: to set the command used when pdflatex is specified, see
the -pdflatex="COMMAND" option.
-pdflatex="COMMAND"
This sets the string specifying the command to run pdflatex, and
is typically used to add desired options. Since the string nor-
mally contains spaces, it should be quoted, e.g.,
latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex --shell-escape %O %S"
foo.tex
The specification of the contents of the string are the same as
for the $pdflatex configuration variable. (The option -pdflatex
in fact sets the variable $pdflatex.) Depending on your operat-
ing system and the command-line shell you are using, you may
need to change the single quotes to double quotes (or something
else).
Note: This option when provided with the COMMAND argument only
sets the command for invoking pdflatex; it does not turn on the
use of pdflatex. That is done by other options or in an initial-
ization file.
To set the command for running latex (rather than the command
for pdflatex) see the -latex option.
-pdflualatex="COMMAND"
Equivalent to -lualatex="COMMAND".
-pdfxelatex="COMMAND"
Equivalent to -xelatex="COMMAND".
-pretex=CODE
Given that CODE is some TeX code, this options sets that code to
be executed before inputting source file. This only works if
the command for invoking the relevant *latex is suitably config-
ured. See the documentation of the variable $pre_tex_code, and
the substitution strings %P and %U for more details. This op-
tion works by setting the variable $pre_tex_code.
See also the -usepretex option.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
An example:
latexmk -pretex='\AtBeginDocument{Message\par}' -usepretex
foo.tex
But this is better written
latexmk -usepretex='\AtBeginDocument{Message\par}' foo.tex
If you already have a suitable command configured, you only need
latexmk -pretex='\AtBeginDocument{Message\par}' foo.tex
-print=dvi, -print=ps, -print=pdf, -print=auto,
Define which kind of file is printed. This option also ensures
that the requisite file is made, and turns on printing.
The (default) case -print=auto determines the kind of print file
automatically from the set of files that is being made. The
first in the list postscript, pdf, dvi that is among the files
to be made is the one used for print out.
-ps Generate postscript version of document. (And turn off any in-
compatible requests.)
-ps- Turn off generation of postscript version of document. This can
be used to override a setting in a configuration file. (It may
get overridden by some other option that requires a postscript
file, for example a request for printing.)
-pF Postscript file filtering. The argument to this option is a
filter which will generate a filtered postscript file with the
extension ".psF". All extra processing (e.g. preview, printing)
will then be performed on this filtered postscript file.
Example of usage: Use psnup to print two pages on the one page:
latexmk -ps -pF 'psnup -2' foo.tex
or
latexmk -ps -pF "psnup -2" foo.tex
Whether to use single or double quotes round the "psnup -2" will
depend on your command interpreter, as used by the particular
version of perl and the operating system on your computer.
-pv Run file previewer. If the -view option is used, that will se-
lect the kind of file to be previewed (.pdf, .ps or .dvi).
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
Otherwise the viewer views the "highest" kind of output file
that is made, with the ordering being .pdf, .ps, .dvi (high to
low). This option is incompatible with the -p and -pvc options,
so it turns them off.
-pv- Turn off -pv.
-pvc Run a file previewer and continually update the .dvi, .ps,
and/or .pdf files whenever changes are made to source files (see
the Description above). Which of these files is generated and
which is viewed is governed by the other options, and is the
same as for the -pv option. The preview-continuous option -pvc
can only work with one file. So in this case you will normally
only specify one filename on the command line. It is also in-
compatible with the -p and -pv options, so it turns these op-
tions off.
The -pvc option also turns off force mode (-f), as is normally
best for continuous preview mode. If you really want force
mode, use the options in the order -pvc -f.
With a good previewer the display will be automatically updated.
(Under some but not all versions of UNIX/Linux "gv -watch" does
this for postscript files; this can be set by a configuration
variable. This would also work for pdf files except for an ap-
parent bug in gv that causes an error when the newly updated pdf
file is read.) Many other previewers will need a manual update.
Important note: the acroread program on MS-Windows locks the pdf
file, and prevents new versions being written, so it is a bad
idea to use acroread to view pdf files in preview-continuous
mode. It is better to use a different viewer: SumatraPDF and
gsview are good possibilities.
There are some other methods for arranging an update, notably
useful for many versions of xdvi and xpdf. These are best set
in latexmk's configuration; see below.
Note that if latexmk dies or is stopped by the user, the
"forked" previewer will continue to run. Successive invocations
with the -pvc option will not fork new previewers, but latexmk
will normally use the existing previewer. (At least this will
happen when latexmk is running under an operating system where
it knows how to determine whether an existing previewer is run-
ning.)
-pvc- Turn off -pvc.
-pvctimeout
Do timeout in pvc mode after period of inactivity, which is 30
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
min. by default. Inactivity means a period when latexmk has de-
tected no file changes and hence has not taken any actions like
compiling the document.
-pvctimeout-
Don't do timeout in pvc mode after inactivity.
-pvctimeoutmins=<time>
Set period of inactivity in minutes for pvc timeout.
-quiet Same as -silent
-r <rcfile>
Read the specified initialization file ("RC file") before pro-
cessing.
Be careful about the ordering: (1) Standard initialization files
-- see the section below on "Configuration/initialization (RC)
files" -- are read first. (2) Then the options on the command
line are acted on in the order they are given. Therefore if an
initialization file is specified by the -r option, it is read
during this second step. Thus an initialization file specified
with the -r option can override both the standard initialization
files and previously specified options. But all of these can be
overridden by later options.
The contents of the RC file just comprise a piece of code in the
Perl programming language (typically a sequence of assignment
statements); they are executed when the -r option is encountered
during latexmk's parsing of its command line. See the -e option
for a way of giving initialization code directly on latexmk's
command line. An error results in latexmk stopping. Multiple
instances of the -r and -e options can be used, and they are ex-
ecuted in the order they appear on the command line.
-rc-report
After initialization, give a list of the RC files read. (De-
fault)
-rc-report-
After initialization, do not give a list of the RC files read.
-recorder
Give the -recorder option with *latex. In (most) modern ver-
sions of these programs, this results in a file of extension
.fls containing a list of the files that these programs have
read and written. Latexmk will then use this file to improve
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
its detection of source files and generated files after a run of
*latex. This is the default setting of latexmk, unless overrid-
den in an initialization file.
For further information, see the documentation for the $recorder
configuration variable.
-recorder-
Do not supply the -recorder option with *latex.
-rules Show a list of latemk's rules and dependencies after processing.
-rules-
Do not show a list of latexmk's rules and dependencies after
processing. (This is the default.)
-showextraoptions
Show the list of extra *latex options that latexmk recognizes,
but that it simply passes through to the programs *latex when
they are run. These options are (currently) a combination of
those allowed by the TeXLive and MiKTeX implementations. (If a
particular option is given to latexmk but is not handled by the
particular implementation of *latex that is being used, that
program will probably give a warning or an error.) These op-
tions are very numerous, but are not listed in this documenta-
tion because they have no effect on latexmk's actions.
There are a few options (e.g., -includedirectory=dir, -initial-
ize, -ini) that are not recognized, either because they don't
fit with latexmk's intended operations, or because they need
special processing by latexmk that isn't implemented (at least,
not yet).
There are certain options for *latex (e.g., -recorder) that
trigger special actions or behavior by latexmk itself. Depending
on the action, they may also be passed in some form to the
called *latex program, and/or may affect other programs as well.
These options do have entries in this documentation. Among
these options are: -jobname=STRING, -aux-directory=dir, -output-
directory=DIR, -quiet, and -recorder.
There are also options that are accepted by *latex, but instead
trigger actions purely by latexmk: -help, -version.
-silent
Run commands silently, i.e., with options that reduce the amount
of diagnostics generated. For example, with the default set-
tings, the command "latex -interaction=batchmode" is used for
latex, and similarly for its friends.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
See also the -logfilewarninglist and -logfilewarninglist- op-
tions.
Also reduce the number of informational messages that latexmk
itself generates.
To change the options used to make the commands run silently,
you need to configure latexmk with changed values of its config-
uration variables, the relevant ones being $bib-
tex_silent_switch, $biber_silent_switch, $dvipdf_silent_switch,
$dvips_silent_switch, $dvilualatex_silent_switch, $la-
tex_silent_switch, $lualatex_silent_switch $makein-
dex_silent_switch, $pdflatex_silent_switch, and $xela-
tex_silent_switch
-stdtexcmds
Sets the commands for latex, etc, so that they are the standard
ones. This is useful to override special configurations.
The result is that $latex = 'latex %O %S', and similarly for
$pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex. (The option -no-pdf needed
for $xelatex is provided automatically, given that %O appears in
the definition.)
-time Show time used. (On MS Windows, what is shown is clock time; on
other systems CPU time.) See also the configuration variable
$show_time.
-time- Do not show time used. See also the configuration variable
$show_time.
-use-make
When after a run of *latex, there are warnings about missing
files (e.g., as requested by the LaTeX \input, \include, and
\includgraphics commands), latexmk tries to make them by a cus-
tom dependency. If no relevant custom dependency with an appro-
priate source file is found, and if the -use-make option is set,
then as a last resort latexmk will try to use the make program
to try to make the missing files.
Note that the filename may be specified without an extension,
e.g., by \includegraphics{drawing} in a LaTeX file. In that
case, latexmk will try making drawing.ext with ext set in turn
to the possible extensions that are relevant for latex (or as
appropriate pdflatex, lualatex, xelatex).
See also the documentation for the $use_make_for_missing_files
configuration variable.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
-use-make-
Do not use the make program to try to make missing files. (De-
fault.)
-usepretex
Sets the command lines for latex, etc, so that they use the code
that is defined by the variable $pre_tex_code or that is set by
the option -pretex=CODE to execute the specified TeX code before
the source file is read. This option overrides any previous de-
finition of the command lines.
The result is that $latex = 'latex %O %P', and similarly for
$pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex. (The option -no-pdf needed
for $xelatex is provided automatically, given that %O appears in
the definition.)
-usepretex=CODE
Equivalent to -pretex=CODE -usepretex. Example
latexmk -usepretex='\AtBeginDocument{Message\par}' foo.tex
-v or -version
Print version number of latexmk.
-verbose
Opposite of -silent. This is the default setting.
-view=default, -view=dvi, -view=hnt, -view=ps, -view=pdf, -view=none
Set the kind of file used when previewing is requested (e.g., by
the -pv or -pvc switches). The default is to view the "highest"
kind of requested file (in the low-to-high order .dvi, .hnt,
.ps, .pdf).
Note the possibility -view=none where no viewer is opened at
all. One example of is use is in conjunction with the -pvc op-
tion, when you want latexmk to do a compilation automatically
whenever source file(s) change, but do not want a previewer to
be opened.
-Werror
This causes latexmk to return a non-zero status code if any of
the files processed gives a warning about problems with cita-
tions or references (i.e., undefined citations or references or
about multiply defined references). This is after latexmk has
completed all the runs it needs to try and resolve references
and citations. Thus -Werror causes latexmk to treat such warn-
ings as errors, but only when they occur on the last run of *la-
tex and only after processing is complete. Also can be set by
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
the configuration variable $warnings_as_errors.
-xdv Generate xdv version of document using xelatex. (And turn off
any incompatible requests.)
-xelatex
Use xelatex. That is, use xelatex to process the source
file(s). This will cause generation of a pdf (but indirectly
through a xdv file). (And turn off any incompatible requests.)
This option is equivalent to using the following option
-pdfxe
[Note: Note that the method of implementation of this option,
but not its intended primary effect, differ from some earlier
versions of latexmk. Latexmk first uses xelatex to make an .xdv
file, and does all the extra runs needed (including those of
bibtex, etc). Only after that does it make the pdf file from
the .xdv file, using xdvipdfmx. See the documentation for the
-pdfxe for why this is done.]
-xelatex="COMMAND"
This sets the string specifying the command to run xelatex. It
sets the variable $xelatex.
Warning: It is important to ensure that the -no-pdf is used when
xelatex is invoked, since latexmk expects xelatex to produce an
.xdv file, not a .pdf file. If you provide %O in the command
specification, this will be done automatically. See the docu-
mentation for the -pdfxe option for why latexmk makes a .xdv
file rather than a .pdf file when xelatex is used.
An example of the use of the -xelatex option:
latexmk -pdfxe -xelatex="xelatex --shell-escape %O %S"
foo.tex
Note: This option when provided with the COMMAND argument only
sets the command for invoking xelatex; it does not turn on the
use of lualatex. That is done by other options or in an initial-
ization file.
Compatibility between options
The preview-continuous option -pvc can only work with one file. So in
this case you will normally only specify one filename on the command
line.
Options -p, -pv and -pvc are mutually exclusive. So each of these
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
options turns the others off.
EXAMPLES
% latexmk thesis # run latex enough times to resolve
cross-references
% latexmk -pvc -ps thesis# run latex enough times to resolve
cross-references, make a postscript
file, start a previewer. Then
watch for changes in the source
file thesis.tex and any files it
uses. After any changes rerun latex
the appropriate number of times and
remake the postscript file. If latex
encounters an error, latexmk will
keep running, watching for
source file changes.
% latexmk -c # remove .aux, .log, .bbl, .blg, .dvi,
.pdf, .ps & .bbl files
DEALING WITH ERRORS, PROBLEMS, ETC
Some possibilities:
a. If you get a strange error, do look carefully at the output that is
on the screen and in log files. While there is much that is notori-
ously verbose in the output of latex (and that is added to by latexmk),
the verbosity is there for a reason: to enable the user to diagnose
problems. Latexmk does repeat some messages at the end of a run that
it thinks would otherwise be easy to miss in the middle of other out-
put.
b. Generally, remember that latexmk does its work by running other pro-
grams. Your first priority in dealing with errors should be to examine
what went wrong with the individual programs. Then you need to correct
the causes of errors in the runs of these programs. (Often these come
from errors in the source document, but they could also be about miss-
ing LaTeX packages, etc.)
c. If latexmk doesn't run the programs the way you would like, then you
need to look in this documentation at the list of command line options
and then at the sections on configuration/initialization files. A lot
of latexmk's behavior is configurable to deal with particular situa-
tions. (But there is a lot of reading!)
The remainder of these notes consists of ideas for dealing with more
difficult situations.
d. Further tricks can involve replacing the standard commands that la-
texmk runs by other commands or scripts.
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e. For possible examples of code for use in an RC file, see the direc-
tory example_rcfiles in the distribution of latexmk (e.g., at
http://mirror.ctan.org/support/latexmk/example_rcfiles). Even if these
examples don't do what you want, they may provide suitable inspiration.
f. There's a useful trick that can be used when you use lualatex in-
stead of pdflatex (and in some related situations). The problem is
that latexmk won't notice a dependency on a file, bar.baz say, that is
input by the lua code in your document instead of by the LaTeX part.
(Thus if you change bar.baz and rerun latexmk, then latexmk will think
no files have changed and not rerun lualatex, whereas if you had '\in-
put{bar.baz}' in the LaTeX part of the document, latexmk would notice
the change.) One solution is just to put the following somewhere in
the LaTeX part of the document:
\typeout{(bar.baz)}
This puts a line in the log file that latexmk will treat as implying
that the file bar.baz was read. (At present I don't know a way of do-
ing this automatically.) Of course, if the file has a different name,
change bar.baz to the name of your file.
g. See also the section "Advanced Configuration: Some extra resources".
h. Look on tex.stackexchange, i.e., at
http://tex.stackex-
change.com/questions/tagged/latexmk Someone may have already solved
your problem.
i. Ask a question at tex.stackexchange.com.
j. Or ask me (the author of latexmk). My e-mail is at the end of this
documentation.
AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES
Running *latex and the associated programs generate a number of files,
it is often convenient to arrange for the generated files to be in a
different directory than the source file(s) of a document. For our
purposes here, we identify two classes of generated file.
One class is what one may term the final output files, for example, the
.pdf file generated by running pdflatex, or the .dvi file from latex.
Also in this class is the ps file generated by applying dvips to a .dvi
file. There are also .synctec or .synctex.gz files that can be used by
programs that display .pdf files and the like to relate positions in
them to positions in source files.
The second class of file is composed of all other generated files:
These include notably .aux files that are used for implementing cross
referencing, and are both generated on one run and read on a later run.
Many packages generate yet more such intermediate files, as well as
programs like bibtex, makeindex, etc. There are also .log files from
*latex and corresponding files from other programs.
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Let us use the term "output directory" for the directory that receives
the final output files, and "aux directory" for the directory for the
other generated files. If no special options are provided to the *la-
tex programs, these directories default to the current directory, and
then the generated files aren't segregated. If the two directories are
the same, as is the simplest situation, then all generated files are
written to the same directory, and one often simply refers to the out-
put directory, without mentioning a separate aux directory.
Support for them is provided for them in the *latex programs: by the
single option -output-directory for the TeXLive implementations, and by
the options -aux-directory and -output-directory for the MiKTeX imple-
mentations. Special support like this is needed for two reasons: First
is that there are many packages that write files and it needs to be
arranged that these are automatically written to the appropriate direc-
tory without any rewriting of the packages' code. Second is that the
files are often read in again on subsequent runs of *latex, and it is
necessary that the program knows where to find the files.
A complication is that the TeXLive implementation does not allow for
separate aux and output directories. Latexmk deals with this by being
able to emulating a separate aux directory: In this method it invokes
*latex with just an -output-directory option, with the directory set
not to the desired output directory, but to the aux directory. After
running *latex, it moves the relevant final output file(s) to the in-
tended output directory. Emulation can be turned on by setting the
configuration variable $emulate_aux to one in a configuration file or
by using latexmk's -emulate-aux-dir option. The emulation method works
equally well if MiKTeX is used.
Latexmk also turns emulation on if it is found to be needed, as fol-
lows. Suppose emulation is initially off, but the aux and output di-
rectories are different. Then latexmk invokes *latex with an -aux-di-
rectory option and after the run finds that it hasn't been obeyed, no-
tably because the .log file is in the output directory rather than the
aux directory. Latexmk then sets emulation on, and retries. Conceiv-
ably, it could move all the appropriate generated files from the output
directory to the aux directory; but there is such a large variety of
possibilities for these files that this is hard to identify all of them
reliably except for simple cases.
Note that the emulation issue only arises when the user has arranged
for the the aux and output directories to be different. When instead
they are equal, e.g., because the user only set the $out_dir variable,
then latexmk invokes *latex with only an -output-directory option,
which works as intended with both TeXLive and MiKTeX.
In addition, latexmk arranges the invocations of any auxiliary programs
like bibtex and makeindex so that they will read and write the relevant
files from and to the aux directory. Programs like dvips, dvipdf,
ps2pdf, and xdvipdfmx are invoked so that they read from the appropri-
ate places and write their output to the output directory.
Files considered as final output files, i.e., those that belong in the
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output directory rather than the aux directory: These have the exten-
sions .dvi, .ps., .pdf, .synctex, and .synctex.gz. A special case, be-
cause of compatibility issues, is of .fls files: See below.
Note that xelatex when invoked with its -no-pdf option, as latexmk
does, generates an .xdv file, which would appear to have the same sta-
tus as a .dvi file generated by latex. Nevertheless, latexmk treats
.xdv as an intermediate file that is found in the aux directory. This
is to match MiKTeX's treatment of the -aux-directory option. As fur-
ther justification, one can say that under modern conditions an .xdv
file is (almost) always an intermediate file. Historically, the situa-
tion with .dvi files from latex was different, and currently dvi pre-
viewers do exist.
Variables and options for directories: The variables for setting the
aux and output directories are $aux_dir and $out_dir, with correspond-
ing command line options -auxdir (or -aux-directory) and -outdir (or
-output-directory). When a value for these is blank (which is the de-
fault value), it implies the use of a default: For the aux directory,
the default is to set it equal to the output directory. For the output
directory, the default is to be the current directory.
For the turning on and off of the emulation mode, there is the configu-
ration variable $emulate_aux and the options -emulate-aux-dir, -emu-
late-aux-dir-, -noemulate-aux-dir.
Interaction with -cd option: When the -cd option is used (or the equiv-
alent setting of $do_cd variable), then latexmk changes the working di-
rectory to the document directory before invoking *latex. If the aux
and/or output directories are given by relative paths, e.g., by -out-
dir=output for a directory named "output", then the directories are
relative to the document directory, rather than relative to the working
directory that was in effect when latexmk was invoked. This matches the
behavior of *latex as invoked with the provided command line directory
argument(s) after the change of working directory to the document di-
rectory.
Automatic creation of aux and output directories: Unlike *latex, if la-
texmk finds the requested directory/ies don't exist, it creates
it/them, thereby avoiding errors when *latex is invoked.
If the document uses the \include macro to read a .tex file from a sub-
directory, *latex will attempt to write an extra aux file to the corre-
sponding subdirectory of the aux directory. If the subdirectory
doesn't exist, then *latex will complain that it can't write the aux
file. After the run of *latex, latexmk detects this situation, creates
the necessary directory, and reruns *latex with the error situation
corrected.
Choice of aux and output directories: Often the aux and output directo-
ries are given as subdirectories of the document directory, e.g., by
-outdir=output. But it is possible to provide, for example, an absolute
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path or a path relative to a parent directory, e.g., "/tmp/foo" or
"../output". Be aware that in general this can cause problems, notably
with makeindex or bibtex. This is because modern versions of these
programs, by default, will refuse to work when they find that they are
asked to write to a file in a directory that appears not to be the cur-
rent working directory or one of its subdirectories. This is part of
security measures by the whole TeX system that try to prevent malicious
or errant TeX documents from incorrectly messing with a user's files.
By default, latexmk evades this issue: Before running bibtex and
makeindex, latexmk changes working directory to the aux directory, with
appropriate settings of search paths. The use or non-use of this trick
is governed by the variables $bibtex_fudge and $makeindex_fudge. Un-
fortunately, the trick sometimes makes bibtex and makeindex unable to
find files.
If necessary the trick can be turned off. But this is incompatible with
an aux directory like, "/tmp/foo" of "../output"). If you really have
to deal with this situation, and only if you have to deal with it, then
you need to disable the security measures (and assume any risks). One
way of doing this is to temporarily set an operating system environment
variable openout_any to "a" (as in "all"), to override the default
"paranoid" setting.
Certain names of aux and output directories not allowed on Microsoft
Windows: It is natural to want to use the name "aux" for the aux direc-
tory, e.g., by using the option -auxdir=aux. But on Microsoft operat-
ing systems "aux" is one of the names that is not allowed for a file or
directory. I find it useful to standardize on a name like "auxdir"
(e.g., by -auxdir=auxdir); this works independently of operating sys-
tem.
Location of .fls file: Much of the dependency information that latexmk
uses comes from the .fls file generated when *latex is invoked with the
-recorder option, which latexmk does by default. It may seem rational
that this is written to the aux directory. But in fact versions of
MiKTeX prior to Oct. 2020 wrote it to the output directory. Later ver-
sions do write it to the aux directory. To deal with this, latexmk
does two things: First, if latexmk finds that the .fls file has only
been generated in the "wrong" directory, then latexmk copies it to the
expected directory, after which latexmk's operation continues correctly
independently of the behavior of *latex. Second it allows its idea of
the "correct" (or expected) directory to be configured by the variable
$fls_uses_aux_dir. This defaults to zero, to correspond to MiKTeX's
current behavior.
ALLOWING FOR CHANGE OF OUTPUT FILE TYPE
When one of the latex engines is run, the usual situation is that latex
produces a .dvi file, while pdflatex and lualatex produce a .pdf file.
For xelatex the default is to produce a .pdf file, but to optimize pro-
cessing time latexmk runs xelatex its -no-pdf option so that it pro-
duces an .xdv file. Further processing by latexmk takes this as a
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starting point.
However, the actual output file may differ from the normal expectation;
and then latexmk can adjust its processing to accommodate this situa-
tion. The difference in output file type can happen for two reasons:
One is that for latex, pdflatex and lualatex the document itself can
override the defaults. The other is that there may be a configuration,
or misconfiguration, such that the program that latexmk invokes to com-
pile the document is not the expected one, or is given options incom-
patible with what latexmk initially expects.
Under latex and pdflatex, control of the output format by the document
is done by setting the \pdfoutput macro. Under lualatex, the \output-
mode macro is used instead.
One example of an important use-case for document control of the output
format is a document that uses the psfrag package to insert graphical
elements in the output file. The psfrag package achieves its effects by
inserting postscript code in the output of the compilation of the docu-
ment. This entails the use of compilation to a .dvi file, followed by
the use of conversion to a postscript file (either directly, as by
dvips or implicitly, as an intermediate step by dvipdf). Then it is
useful to force output to be of the .dvi format by inserting \pdfout-
put=0 in the preamble of the document.
Another example is where the document uses graphics file of the .pdf,
.jpg, and png types. With the default setting for the graphicx pack-
age, these can be processed in compilation to .pdf but not with compi-
lation to .dvi. In this case, it is useful to insert \pdfoutput=1 in
the preamble of the document to force compilation to .pdf output for-
mat.
In all of these cases, it is needed that latexmk has to adjust its pro-
cessing to deal with a mismatch between the actual output format (out
of .pdf, .dvi, .xdv) and the initially expected output, if possible.
Latexmk does this provided the following conditions are met.
The first is that latexmk's $allow_switch configuration variable is set
to a non-zero value as it is by default. If this variable is zero, a
mismatch of filetypes in the compilation results in an error.
The second condition for latexmk to be able to handle a change of out-
put type is that no explicit requests for .dvi or .ps output files are
made. Explicit requests are by the -dvi and -ps, -print=dvi,
-print=ps, -view=dvi, and -view=ps options, and by corresponding set-
tings of the $dvi_mode, $postscript_mode, $print_type, and $view con-
figuration variables. The print-type and view-type restrictions only
apply when printing and viewing are explicitly requested, respectively.
For this purpose, the use of the -pdfdvi and -pdfps options (and the
corresponding setting of the $pdf_mode variable) does not count as an
explicit request for the .dvi and .ps files; they are merely regarded
as a request for making a .pdf file together with an initial proposal
for the processing route to make it.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
Note that when accommodating a change in output file type, there is in-
volved a substantial change in the network of rules that latexmk uses
in its actions. The second condition applied to accommodate a change
is to avoid situations where the change in the rule network is too rad-
ical to be readily handled automatically.
CONFIGURATION/INITIALIZATION (RC) FILES
In this section is explained which configuration files are read by la-
texmk. Subsequent sections "How to Set Variables in Initialization
Files", "Format of Command Specifications", "List of Configuration
Variables Usable in Initialization Files", "Custom Dependencies", and
"Advanced Configuration" give details on what can be configured and
how.
Latexmk can be customized using initialization files, which are read at
startup in the following order:
1) The system RC file, if it exists.
On a UNIX system, latexmk searches the following directories for a
system RC file, which may be named either "LatexMk" or "latexmkrc".
The
directories are searched in the following order, and latexmk uses
the first such file it finds (if any):
"/etc",
"/opt/local/share/latexmk",
"/usr/local/share/latexmk",
"/usr/local/lib/latexmk".
On a MS-Windows system it looks just in "C:\latexmk".
On a cygwin system (i.e., a MS-Windows system in which Perl is that
of cygwin), latexmk looks in the directories
"/cygdrive/c/latexmk",
"/etc",
"/opt/local/share/latexmk",
"/usr/local/share/latexmk",
"/usr/local/lib/latexmk".
If the environment variable LATEXMKRCSYS is set, its value is used as
the name of the system RC file, instead of any of the above.
2) The user's RC file, if it exists. This can be in one of two places.
The traditional one is ".latexmkrc" in the user's home directory. The
other possibility is "latexmk/latexmkrc" in the user's XDG configura-
tion home directory. The actual file read is the first of "$XDG_CON-
FIG_HOME/latexmk/latexmkrc" or "$HOME/.latexmkrc" which exists. (See
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-lat-
est.html for details on the XDG Base Directory Specification.)
Here $HOME is the user's home directory. [Latexmk determines the
user's home directory as follows: It is the value of the environment
variable HOME, if this variable exists, which normally is the case on
UNIX-like systems (including Linux and OS-X). Otherwise the environ-
ment variable USERPROFILE is used, if it exists, which normally is the
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
case on MS-Windows systems. Otherwise a blank string is used instead of
$HOME, in which case latexmk does not look for an RC file in it.]
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME is the value of the environment variable XDG_CON-
FIG_HOME if it exists. If this environment variable does not exist,
but $HOME is non-blank, then $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set to the default
value of $HOME/.config. Otherwise $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is blank, and la-
texmk does not look for an RC file under it.
3) The RC file in the current working directory. This file can be
named either "latexmkrc" or ".latexmkrc", and the first of these to be
found is used, if any.
4) Any RC file(s) specified on the command line with the -r option.
Each RC file is a sequence of Perl commands. Naturally, a user can use
this in creative ways. But for most purposes, one simply uses a se-
quence of assignment statements that override some of the built-in set-
tings of Latexmk. Straightforward cases can be handled without knowl-
edge of the Perl language by using the examples in this document as
templates. Comment lines are introduced by the "#" character.
Note that command line options are obeyed in the order in which they
are written; thus any RC file specified on the command line with the -r
option can override previous options but can be itself overridden by
later options on the command line. There is also the -e option, which
allows initialization code to be specified in latexmk's command line.
For possible examples of code for in an RC file, see the directory ex-
ample_rcfiles in the distribution of latexmk (e.g., at
http://mir-
ror.ctan.org/support/latexmk/example_rcfiles).
HOW TO SET VARIABLES IN INITIALIZATION FILES
The important variables that can be configured are described in the
section "List of configuration variables usable in initialization
files". (See the earlier section "Configuration/Initialization (rc)
Files" for the files where the configurations are done.) Syntax for
setting these variables is of the following forms:
$bibtex = 'bibtex %O %S';
for the setting of a string variable,
$preview_mode = 1;
for the setting of a numeric variable, and
@default_files = ('paper', 'paper1');
for the setting of an array of strings. It is possible to append an
item to an array variable as follows:
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
push @default_files, 'paper2';
Note that simple "scalar" variables have names that begin with a $
character and array variables have names that begin with a @ character.
Each statement ends with a semicolon.
Strings should be enclosed in single quotes. (You could use double
quotes, as in many programming languages. But then the Perl program-
ming language brings into play some special rules for interpolating
variables into strings. People not fluent in Perl will want to avoid
these complications.)
You can do much more complicated things, but for this you will need to
consult a manual for the Perl programming language.
FORMAT OF COMMAND SPECIFICATIONS
Some of the variables set the commands that latexmk uses for carrying
out its work, for example to generate a .dvi file from a .tex file or
to view a postscript file. This section describes some important fea-
tures of how the commands are specified. (Note that some of the possi-
bilities listed here do not apply to the $kpsewhich variable; see its
documentation.)
Placeholders: Supposed you wanted latexmk to use the command elatex in
place of the regular latex command, and suppose moreover that you
wanted to give it the option "--shell-escape". You could do this by
the following setting:
$latex = 'elatex --shell-escape %O %S';
The two items starting with the % character are placeholders. These
are substituted by appropriate values before the command is run. Thus
%S will be replaced by the source file that elatex will be applied to,
and %O will be replaced by any options that latexmk has decided to use
for this command. (E.g., if you used the -silent option in the invoca-
tion of latexmk, it results in the replacement of %O by "-interac-
tion=batchmode".)
The available placeholders are:
%A basename of the main tex file. Unlike %R, this is unaffected by
the setting of a jobname by the -jobname option or the $jobname
configuration value.
%B base of filename for current command. E.g., if a postscript
file document.ps is being made from the dvi file document.dvi,
then the basename is document.
%D destination file (e.g., the name of the postscript file when
converting a dvi file to postscript).
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
%O options
%P If the variable $pre_tex_code is non-empty, then %P is substi-
tuted by the contents of $pre_tex_code followed by \in-
put{SOURCE}, where SOURCE stands for the name of the source
file. Appropriate quoting is done. This enables TeX code to be
passed to one of the *latex engines to be executed before the
source file is read.
If the variable $pre_tex_code is the empty string, then %P is
equivalent to %S.
%R root filename.
By default this is the basename of the main tex file. However
the value can be changed by the use of the -jobname option or
the $jobname configuration variable. This is then the basename
for files like the .aux and .log files produced by running *la-
tex, as well for the main .dvi, .pdf, .ps and/or .xdvi files.
%S source file (e.g., the name of the dvi file when converting a
.dvi file to ps).
%T The name of the primary tex file.
%U If the variable $pre_tex_code is non-empty, then its value is
substituted for %U (appropriately quoted). Otherwise it is re-
placed by a null string.
%Y Name of directory for auxiliary output files (see the configura-
tion variable $aux_dir). A directory separation character ('/')
is appended if $aux_dir is non-empty and does not end in a suit-
able character, with suitable characters being those appropriate
to UNIX and MS-Windows, i.e., ':', '/' and '\'. Note that if
after initialization, $out_dir is set, but $aux_dir is not set
(i.e., it is blank), then latexmk sets $aux_dir to the same
value $out_dir.
%Z Name of directory for output files (see the configuration vari-
able $out_dir). A directory separation character ('/') is ap-
pended if $out_dir is non-empty and does not end in a suitable
character, with suitable characters being those appropriate to
UNIX and MS-Windows, i.e., ':', '/' and '\'.
If for some reason you need a literal % character in your string not
subject to the above rules, use "%%".
Appropriate quoting will be applied to the filename substitutions, so
you mustn't supply them yourself even if the names of your files have
spaces in them. (But if your TeX filenames have spaces in them, beware
that some older versions of the TeX program cannot correctly handle
filenames containing spaces.) In case latexmk's quoting does not work
correctly on your system, you can turn it off -- see the documentation
for the variable $quote_filenames.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
See the default values in the section "List of configuration variables
usable in initialization files" for what is normally the most appropri-
ate usage.
If you omit to supply any placeholders whatever in the specification of
a command, latexmk will supply what its author thinks are appropriate
defaults. This gives compatibility with configuration files for previ-
ous versions of latexmk, which didn't use placeholders.
"Detaching" a command: Normally when latexmk runs a command, it waits
for the command to run to completion. This is appropriate for commands
like latex, of course. But for previewers, the command should normally
run detached, so that latexmk gets the previewer running and then re-
turns to its next task (or exits if there is nothing else to do). To
achieve this effect of detaching a command, you need to precede the
command name with "start ", as in
$dvi_previewer = 'start xdvi %O %S';
This will be translated to whatever is appropriate for your operating
system.
Notes: (1) In some circumstances, latexmk will always run a command de-
tached. This is the case for a previewer in preview continuous mode,
since otherwise previewing continuously makes no sense. (2) This pre-
cludes the possibility of running a command named start. (3) If the
word start occurs more than once at the beginning of the command
string, that is equivalent to having just one. (4) Under cygwin, some
complications happen, since cygwin amounts to a complicated merging of
UNIX and MS-Windows. See the source code for how I've handled the
problem.
Command names containing spaces: Under MS-Windows it is common that the
name of a command includes spaces, since software is often installed in
a subdirectory of "C:\Program Files". Such command names should be en-
closed in double quotes, as in
$lpr_pdf = '"c:/Program Files/Ghostgum/gsview/gsview32.exe" /p
%S';
$pdf_previewer = 'start "c:/Program Files/SumatraPDF/Suma-
traPDF.exe" %O %S';
$pdf_previewer = 'start "c:/Program Files/SumatraPDF (x86)/Suma-
traPDF.exe" %O %S';
(Note about the above example: Under MS-Windows forward slashes are
equivalent to backslashes in a filename under almost all circumstances,
provided that the filename is inside double quotes. It is easier to
use forward slashes in examples like the one above, since then one does
not have to worry about the rules for dealing with forward slashes in
strings in the Perl language.)
Command names under Cygwin: If latexmk is executed by Cygwin's Perl,
be particularly certain that pathnames in commands have forward slashes
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
not the usual backslashes for the separator of pathname components.
See the above examples. Backslashes often get misinterpreted by the
Unix shell used by Cygwin's Perl to execute external commands. Forward
slashes don't suffer from this problem, and (when quoted, as above) are
equally acceptable to MS-Windows.
Using MS-Windows file associations: A useful trick under modern ver-
sions of MS-Windows (e.g., WinXP) is to use just the command 'start' by
itself:
$dvi_previewer = 'start %S';
Under MS-Windows, this will cause to be run whatever program the system
has associated with dvi files. (The same applies for a postscript
viewer and a pdf viewer.) But note that this trick is not always suit-
able for the pdf previwer, if your system has acroread for the default
pdf viewer. As explained elsewhere, acroread under MS-Windows does not
work well with latex and latexmk, because acroread locks the pdf file.
Not using a certain command: If a command is not to be run, the command
name NONE is used, as in
$lpr = 'NONE lpr';
This typically is used when an appropriate command does not exist on
your system. The string after the "NONE" is effectively a comment.
Options to commands: Setting the name of a command can be used not only
for changing the name of the command called, but also to add options to
command. Suppose you want latexmk to use latex with source specials
enabled. Then you might use the following line in an initialization
file:
$latex = 'latex --src-specials %O %S';
Running a subroutine instead of an external command: Use a specifica-
tion starting with "internal", as in
$latex = 'internal mylatex %O %S';
sub mylatex {
my @args = @_;
# Possible preprocessing here
return system 'latex', @args;
}
For some of the more exotic possibilities that then become available,
see the section "Advanced configuration: Some extra resources and ad-
vanced tricks". Also see some of the examples in the directory exam-
ple_rcfiles in the latexmk distribution.
Advanced tricks: Normally one specifies a single command for the com-
mands invoked by latexmk. Naturally, if there is some complicated ad-
ditional processing you need to do in your special situation, you can
write a script (or batch file) to do the processing, and then configure
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
latexmk to use your script in place of the standard program.
You can also use a Perl subroutine instead of a script -- see above.
This is generally the most flexible and portable solution.
It is also possible to configure latexmk to run multiple commands. For
example, if when running pdflatex to generate a pdf file from a tex
file you need to run another program after pdflatex to perform some ex-
tra processing, you could do something like:
$pdflatex = 'pdflatex --shell-escape %O %S; pst2pdf_for_latexmk
%B';
This definition assumes you are using a UNIX-like system (which in-
cludes Linux and OS-X), so that the two commands to be run are sepa-
rated by the semicolon in the middle of the string.
If you are using MS-Windows, you would replace the above line by
$pdflatex = 'cmd /c pdflatex --shell-escape %O %S'
. '&& pst2pdf_for_latexmk %B';
Here, the UNIX command separator ; is replaced by &&. In addition,
there is a problem that some versions of Perl on MS-Windows do not obey
the command separator; this problem is overcome by explicitly invoking
the MS-Windows command-line processor cmd.exe.
LIST OF CONFIGURATION VARIABLES USABLE IN INITIALIZATION FILES
In this section are specified the variables whose values can be ad-
justed to configure latexmk. (See the earlier section "Configura-
tion/Initialization (rc) Files" for the files where the configurations
are done.)
Default values are indicated in brackets. Note that for variables that
are boolean in character, concerning whether latexmk does or does not
behave in a certain way, a non-zero value, normally 1, indicates true,
i.e., the behavior occurs, while a zero value indicates a false value,
i.e., the behavior does not occur.
$allow_subdir_creation [1]
Specify action to take when message(s) in the .log file indicate
a failure of an attempt by a *latex compilation to write a file
to a subdirectory of the output directory because the subdirec-
tory didn't exist.
If the value if $allow_subdir_creation is 0, no action is taken.
If it is 1, then the appropriate subdirectory is created and a
rerun of *latex is triggered, but only if the file being written
is an .aux file. (This happens, for example, if the document
includes a file from a subdirectory of the document directory,
by the \include command. If the value of $allow_subdir_creation
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is 2, then the subdirectory creation is done independently of
which type of file is in question.
$allow_switch [1]
This controls what happens when the output extension of latex,
pdflatex, lualatex or xelatex differs from what is expected.
(The possible extensions are .dvi, .pdf, .xdv.) This can happen
with the use of the \pdfoutput macro in a document compiled un-
der latex or pdflatex, or with the use of the \outputmode macro
under lualatex. It can also happen with certain kinds of incor-
rect configuration.
In such a case, latexmk can appropriately adjust its network of
rules. The adjustment is made if $allow_switch is on, and if no
request for a dvi or ps file has been made.
See the section ALLOWING FOR CHANGE OF OUTPUT EXTENSION.
$always_view_file_via_temporary [0]
Whether .ps and .pdf files are initially to be made in a tempo-
rary directory and then moved to the final location. (This ap-
plies to dvips, dvipdf, and ps2pdf operations, and the filtering
operators on .dvi and .ps files. It does not apply to pdflatex,
unfortunately, since pdflatex provides no way of specifying a
chosen name for the output file.)
This use of a temporary file solves a problem that the making of
these files can occupy a substantial time. If a viewer (notably
gv) sees that the file has changed, it may read the new file be-
fore the program writing the file has not yet finished its work,
which can cause havoc.
See the $pvc_view_file_via_temporary variable for a setting that
applies only if preview-continuous mode (-pvc option) is used.
See $tmpdir for the setting of the directory where the temporary
file is created.
$analyze_input_log_always [1]
After a run of latex (etc), always analyze .log for input files
in the <...> and (...) constructions. Otherwise, only do the
analysis when fls file doesn't exist or is out of date.
Under normal circumstances, the data in the fls file is reli-
able, and the test of the log file gets lots of false positives;
usually $analyze_input_log_always is best set to zero. But the
test of the log file is needed at least in the following situa-
tion: When a user needs to persuade latexmk that a certain file
is a source file, and latexmk doesn't otherwise find it. Then
the user can write code that causes a line with (...) to be
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
written to log file. One important case is for lualatex, which
doesn't always generate lines in the .fls file for input lua
files. (The situation with lualatex is HIGHLY version depen-
dent, e.g., there was a big change between TeXLive 2016 and
TeXLive 2017.)
To keep backward compatibility with older versions of latexmk,
the default is to set $analyze_input_log_always to 1.
$auto_rc_use [1]
Whether to automatically read the standard initialization (rc)
files, which are the system RC file, the user's RC file, and the
RC file in the current directory. The command line option -norc
can be used to turn this setting off. Each RC file could also
turn this setting off, i.e., it could set $auto_rc_use to zero
to prevent automatic reading of the later RC files.
This variable does not affect the reading of RC files specified
on the command line by the -r option.
$aux_dir [""]
The aux directory, i.e., the directory in which auxiliary files
(aux, log, etc) are to be written by a run of *latex.
If this variable is not set, but $out_dir is set, then latexmk
takes the aux directory to equal the output directory which is
the directory to which final output files are to be written.
If neither variable is set, then the current directory when *la-
tex is invoked is used both for the aux and output directories.
If the aux and output directories are distinct, then the aux di-
rectory contains all generated files with the exception of "fi-
nal output files", which are defined to be .dvi, .ps, .pdf,
.synctex, and .synctex.gz files.
See the section AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more de-
tails.
$aux_out_dir_report [0]
If this variable is set to 1, then prior to the processing of
each primary .tex file, list the settings for aux and output di-
rectories, after they have been normalized from the settings
specified during initialization.
This report gives a reminder of where to look for generated
files.
The report is done per primary .tex file, because of possible
directory changes for each file (when the -cd option is used).
In the simplest cases, the directory names are the same as
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originally specified. But in general some clean up/normaliza-
tion is performed; this helps performance and cleans up output
to the screen.
If this variable is set to 2, then halt after reporting the set-
tings for the aux and out directories, rather than continuing
with processing of tex files. This setting is primarily used
for debugging configuration issues. See the -dir-report-only
option.
$bad_warning_is_error [0]
Whether to treat bad warnings reported by *latex in log file as
errors. The specifications of the warning messages are in
@bad_warnings.
@bad_warnings
Array of regular expressions specifying messages in log file
that are officially treated as warnings rather than errors by
*latex, but which a user may treat as errors: See $bad_warn-
ing_is_error.
Currently the default set of these warnings is those about \end
occurring inside constructs.
$banner [0]
If nonzero, the banner message is printed across each page when
converting the dvi file to postscript. Without modifying the
variable $banner_message, this is equivalent to specifying the
-d option.
Note that if $banner is nonzero, the $postscript_mode is assumed
and the postscript file is always generated, even if it is newer
than the dvi file.
$banner_intensity [0.95]
Equivalent to the -bi option, this is a decimal number between 0
and 1 that specifies how dark to print the banner message. 0 is
black, 1 is white. The default is just right if your toner car-
tridge isn't running too low.
$banner_message ["DRAFT"]
The banner message to print across each page when converting the
dvi file to postscript. This is equivalent to the -bm option.
$banner_scale [220.0]
A decimal number that specifies how large the banner message
will be printed. Experimentation is necessary to get the right
scale for your message, as a rule of thumb the scale should be
about equal to 1100 divided by the number of characters in the
message. The Default is just right for 5 character messages.
This is equivalent to the -bs option.
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@BIBINPUTS
This is an array variable, now mostly obsolete, that specifies
directories where latexmk should look for .bib files. By de-
fault it is set from the BIBINPUTS environment variable of the
operating system. If that environment variable is not set, a
single element list consisting of the current directory is set.
The format of the directory names depends on your operating sys-
tem, of course. Examples for setting this variable are:
@BIBINPUTS = ( ".", "C:\\bibfiles" );
@BIBINPUTS = ( ".", "\\server\bibfiles" );
@BIBINPUTS = ( ".", "C:/bibfiles" );
@BIBINPUTS = ( ".", "//server/bibfiles" );
@BIBINPUTS = ( ".", "/usr/local/texmf/bibtex/bib" );
Note that under MS Windows, either a forward slash "/" or a
backward slash "\" can be used to separate pathname components,
so the first two and the second two examples are equivalent.
Each backward slash should be doubled to avoid running afoul of
Perl's rules for writing strings. Generally, it is simplest al-
ways to use forward slashes instead of backward slashes.
Important note: This variable is now mostly obsolete in the cur-
rent version of latexmk, since it now uses a better method of
searching for files using the kpsewhich command. However, if
your system is an unusual one without the kpsewhich command, you
may need to set the variable @BIBINPUTS.
$biber ["biber %O %S"]
The biber processing program.
$biber_silent_switch ["--onlylog"]
Switch(es) for the biber processing program when silent mode is
on.
$bibtex ["bibtex %O %S"]
The BibTeX processing program.
$bibtex_fudge [1]
When using bibtex, whether to change directory to $aux_dir be-
fore running bibtex.
The need arises as follows:
a. With bibtex before about 2019, if the filename given to it
contains a path component, there was a bug that bibtex would not
find extra aux files, as produced by the \include command in
TeX.
b. With all moderately recent versions of bibtex, bibtex may
refuse to write its bbl and blg files, for security reasons, for
certain cases of the path component of the filename given to it.
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However, there are also rare cases where the change-directory
method prevents bibtex from finding certain bib or bst files.
Then $bibtex_fudge needs to be set to 0.
$bibtex_silent_switch ["-terse"]
Switch(es) for the BibTeX processing program when silent mode is
on.
$bibtex_use [1]
Under what conditions to run bibtex or biber. When latexmk dis-
covers from the log file that one (or more) bibtex/biber-gener-
ated bibliographies are used, it can run bibtex or biber when-
ever it appears necessary to regenerate the bbl file(s) from
their source bib database file(s). But sometimes, the bib
file(s) are not available (e.g., for a document obtained from an
external archive), but the bbl files are provided. In that case
use of bibtex or biber will result in incorrect overwriting of
the precious bbl files. The variable $bibtex_use controls
whether this happens, and also controls whether or not .bbl
files are deleted in a cleanup operation.
The possible values of $bibtex_use are:
0: never use bibtex or biber; never delete .bbl files in a
cleanup.
1: only use bibtex or biber if the bib file(s) exist; never
delete .bbl files in a cleanup.
1.5: only use bibtex or biber if the bib files exist;
conditionally delete .bbl files in a cleanup (i.e., delete
them only when
the bib files all exist).
2: run bibtex or biber whenever it appears necessary to update
the bbl file(s), without testing for the existence of the bib
files; always delete .bbl files in a cleanup.
Note: When biber is being used, conditional use of biber can be
problematic. From latexmk's point of view the problem is that
because of how biber works, a full knowledge of its source files
can only be obtained after running biber. In contrast, for bib-
tex, full information on which bib files are used is obtained
from the .aux file(s) after a run of *latex. But for biber, the
corresponding information is somewhat incomplete; this the in-
formation obtained in the .bcf file that is generated by the
biblatex package during a run of *latex.
$cleanup_includes_cusdep_generated [0]
If nonzero, specifies that cleanup also deletes files that are
generated by custom dependencies. (When doing a clean up, e.g.,
by use of the -C option, custom dependencies are those listed in
the .fdb_latexmk file from a previous run.)
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$cleanup_includes_generated [0]
If nonzero, specifies that cleanup also deletes files that are
detected in the fls file (or failing that, in log file) as being
generated. It will also include files made from these first
generation generated files.
This operation is somewhat dangerous, and can have unintended
consequences, since the files to be deleted are determined from
a file created by *latex, which can contain erroneous informa-
tion. Therefore this variable is turned off by default, and then
files to be deleted are restricted to those explicitly specified
by patterns configured in the variables clean_ext,
clean_full_ext, and @generated_exts. Standard cases (e.g., .log
files) appear in latexmk's initial value for the array @gener-
ated_exts.
$cleanup_mode [0]
If nonzero, specifies cleanup mode: 1 for full cleanup, 2 for
cleanup except for .dvi, .ps and .pdf files, 3 for cleanup ex-
cept for dep and aux files. (There is also extra cleaning as
specified by the $clean_ext, $clean_full_ext and @generated_exts
variables.)
This variable is equivalent to specifying one of the -c or -C
options. But there should be no need to set this variable from
an RC file.
$clean_ext [""]
Extra extensions of files for latexmk to remove when any of the
clean-up options (-c or -C) is selected. The value of this
variable is a string containing the extensions separated by
spaces.
It is also possible to specify a more general pattern of file to
be deleted, by using the place holder %R, as in commands, and it
is also possible to use wildcards. Thus setting
$clean_ext = "out %R-blx.bib %R-figures*.log pythontex-
files-%R/*";
in an initialization file will imply that when a clean-up opera-
tion is specified, not only is the standard set of files
deleted, but also files of the form FOO.out, FOO-blx.bib, FOO-
figures*.log, and pythontex-files-FOO/*, where FOO stands for
the basename of the file being processed (as in FOO.tex).
Most of the files to be deleted are relative to the directory
specified by $aux_dir. Note that if $out_dir but not $aux_dir
is set, then in its initialization, latexmk sets $aux_dir equal
to $out_dir. A normal situation is therefore that $aux_dir
equals $out_dir, which is the only case directly supported by
TeXLive, unlike MiKTeX. Note that even with TeXLive latexmk
does now support different values for the directories -- see the
explanation of the $emulate_aux variable.
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If $out_dir and $aux_dir different, latexmk actually deletes any
files of the specified names in both $aux_dir and $out_dir; this
is because under certain error conditions, the files may be put
in $out_dir instead of $aux_dir. This also handles the case of
deleting any fls file, since that file is in $out_dir.
The filenames specified for a clean-up operation can refer not
only to regular files but also to directories. Directories are
only deleted if they are empty. An example of an application is
to pythontex, which creates files in a particular directory.
You can arrange to remove both the files and the directory by
setting
$clean_ext = "pythontex-files-%R/* pythontex-files-%R";
See also the (array) variable @generated_exts. In the past,
this variable had certain uses beyond that of $clean_ext. But
now, they accomplish the same things. In fact, after initial-
ization including the processing of command line options, la-
texmk simply appends the list of extensions in $clean_ext to the
array @generated_exts.
$clean_full_ext [""]
Extra extensions of files for latexmk to remove when the -C op-
tion is selected, i.e., extensions of files to remove when the
.dvi, etc files are to be cleaned-up.
More general patterns are allowed, as for $clean_ext.
The files specified by $clean_full_ext to be deleted are rela-
tive to the directory specified by $out_dir.
$compiling_cmd [""], $failure_cmd [""], $warning_cmd [""], $success_cmd
[""]
These variables specify commands that are executed at certain
points of compilations. One motivation for their existence is
to allow very useful convenient visual indications of compila-
tion status even when the window receiving the screen output of
the compilation is hidden. This is particularly useful in pre-
view-continuous mode.
The commands are executed at the following points: $compil-
ing_cmd at the start of compilation, $success_cmd at the end of
a completely successful compilation, $failure_cmd at the end of
an unsuccessful compilation, $warning_cmd at the of an otherwise
successful compilation that gives warnings about undefined cita-
tions or references or about multiply defined references. If any
of above variables is undefined or blank (the default situa-
tion), then the corresponding command is not executed.
However, when $warning_cmd is not set, then in the case of a
compilation with warnings about references or citations, but
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
with no other error, one or other of $success_cmd or $fail-
ure_cmd is used (if it is set) according to the setting of
$warnings_as_errors.
An example of a simple setting of these variables is as follows
$compiling_cmd = "xdotool search --name \"%D\" set_window
--name \"%D compiling\"";
$success_cmd = "xdotool search --name \"%D\" set_window
--name \"%D OK\"";
$warning_cmd = "xdotool search --name \"%D\" ".
"set_window --name \"%D CITE/REF ISSUE\"";
$failure_cmd = "xdotool search --name \"%D\" set_window
--name \"%D FAILURE\"";
These assume that the program xdotool is installed, that the
previewer is using an X-Window system for display, and that the
title of the window contains the name of the displayed file, as
it normally does. When the commands are executed, the place-
holder string %D is replaced by the name of the destination
file, which is the previewed file. The above commands result in
an appropriate string being appended to the filename in the win-
dow title: " compiling", " OK", or " FAILURE".
Other placeholders that can be used are %S, %T, and %R, with %S
and %T normally being identical. These can be useful for a com-
mand changing the title of the edit window. The visual indica-
tion in a window title can useful, since the user does not have
to keep shifting attention to the (possibly hidden) compilation
window to know the status of the compilation.
More complicated situations can best be handled by defining a
Perl subroutine to invoke the necessary commands, and using the
"internal" keyword in the definitions to get the subroutine to
be invoked. (See the section "Format of Command Specifications"
for how to do this.)
Naturally, the above settings that invoke the xdotool program
are only applicable when the X-Window system is used for the
relevant window(s). For other cases, you will have to find what
software solutions are available.
@cus_dep_list [()]
Custom dependency list -- see section on "Custom Dependencies".
@default_excluded_files [()]
When latexmk is invoked with no files specified on the command
line, then, by default, it will process all files in the current
directory with the extension .tex. (In general, it will process
the files specified in the @default_files variable.)
But sometimes you want to exclude particular files from this de-
fault list. In that case you can specify the excluded files in
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
the array @default_excluded_files. For example if you wanted to
process all .tex files with the exception of common.tex, which
is a not a standard alone LaTeX file but a file input by some or
all of the others, you could do
@default_files = ("*.tex");
@default_excluded_files = ("common.tex");
If you have a variable or large number of files to be processed,
this method saves you from having to list them in detail in @de-
fault_files and having to update the list every time you change
the set of files to be processed.
Notes: 1. This variable has no effect except when no files are
specified on the latexmk command line. 2. Wildcards are allowed
in @default_excluded_files.
@default_files [("*.tex")]
Default list of files to be processed.
If no filenames are specified on the command line, latexmk
processes all tex files specified in the @default_files vari-
able, which by default is set to all tex files ("*.tex") in the
current directory. This is a convenience: just run latexmk and
it will process an appropriate set of files. But sometimes you
want only some of these files to be processed. In this case you
can list the files to be processed by setting @default_files in
an initialization file (e.g., the file "latexmkrc" in the cur-
rent directory). Then if no files are specified on the command
line then the files you specify by setting @default_files are
processed.
Three examples:
@default_files = ("paper_current");
@default_files = ("paper1", "paper2.tex");
@default_files = ("*.tex", "*.dtx");
Note that more than file may be given, and that the default ex-
tension is ".tex". Wild cards are allowed. The parentheses are
because @default_files is an array variable, i.e., a sequence of
filename specifications is possible.
If you want latexmk to process all .tex files with a few excep-
tions, see the @default_excluded_files array variable.
$dependents_phony [0]
If a list of dependencies is output, this variable determines
whether to include a phony target for each source file. If you
use the dependents list in a Makefile, the dummy rules work
around errors make gives if you remove header files without
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
updating the Makefile to match.
$dependents_list [0]
Whether to display a list(s) of dependencies at the end of a
run.
$deps_escape ["none"]
This variable determines which kind of escaping of space charac-
ters to use in dependency lists. The possible values are "none",
"unix", "nmake", corresponding respectively to no escaping, es-
caping with a "\" suitable for standard Unix make, and escaping
with "^", suitable for Microsoft's nmake.
Currently the only character escaped is a space, since that is
particularly common in file names and directory names. There
are other characters that would need escaping if a dependency
list is to be used as-is by a make program; but those characters
(e.g., "$") commonly cause difficulties when used for .tex docu-
ments. Moreover, the detailed rules for which characters need
to be escaped depends on the version of make.
$deps_file ["-"]
Name of file to receive list(s) of dependencies at the end of a
run, to be used if $dependents_list is set. If the filename is
"-", then the dependency list is set to stdout (i.e., normally
the screen).
$do_cd [0]
Whether to change working directory to the directory specified
for the main source file before processing it. The default be-
havior is not to do this, which is the same as the behavior of
*latex programs. This variable is set by the -cd and -cd- op-
tions on latexmk's command line.
$dvi_filter [empty]
The dvi file filter to be run on the newly produced dvi file be-
fore other processing. Equivalent to specifying the -dF option.
$dvilualatex ["dvilualatex %O %S"]
Specifies the command line to invoke the dvilualatex program.
Note that as with other programs, you can use this variable not
just to change the name of the program used, but also specify
options to the program. E.g.,
$dvilualatex = "dvilualatex --src-specials
%O %S";
To do a coordinated setting of all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex,
$latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex, see the section "Ad-
vanced Configuration".
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$dvi_mode [See below for default]
If one, generate a dvi version of the document by use of latex.
Equivalent to the -dvi option.
If 2, generate a dvi version of the document by use of dviluala-
tex. Equivalent to the -dvilua option.
The variable $dvi_mode defaults to 0, but if no explicit re-
quests are made for other types of file (postscript, pdf), then
$dvi_mode will be set to 1. In addition, if a request for a
file for which a .dvi file is a prerequisite and $dvi_mode is
zero, then $dvi_mode is set to 1.
$dvilualatex_silent_switch ["-interaction=batchmode"]
Switch(es) for the dvilualatex program (specified in the vari-
able $dvilualatex) when silent mode is on.
See details of the $latex_silent_switch for other information
that equally applies to $dvilualatex_silent_switch.
$dvi_previewer ["start xdvi %O %S" under UNIX]
The command to invoke a dvi-previewer. [Under MS-Windows the
default is "start"; then latexmk arranges to use the MS-Windows
start program, which will cause to be run whatever command the
system has associated with .dvi files.]
Important note: Normally you will want to have a previewer run
detached, so that latexmk doesn't wait for the previewer to ter-
minate before continuing its work. So normally you should pre-
fix the command by "start ", which flags to latexmk that it
should do the detaching of the previewer itself (by whatever
method is appropriate to the operating system). But sometimes
letting latexmk do the detaching is not appropriate (for a vari-
ety of non-trivial reasons), so you should put the "start " bit
in yourself, whenever it is needed.
$dvi_previewer_landscape ["start xdvi %O %S"]
The command to invoke a dvi-previewer in landscape mode. [Under
MS-Windows the default is "start"; then latexmk arranges to use
the MS-Windows start program, which will cause to be run what-
ever command the system has associated with .dvi files.]
$dvipdf ["dvipdf -dALLOWPSTRANSPARENCY %O %S %D"]
Command to convert .dvi to .pdf file. A common reconfiguration
is to use the dvipdfm command, which needs its arguments in a
different order:
$dvipdf = "dvipdfm %O -o %D %S";
WARNING: The default dvipdf script generates pdf files with
bitmapped fonts, which do not look good when viewed by acroread.
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That script should be modified to give dvips the options "-P
pdf" to ensure that type 1 fonts are used in the pdf file.
$dvipdf_silent_switch ["-q"]
Switch(es) for dvipdf program when silent mode is on.
N.B. The standard dvipdf program runs silently, so adding the
silent switch has no effect, but is actually innocuous. But if
an alternative program is used, e.g., dvipdfmx, then the silent
switch has an effect. The default setting is correct for
dvipdfm and dvipdfmx.
$dvips ["dvips %O -o %D %S"]
The program to used as a filter to convert a .dvi file to a .ps
file. If pdf is going to be generated from pdf, then the value
of the $dvips_pdf_switch variable -- see below -- will be in-
cluded in the options substituted for "%O".
$dvips_landscape ["dvips -tlandscape %O -o %D %S"]
The program to used as a filter to convert a .dvi file to a .ps
file in landscape mode.
$dvips_pdf_switch ["-P pdf"]
Switch(es) for dvips program when pdf file is to be generated
from .ps file.
$dvips_silent_switch ["-q"]
Switch(es) for dvips program when silent mode is on.
$dvi_update_command [""]
When the dvi previewer is set to be updated by running a com-
mand, this is the command that is run. See the information for
the variable $dvi_update_method for further information, and see
information on the variable $pdf_update_method for an example
for the analogous case of a pdf previewer.
$dvi_update_method [2 under UNIX, 1 under MS-Windows]
How the dvi viewer updates its display when the dvi file has
changed. The values here apply equally to the $pdf_up-
date_method and to the $ps_update_method variables.
0 => update is automatic,
1=> manual update by user, which may only mean a mouse click
on the viewer's window or may mean a more serious action.
2 => Send the signal, whose number is in the variable
$dvi_update_signal. The default value under UNIX is suitable
for xdvi.
3 => Viewer cannot do an update, because it locks the file.
(As with acroread under MS-Windows.)
4 => run a command to do the update. The command is speci-
fied by the variable $dvi_update_command.
See information on the variable $pdf_update_method for an exam-
ple of updating by command.
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$dvi_update_signal [Under UNIX: SIGUSR1, which is a system-dependent
value]
The number of the signal that is sent to the dvi viewer when it
is updated by sending a signal -- see the information on the
variable $dvi_update_method. The default value is the one ap-
propriate for xdvi on a UNIX system.
$emulate_aux [1]
Whether to emulate the use of aux directory when $aux_dir and
$out_dir are different, rather than using the -aux-directory op-
tion for the *latex programs. (MiKTeX supports -aux-directory,
but TeXLive doesn't.)
If you use a version of *latex that doesn't support -aux-direc-
tory, e.g., TeXLive, latexmk will automatically switch aux_dir
emulation on after the first run of *latex, because it will find
the .log file in the wrong place. But it is better to set $emu-
late_aux to 1 in an rc file, or equivalently to use the -emu-
late-aux-dir option. This emulation mode works equally well with
MiKTeX.
Aux directory emulation means that when *latex is invoked, the
output directory provided to *latex is set to be the desired aux
directory. After that, any files that need to be in the output
directory will be moved there by latexmk. (These are the files
with extensions .dvi, .ps, .pdf, .synctex, .synctex.gz, and, de-
pending on the setting of the $fls_uses_out_dir variable, also
the .fls file.)
$failure_cmd [undefined]
See the documentation for $compiling_cmd.
$fdb_ext ["fdb_latexmk"]
The extension of the file which latexmk generates to contain a
database of information on source files. You will not normally
need to change this.
@file_not_found
This an array of Perl regular expressions that are patterns to
find messages in the .log file from a run of *latex that indi-
cate that a file was looked for and not found. To see the cur-
rent default set, you should look at the definition of
@file_not_found in the latexmk.pl file.
In the regular expression, the string for the name of the miss-
ing file should be enclosed in parentheses. That carries the
implication that after latexmk gets a successful match to the
pattern, the variable $1 is set to the filename, which is then
picked up by latexmk.
If you happen to encounter a package that gives a missing file
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
message of a different form than one that matches one of the
built-in patterns, you can add another pattern to the array. An
example would be
push @file_not_found, '^No file\\s+(.+)\\s*$';
The regular expression itself is
^Missing file\s+(.+)\s*$
But the corresponding string specification in the push statement
has to have the backslashes doubled.
This regular expression matches a line that starts with 'No
file', then has one or more white space characters, then any
number of characters forming the filename, then possible white
space, and finally the end of the line. (See documentation on
Perl regular expressions for details.)
$filetime_causality_threshold [5]
The use of this variable is as follows: At a number of places,
latexmk needs to determine whether a particular file has been
produced during a just-concluded run of some rule/program or is
leftover from a previous run. (An example is the production of a
.bcf file by the biblatex package during a run of *latex to pro-
vide bibliographic information to the biber program. If a .bcf
file is not produced during a current run of *latex, but is
leftover from a previous run, then latexmk has to conclude that
the .tex document has changed so that biber is no longer to be
used.)
Latexmk's criterion that a file has been produced during a run
is that the modification time of the file is more recent than
the system time at the beginning of the run. Bascially, if the
modification time is earlier than this, then it is a leftover
from a previous run. However, a naive use of the criterion can,
among other things, run afoul of the granularity of how file
times are stored in some file systems, which means it is possi-
ble that the filesystem's reported time for a file might be a
second or more earlier than the actual modification time, the
exact difference being quite random.
The variable $filetime_causality_threshold allows an appopriate
sloppiness in latexmk's use of file modification time. It can
be quite generous; it should merely be less than the time scale
on which a human user makes changes to source files for a docu-
ment (or to configuration files, etc).
$fls_uses_out_dir [0]
This variable determines whether or not the .fls file should be
in the output directory instead of the natural directory, which
is the aux directory. If the variable is nonzero, the .fls file
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
is to be in the output directory. See the section AUXILIARY AND
OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more details about these directories.
The rationale for the existence of the variable
$fls_uses_aux_dir is explained there.
In all cases, if latexmk finds that an .fls file has been gener-
ated in the opposite directory to the one specified by
$fls_uses_out_dir, it copies the file to the other directory
(aux or output directory as appropriate). The file is copied
rather than simply moved, to avoid potential clashes with other
software that assumes the .fls file is generated in the direc-
tory it was written to by *latex. Thus the effect an incorrect
setting of $fls_uses_out_dir is only to cause a superfluous copy
of the .fls file to be generated.
$force_mode [0]
If nonzero, continue processing past minor latex errors includ-
ing unrecognized cross references. Equivalent to specifying the
-f option.
@generated_exts [( 'aux', 'bcf', 'fls', 'idx', 'ind', 'lof', 'lot',
'out', 'toc', 'blg', 'ilg', 'log', 'xdv' )]
This contains a list of extensions for files that are generated
during processing, and that should be deleted during a main
clean up operation, as invoked by the command line option -c.
(The use of -C or -gg gives this clean up and more.)
The default values are extensions for standard files generated
by *latex, bibtex, and the like. (Note that the clean up also
deletes the fdb_latexmk file, but that's separately coded into
latexmk, currently.)
After initialization of latexmk and the processing of its com-
mand line, the items in clean_ext are appended to @gener-
ated_exts. So these two variables have the same meaning (con-
trary to older versions of latexmk).
The items in @generated_exts are normally extensions of files,
whose base name is the same as the main tex file. But it is
also possible to specify patterns including that basename ---
see the explanation of the variable $clean_ext.
In addition to specifying files to be deleted in a clean up, la-
texmk uses the same specification to assist its examination of
changes in source files: Under some situations it needs to find
those changes in files (since a previous run) that are expected
to be due to the user editing a file. This contrasts with the
cases of files that are generated by some program run by latexmk
and that differ from the results of the previous run. This use
of @generated_exts is normally unimportant, given the usual ac-
curacy of latexmk's other ways of determining these generated
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
files.
A convenient way to add an extra extension to the list, without
losing the already defined ones is to use a push command in the
line in an RC file. E.g.,
push @generated_exts, "end";
adds the extension "end" to the list of predefined generated ex-
tensions. (This extension is used by the RevTeX package, for
example.)
$go_mode [0]
If this variable equals zero, process files as usual, only run-
ning rules when they are determined to be out-of-date. This is
equivalent to the -g- option.
If this variable equals one, force latexmk to run each rule at
least once, even under situations whre latexmk would normally
decide that no changes in the source files have occurred since
the previous run. This behavior is useful, for example, if you
change the configuration and wish to reprocess all files. This
is equivalent to the -g option.
If this variable equals two, perform a full clean up, as if the
-C had been given, and then process normally from a clean ini-
tial situation. This is equivalent to the -gg option for "super
go mode" or "clean make".
If this variable equals three, require at least one run of *la-
tex. I.e., process as normal, except that initially, the *latex
rule that is in use is set to be out-of-date, independently of
the state of the files. This is equivalent to the -gt option.
%hash_calc_ignore_pattern
!!!This variable is for experts only!!!
The general rule latexmk uses for determining when an extra run
of some program is needed is that one of the source files has
changed. But consider for example a latex package that causes
an encapsulated postscript file (an "eps" file) to be made that
is to be read in on the next run. The file contains a comment
line giving its creation date and time. On the next run the
time changes, latex sees that the eps file has changed, and
therefore reruns latex. This causes an infinite loop, that is
only terminated because latexmk has a limit on the number of
runs to guard against pathological situations.
But the changing line has no real effect, since it is a comment.
You can instruct latex to ignore the offending line as follows:
$hash_calc_ignore_pattern{'eps'} = '^%%CreationDate: ';
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
This creates a rule for files with extension .eps about lines to
ignore. The left-hand side is a Perl idiom for setting an item
in a hash. Note that the file extension is specified without a
period. The value, on the right-hand side, is a string contain-
ing a regular expression. (See documentation on Perl for how
they are to be specified in general.) This particular regular
expression specifies that lines beginning with "%%CreationDate:
" are to be ignored in deciding whether a file of the given ex-
tension .eps has changed.
There is only one regular expression available for each exten-
sion. If you need more one pattern to specify lines to ignore,
then you need to combine the patterns into a single regular ex-
pression. The simplest method is separate the different simple
patterns by a vertical bar character (indicating "alternation"
in the jargon of regular expressions). For example,
$hash_calc_ignore_pattern{'eps'} = '^%%CreationDate: |^%%Ti-
tle: ';
causes lines starting with either "^%%CreationDate: " or "^%%Ti-
tle: " to be ignored.
It may happen that a pattern to be ignored is specified in, for
example, in a system or user initialization file, and you wish
to remove this in a file that is read later. To do this, you
use Perl's delete function, e.g.,
delete $hash_calc_ignore_pattern{'eps'};
$hilatex ["hilatex %O %S"]
specifies the command line for the hilatex program.
$hnt_mode [0]
Whether to generate a hnt version of the document by use of hi-
latex. Can be turned on by the use of the -hnt option.
$jobname [""]
This specifies the jobname, i.e., the basename that is used for
generated files (.aux, .log, .dvi, .ps, .pdf, etc). If this
variable is a null string, then the basename is the basename of
the main tex file. (At present, the string in $jobname should
not contain spaces.)
The placeholder '%A' is permitted. This will be substituted by
the basename of the TeX file. The primary purpose is when a va-
riety of tex files are to be processed, and you want to use a
different jobname for each but one that is distinct for each.
Thus if you wanted to compare compilations of a set of files on
different operating systems, with distinct filenames for all the
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
cases, you could set
$jobname = "%A-$^O";
in an initialization file. (Here $^O is a variable provided by
perl that contains perl's name for the operating system.)
Suppose you had .tex files test1.tex and test2.tex. Then when
you run
latexmk -pdf *.tex
both files will be compiled. The .aux, .log, and .pdf files
will have basenames test1-MSWin32 ante test2-MSWin32 on a MS-
Windows system, test1-darwin and test2-darwin on an OS-X system,
and a variety of similar cases on linux systems.
$kpsewhich ["kpsewhich %S"]
The program called to locate a source file when the name alone
is not sufficient. Most filenames used by latexmk have suffi-
cient path information to be found directly. But sometimes, no-
tably when a .bib or a .bst file is found from the log file of a
bibtex or biber run, only the base name of the file is known,
but not its path. The program specified by $kpsewhich is used to
find it.
(For advanced users: Because of the different way in which la-
texmk uses the command specified in $kpsewhich, some of the pos-
sibilities listed in the FORMAT OF COMMAND SPECIFICATIONS do not
apply. The internal and start keywords are not available. A
simple command specification with possible options and then "%S"
is all that is guaranteed to work. Note that for other com-
mands, "%S" is substituted by a single source file. In contrast,
for $kpsewhich, "%S" may be substituted by a long list of space-
separated filenames, each of which is quoted. The result on
STDOUT of running the command is then piped to latexmk.)
See also the @BIBINPUTS variable for another way that latexmk
also uses to try to locate files; it applies only in the case of
.bib files.
$kpsewhich_show [0]
Whether to show diagnostics about invocations of kpsewhich: the
command line use to invoke it and the results. These diagnos-
tics are shown if $kpsewhich_show is non-zero or if diagnostics
mode is on. (But in the second case, lots of other diagnostics
are also shown.) Without these diagnostics there is nothing
visible in latexmk's screen output about invocations of kpse-
which.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
$landscape_mode [0]
If nonzero, run in landscape mode, using the landscape mode pre-
viewers and dvi to postscript converters. Equivalent to the -l
option. Normally not needed with current previewers.
$latex ["latex %O %S"]
Specifies the command line for the LaTeX processing program.
Note that as with other programs, you can use this variable not
just to change the name of the program used, but also specify
options to the program. E.g.,
$latex = "latex --src-specials %O %S";
To do a coordinated setting of all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex,
$latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex, see the section "Ad-
vanced Configuration".
%latex_input_extensions
This variable specifies the extensions tried by latexmk when it
finds that a LaTeX run resulted in an error that a file has not
been found, and the file is given without an extension. This
typically happens when LaTeX commands of the form \input{file}
or \includegraphics{figure}, when the relevant source file does
not exist.
In this situation, latexmk searches for custom dependencies to
make the missing file(s), but restricts it to the extensions
specified by the variable %latex_input_extensions. The default
extensions are 'tex' and 'eps'.
(For Perl experts: %latex_input_extensions is a hash whose keys
are the extensions. The values are irrelevant.) Two subrou-
tines are provided for manipulating this and the related vari-
able %pdflatex_input_extensions, add_input_ext and remove_in-
put_ext. They are used as in the following examples are possi-
ble lines in an initialization file:
remove_input_ext( 'latex', 'tex' );
removes the extension 'tex' from latex_input_extensions
add_input_ext( 'latex', 'asdf' );
add the extension 'asdf to latex_input_extensions. (Naturally
with such an extension, you should have made an appropriate cus-
tom dependency for latexmk, and should also have done the appro-
priate programming in the LaTeX source file to enable the file
to be read. The standard extensions are handled by LaTeX and
its graphics/graphicx packages.)
$latex_silent_switch ["-interaction=batchmode"]
Switch(es) for the LaTeX processing program when silent mode is
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
on.
If you use MikTeX, you may prefer the results if you configure
the options to include -c-style-errors, e.g., by the following
line in an initialization file
$latex_silent_switch = "-interaction=batchmode -c-style-er-
rors";
$lpr ["lpr %O %S" under UNIX/Linux, "NONE lpr" under MS-Windows]
The command to print postscript files.
Under MS-Windows (unlike UNIX/Linux), there is no standard pro-
gram for printing files. But there are ways you can do it. For
example, if you have gsview installed, you could use it with the
option "/p":
$lpr = '"c:/Program Files/Ghostgum/gsview/gsview32.exe" /p';
If gsview is installed in a different directory, you will need
to make the appropriate change. Note the combination of single
and double quotes around the name. The single quotes specify
that this is a string to be assigned to the configuration vari-
able $lpr. The double quotes are part of the string passed to
the operating system to get the command obeyed; this is neces-
sary because one part of the command name ("Program Files") con-
tains a space which would otherwise be misinterpreted.
$lpr_dvi ["NONE lpr_dvi"]
The printing program to print dvi files.
$lpr_pdf ["NONE lpr_pdf"]
The printing program to print pdf files.
Under MS-Windows you could set this to use gsview, if it is in-
stalled, e.g.,
$lpr = '"c:/Program Files/Ghostgum/gsview/gsview32.exe" /p';
If gsview is installed in a different directory, you will need
to make the appropriate change. Note the double quotes around
the name: this is necessary because one part of the command name
("Program Files") contains a space which would otherwise be mis-
interpreted.
$lualatex ["lualatex %O %S"]
Specifies the command line for the LaTeX processing program that
is to be used when the lualatex program is called for (e.g., by
the option -lualatex.
To do a coordinated setting of all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex,
$latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex, see the section "Ad-
vanced Configuration".
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
%lualatex_input_extensions
This variable specifies the extensions tried by latexmk when it
finds that a lualatex run resulted in an error that a file has
not been found, and the file is given without an extension.
This typically happens when LaTeX commands of the form \in-
put{file} or \includegraphics{figure}, when the relevant source
file does not exist.
In this situation, latexmk searches for custom dependencies to
make the missing file(s), but restricts it to the extensions
specified by the variable %pdflatex_input_extensions. The de-
fault extensions are 'tex', 'pdf', 'jpg, and 'png'.
See details of the %latex_input_extensions for other information
that equally applies to %lualatex_input_extensions.
$lualatex_silent_switch ["-interaction=batchmode"]
Switch(es) for the lualatex program (specified in the variable
$lualatex) when silent mode is on.
See details of the $latex_silent_switch for other information
that equally applies to $lualatex_silent_switch.
$make ["make"]
The make processing program.
$makeindex ["makeindex %O -o %D %S"]
The index processing program.
$makeindex_fudge [0]
When using makeindex, whether to change directory to $aux_dir
before running makeindex. Set to 1 if $aux_dir is not an ex-
plicit subdirectory of current directory, otherwise makeindex
will refuse to write its output and log files, for security rea-
sons.
$makeindex_silent_switch ["-q"]
Switch(es) for the index processing program when silent mode is
on.
$max_repeat [5]
The maximum number of times latexmk will run *latex before de-
ciding that there may be an infinite loop and that it needs to
bail out, rather than rerunning *latex again to resolve cross-
references, etc. The default value covers all normal cases.
(Note that the "etc" covers a lot of cases where one run of *la-
tex generates files to be read in on a later run.)
$MSWin_back_slash [1]
This configuration variable only has an effect when latexmk is
running under MS-Windows. With the default value of 1 for this
variable, when a command is executed under MS-Windows, latexmk
substitutes "\" for the separator character between components
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
of a directory name. Internally, latexmk uses "/" for the di-
rectory separator character, which is the character used by
Unix-like systems.
For almost all programs and for almost all filenames under MS-
Windows, both "\" and "/" are acceptable as the directory sepa-
rator character, provided at least that filenames are properly
quoted. But it is possible that programs exist that only accept
"\" on the command line, since that is the standard directory
separator for MS-Windows. So for safety latexmk makes the sub-
stitution from "/" to "\", by default.
However there are also programs on MS-Windows for which a back
slash "\" is interpreted differently than as a directory separa-
tor; for these the directory separator should be "/". Programs
with this behavior include all the *latex programs in the
TeXLive implementation (but not the MiKTeX implementation).
Hence if you use TeXLive on MS-Windows, then $MSWin_back_slash
should be set to zero.
$new_viewer_always [0]
This variable applies to latexmk only in continuous-preview
mode. If $new_viewer_always is 0, latexmk will check for a pre-
viously running previewer on the same file, and if one is run-
ning will not start a new one. If $new_viewer_always is non-
zero, this check will be skipped, and latexmk will behave as if
no viewer is running.
$out_dir [""]
If non-blank, this variable specifies the output directory.
This is the directory in which the main output files are written
(dvi, ps, pdf, synctex, synctex.gz). In addition, if the aux
directory equals the output directory, as is the case by de-
fault, then other generated files are in effect written to the
output directory.
If $out_dir is blank, the output directory is the current direc-
tory at the invocation of *latex; this is equivalent to setting
$out_dir to '.'.
See the section AUXILIARY AND OUTPUT DIRECTORIES for more de-
tails.
$out2_dir [""]
(Experimental new feature.)
If non-blank, this variable specifies the final-output direc-
tory, i.e., the directory for the final output files. If this
variable is blank (its default value), the final-output
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directory is the same as the output directory.
See the description of the option -out2dir for an explanation of
the rationale for the idea of separate output and final-output
directories.
If the final-output directory is different from the output di-
rectory, then after a full round of compilations of the docu-
ment, the relevant set of files is copied here from the output
directory. The files copied are specified by the @out2_exts
variable, and by default are those with extensions 'hnt', 'pdf',
'ps', 'synctex', 'synctex.gz', and a basename the same as for
the main *latex compilation.
@out2_exts [( 'hnt', 'pdf', 'ps', 'synctex', 'synctex.gz' )]
This variable lists the extensions of the files to be copied to
the final-output directory. The basename of the files is that
for the main *latex compilation (corresponding to the value
specified by the placeholder %R). More general names may be
specified in the same way as for the @generated_exts variable,
by inclusion of %R in a pattern, e.g.,
push @out2_exts, '%R-2up.pdf';
$pdf_mode [0]
If zero, do NOT generate a pdf version of the document. If
equal to 1, generate a pdf version of the document using pdfla-
tex, using the command specified by the $pdflatex variable. If
equal to 2, generate a pdf version of the document from the ps
file, by using the command specified by the $ps2pdf variable.
If equal to 3, generate a pdf version of the document from the
dvi file, by using the command specified by the $dvipdf vari-
able. If equal to 4, generate a pdf version of the document us-
ing lualatex, using the command specified by the $lualatex vari-
able. If equal to 5, generate a pdf version (and an xdv ver-
sion) of the document using xelatex, using the commands speci-
fied by the $xelatex and xdvipdfmx variables.
In $pdf_mode=2, it is ensured that .dvi and .ps files are also
made. In $pdf_mode=3, it is ensured that a .dvi file is also
made. But this may be overridden by the document.
$pdflatex ["pdflatex %O %S"]
Specifies the command line for the LaTeX processing program in a
version that makes a pdf file instead of a dvi file.
An example use of this variable is to add certain options to the
command line for the program, e.g.,
$pdflatex = "pdflatex --shell-escape %O %S";
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(In some earlier versions of latexmk, you needed to use an as-
signment to $pdflatex to allow the use of lualatex or xelatex
instead of pdflatex. There are now separate configuration vari-
ables for the use of lualatex or xelatex. See $lualatex and
$xelatex.)
To do a coordinated setting of all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex,
$latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex, see the section "Ad-
vanced Configuration".
%pdflatex_input_extensions
This variable specifies the extensions tried by latexmk when it
finds that a pdflatex run resulted in an error that a file has
not been found, and the file is given without an extension.
This typically happens when LaTeX commands of the form \in-
put{file} or \includegraphics{figure}, when the relevant source
file does not exist.
In this situation, latexmk searches for custom dependencies to
make the missing file(s), but restricts it to the extensions
specified by the variable %pdflatex_input_extensions. The de-
fault extensions are 'tex', 'pdf', 'jpg, and 'png'.
See details of the %latex_input_extensions for other information
that equally applies to %pdflatex_input_extensions.
$pdflatex_silent_switch ["-interaction=batchmode"]
Switch(es) for the pdflatex program (specified in the variable
$pdflatex) when silent mode is on.
See details of the $latex_silent_switch for other information
that equally applies to $pdflatex_silent_switch.
$pdf_previewer ["start acroread %O %S"]
The command to invoke a pdf-previewer.
On MS-Windows, the default is changed to "cmd /c start """; un-
der more recent versions of Windows, this will cause to be run
whatever command the system has associated with .pdf files. But
this may be undesirable if this association is to acroread --
see the notes in the explanation of the -pvc option.]
On OS-X the default is changed to "open %S", which results in
OS-X starting up (and detaching) the viewer associated with the
file. By default, for pdf files this association is to OS-X's
preview, which is quite satisfactory.
WARNING: Problem under MS-Windows: if acroread is used as the
pdf previewer, and it is actually viewing a pdf file, the pdf
file cannot be updated. Thus makes acroread a bad choice of
previewer if you use latexmk's previous-continuous mode (option
-pvc) under MS-windows. This problem does not occur if, for ex-
ample, SumatraPDF or gsview is used to view pdf files.
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Important note: Normally you will want to have a previewer run
detached, so that latexmk doesn't wait for the previewer to ter-
minate before continuing its work. So normally you should pre-
fix the command by "start ", which flags to latexmk that it
should do the detaching of the previewer itself (by whatever
method is appropriate to the operating system). But sometimes
letting latexmk do the detaching is not appropriate (for a vari-
ety of non-trivial reasons), so you should put the "start " bit
in yourself, whenever it is needed.
$pdf_update_command [""]
When the pdf previewer is set to be updated by running a com-
mand, this is the command that is run. See the information for
the variable $pdf_update_method.
$pdf_update_method [1 under UNIX, 3 under MS-Windows]
How the pdf viewer updates its display when the pdf file has
changed. See the information on the variable $dvi_update_method
for the codes. (Note that information needs be changed slightly
so that for the value 4, to run a command to do the update, the
command is specified by the variable $pdf_update_command, and
for the value 2, to specify update by signal, the signal is
specified by $pdf_update_signal.)
Note that acroread under MS-Windows (but not UNIX) locks the pdf
file, so the default value is then 3.
Arranging to use a command to get a previewer explicitly updated
requires three variables to be set. For example:
$pdf_previewer = "start xpdf -remote %R %O %S";
$pdf_update_method = 4;
$pdf_update_command = "xpdf -remote %R -reload";
The first setting arranges for the xpdf program to be used in
its "remote server mode", with the server name specified as the
rootname of the TeX file. The second setting arranges for up-
dating to be done in response to a command, and the third set-
ting sets the update command.
$pdf_update_signal [Under UNIX: SIGHUP, which is a system-dependent
value]
The number of the signal that is sent to the pdf viewer when it
is updated by sending a signal -- see the information on the
variable $pdf_update_method. The default value is the one ap-
propriate for gv on a UNIX system.
$pid_position[1 under UNIX, -1 under MS-Windows]
The variable $pid_position is used to specify which word in
lines of the output from $pscmd corresponds to the process ID.
The first word in the line is numbered 0. The default value of
1 (2nd word in line) is correct for Solaris 2.6, Linux, and OS-X
with their default settings of $pscmd.
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Setting the variable to -1 is used to indicate that $pscmd is
not to be used.
$postscript_mode [0]
If nonzero, generate a postscript version of the document.
Equivalent to the -ps option.
If some other request is made for which a postscript file is
needed, then $postscript_mode will be set to 1.
$pre_tex_code ['']
Sets TeX code to be executed before inputting the source file.
This works if the relevant one of $latex, etc contains a suit-
able command line with a %P or %U substitution. For example you
could do
$latex = 'latex %O %P';
$pre_tex_code = '\AtBeginDocument{An initial message\par}';
To set all of $latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex you
could use the subroutine alt_tex_cmds:
&alt_tex_cmds;
$pre_tex_code = '\AtBeginDocument{An initial message\par}';
$preview_continuous_mode [0]
If nonzero, run a previewer to view the document, and continue
running latexmk to keep .dvi up-to-date. Equivalent to the -pvc
option. Which previewer is run depends on the other settings,
see the command line options -view=, and the variable $view.
$preview_mode [0]
If nonzero, run a previewer to preview the document. Equivalent
to the -pv option. Which previewer is run depends on the other
settings, see the command line options -view=, and the variable
$view.
$printout_mode [0]
If nonzero, print the document using the command specified in
the $lpr variable. Equivalent to the -p option. This is recom-
mended not to be set from an RC file, otherwise you could waste
lots of paper.
$print_type = ["auto"]
Type of file to printout: possibilities are "auto", "dvi",
"none", "pdf", or "ps". See the option -print= for the meaning
of the "auto" value.
$pscmd Command used to get all the processes currently run by the user.
The -pvc option uses the command specified by the variable
$pscmd to determine if there is an already running previewer,
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and to find the process ID (needed if latexmk needs to signal
the previewer about file changes).
Each line of the output of this command is assumed to correspond
to one process. See the $pid_position variable for how the
process number is determined.
The default for pscmd is "NONE" under MS-Windows and cygwin
(i.e., the command is not used), "ps -ww -u $ENV{USER}" under
OS-X, and "ps -f -u $ENV{USER}" under other operating systems
(including Linux). In these specifications "$ENV{USER}" is sub-
stituted by the username.
$ps2pdf ["ps2pdf -dALLOWPSTRANSPARENCY %O %S %D"]
Command to convert .ps to .pdf file.
$ps_filter [empty]
The postscript file filter to be run on the newly produced post-
script file before other processing. Equivalent to specifying
the -pF option.
$ps_previewer ["start gv %O %S", but start %O %S under MS-Windows]
The command to invoke a ps-previewer. (The default under MS-
Windows will cause to be run whatever command the system has as-
sociated with .ps files.)
Note that gv could be used with the -watch option updates its
display whenever the postscript file changes, whereas ghostview
does not. However, different versions of gv have slightly dif-
ferent ways of writing this option. You can configure this
variable appropriately.
WARNING: Linux systems may have installed one (or more) versions
of gv under different names, e.g., ggv, kghostview, etc, but
perhaps not one actually called gv.
Important note: Normally you will want to have a previewer run
detached, so that latexmk doesn't wait for the previewer to ter-
minate before continuing its work. So normally you should pre-
fix the command by "start ", which flags to latexmk that it
should do the detaching of the previewer itself (by whatever
method is appropriate to the operating system). But sometimes
letting latexmk do the detaching is not appropriate (for a vari-
ety of non-trivial reasons), so you should put the "start " bit
in yourself, whenever it is needed.
$ps_previewer_landscape ["start gv -swap %O %S", but start %O %S under
MS-Windows]
The command to invoke a ps-previewer in landscape mode.
$ps_update_command [""]
When the postscript previewer is set to be updated by running a
command, this is the command that is run. See the information
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for the variable $ps_update_method.
$ps_update_method [0 under UNIX, 1 under MS-Windows]
How the postscript viewer updates its display when the .ps file
has changed. See the information on the variable $dvi_up-
date_method for the codes. (Note that information needs be
changed slightly so that for the value 4, to run a command to do
the update, the command is specified by the variable $ps_up-
date_command, and for the value 2, to specify update by signal,
the signal is specified by $ps_update_signal.)
$ps_update_signal [Under UNIX: SIGHUP, which is a system-dependent
value]
The number of the signal that is sent to the pdf viewer when it
is updated by sending a signal -- see $ps_update_method. The
default value is the one appropriate for gv on a UNIX system.
$pvc_timeout [0]
If this variable is nonzero, there will be a timeout in pvc
mode after a period of inactivity. Inactivity means a period
when latexmk has detected no file changes and hence has not
taken any actions like compiling the document. The period of in-
activity is in the variable $pvc_timeout_mins.
$pvc_timeout_mins [30]
The period of inactivity, in minutes, after which pvc mode times
out. This is used if $pvc_timeout is nonzero.
$pvc_view_file_via_temporary [1]
The same as $always_view_file_via_temporary, except that it only
applies in preview-continuous mode (-pvc option).
$quote_filenames [1]
This specifies whether substitutions for placeholders in command
specifications (as in $pdflatex) are surrounded by double
quotes. If this variable is 1 (or any other value Perl regards
as true), then quoting is done. Otherwise quoting is omitted.
The quoting method used by latexmk is tested to work correctly
under UNIX systems (including Linux and Mac OS-X) and under MS-
Windows. It allows the use of filenames containing special
characters, notably spaces. (But note that many versions of
*latex cannot correctly deal with TeX files whose names contain
spaces. Latexmk's quoting only ensures that such filenames are
correctly treated by the operating system in passing arguments
to programs.)
$rc_report [1]
After initialization, whether to give a list of the RC files
read.
$recorder [1]
Whether to use the -recorder option to *latex. Use of this
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option results in a file of extension .fls containing a list of
the files that these programs have read and written. Latexmk
will then use this file to improve its detection of source files
and generated files after a run of *latex.
It is generally recommended to use this option (or to configure
the $recorder variable to be on.) But it only works if *latex
supports the -recorder option, which is true for most current
implementations
Note about the name of the .fls file: Most implementations of
*latex produce an .fls file with the same basename as the main
document's LaTeX, e.g., for Document.tex, the .fls file is Docu-
ment.fls. However, some implementations instead produce files
named for the program, i.e., latex.fls or pdflatex.fls. In this
second case, latexmk copies the latex.fls or pdflatex.fls to a
file with the basename of the main LaTeX document, e.g., Docu-
ment.fls.
$search_path_separator [See below for default]
The character separating paths in the environment variables TEX-
INPUTS, BIBINPUTS, and BSTINPUTS. This variable is mainly used
by latexmk when the -outdir, -output-directory, -auxdir, and/or
-aux-directory options are used. In that case latexmk needs to
communicate appropriately modified search paths to bibtex,
dvipdf, dvips, and *latex.
[Comment to technically savvy readers: *latex doesn't actually
need the modified search path. But, surprisingly, dvipdf and
dvips do, because sometimes graphics files get generated in the
output or aux directories.]
The default under MSWin and Cygwin is ';' and under UNIX-like
operating systems (including Linux and OS-X) is ':'. Normally
the defaults give correct behavior. But there can be difficul-
ties if your operating system is of one kind, but some of your
software is running under an emulator for the other kind of op-
erating system; in that case you'll need to find out what is
needed, and set $search_path_separator explicitly. (The same
goes, of course, for unusual operating systems that are not in
the MSWin, Linux, OS-X, Unix collection.)
$show_time [0]
Whether to show time used, both the total and for individual
steps.
Note: On MS Windows, this is clock time. On other OSs it is the
CPU time used (by latexmk and the child processes it invokes).
The OS-dependence is because of a limitation of Windows. If you
wish to force the use of clock instead of CPU time, you can set
$times_are_clock = 1;
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$silence_logfile_warnings [0]
Whether after a run of *latex to summarize warnings in the log
file about undefined citations and references. Setting $si-
lence_logfile_warnings=0 gives the summary of warnings (provided
silent mode isn't also set), and this is useful to locate unde-
fined citations and references without searching through the
much more verbose log file or the screen output of *latex. But
the summary can also be excessively annoying. The default is
not to give these warnings. The command line options -si-
lence_logfile_warning_list and -silence_logfile_warning_list-
also set this variable.
Note that multiple occurrences for the same undefined object on
the same page and same line will be compressed to a single warn-
ing.
$silent [0]
Whether to run silently. Setting $silent to 1 has the same ef-
fect as the -quiet of -silent options on the command line.
$sleep_time [2]
The time to sleep (in seconds) between checking for source-file
changes when running with the -pvc option. If non-zero, it is
subject to a minimum value give by the $min_sleep_time variable.
But a zero value is also allowed.
A value of exactly 0 gives no delay between checks for source-
file changes; it typically results in 100% CPU usage, which may
not be desirable.
In old versions of latexmk, the default value of $sleep_time of
2 waB-pvc modeiandatheaamounteofoCPUousage.etOnemodernocomputers
in
with fast multi-core CPUs, a smaller value, e.g., 0.1 can give
good results, especially when working with small documents whose
compilation may take well under a second.
$texfile_search [""]
This is an obsolete variable, replaced by the @default_files
variable.
For backward compatibility, if you choose to set $tex-
file_search, it is a string of space-separated filenames, and
then latexmk replaces @default_files with the filenames in $tex-
file_search to which is added "*.tex".
$success_cmd [undefined]
See the documentation for $compiling_cmd.
$tmpdir [See below for default]
Directory to store temporary files that latexmk may generate
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while running.
The default under MSWindows (including cygwin), is to set $tm-
pdir to the value of the first of whichever of the system envi-
ronment variables TMPDIR or TEMP exists, otherwise to the cur-
rent directory. Under other operating systems (expected to be
UNIX/Linux, including OS-X), the default is the value of the
system environment variable TMPDIR if it exists, otherwise
"/tmp".
$use_make_for_missing_files [0]
Whether to use make to try and make files that are missing after
a run of *latex, and for which a custom dependency has not been
found. This is generally useful only when latexmk is used as
part of a bigger project which is built by using the make pro-
gram.
Note that once a missing file has been made, no further calls to
make will be made on a subsequent run of latexmk to update the
file. Handling this problem is the job of a suitably defined
Makefile. See the section "USING latexmk WITH make" for how to
do this. The intent of calling make from latexmk is merely to
detect dependencies.
$user_deleted_file_treated_as_changed [0]
Whether when testing for changed files, a user file that changes
status from existing to non-existing should be regarded as
changed.
The default value is 0, which implies that if a user file (as
opposed to a generated file) has been deleted since the previous
run, then no recompilation should be done. The reasoning is
that a rerun would simply produce an error.
If the value is 1, then disappearance of a user file is treated
as triggering a rerun, but only in non-preview-continuous mode.
If the value is 2, then disappearance of a user file is treated
as triggering a rerun, always.
$view ["default"]
Which kind of file is to be previewed if a previewer is used.
The possible values are "default", "dvi", "hnt", "ps", "pdf",
"none". The value of "default" means that the "highest" of the
kinds of file generated is to be used (among .dvi, .hnt, .ps and
.pdf).
$warnings_as_errors [0]
Normally latexmk copies the behavior of latex in treating unde-
fined references and citations and multiply defined references
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as conditions that give a warning but not an error. The vari-
able $warnings_as_errors controls whether this behavior is modi-
fied.
When the variable is non-zero, latexmk at the end of its run
will return a non-zero status code to the operating system if
any of the files processed gives a warning about problems with
citations or references (i.e., undefined citations or references
or multiply defined references). This is after latexmk has com-
pleted all the runs it needs to try and resolve references and
citations. Thus $warnings_as_errors being nonzero causes la-
texmk to treat such warnings as errors, but only when they occur
on the last run of *latex and only after processing is complete.
A non-zero value $warnings_as_errors can be set by the command-
line option -Werror.
The default behavior is normally satisfactory in the usual edit-
compile-edit cycle. But, for example, latexmk can also be used
as part of a build process for some bigger project, e.g., for
creating documentation in the build of a software application.
Then it is often sensible to treat citation and reference warn-
ings as errors that require the overall build process to be
aborted. Of course, since multiple runs of *latex are generally
needed to resolve references and citations, what matters is not
the warnings on the first run, but the warnings on the last run;
latexmk takes this into account appropriately.
In addition, when preview-continuous mode is used, a non-zero
value for $warnings_as_errors changes the use of the commands
$failure_cmd, $warning_cmd, and $success_cmd after a complia-
tion. If there are citation or reference warnings, but no other
errors, the behavior is as follows. If $warning_cmd is set, it
is used. If it is not set, then then if $warnings_as_errors is
non-zero and $failure_cmd is set, then $failure_cmd. Otherwise
$success_cmd is used, if it is set. (The foregoing explanation
is rather complicated, because latexmk has to deal with the case
that one or more of the commands isn't set.)
$xdv_mode [0]
If one, generate an xdv version of the document by use of xela-
tex.
$xdvipdfmx ["xdvipdfmx -E -o %D %O %S"]
The program to make a pdf file from an xdv file (used in con-
junction with xelatex when $pdf_mode=5).
$xdvipdfmx_silent_switch ["-q"]
Switch(es) for the xdvipdfmx program when silent mode is on.
$xelatex ["xelatex %O %S"]
Specifies the command line for the LaTeX processing program of
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when the xelatex program is called for. See the documentation
of the -xelatex option for some special properties of latexmk's
use of xelatex.
Note about xelatex: latexmk uses xelatex to make an .xdv rather
than .pdf file, with the .pdf file being created in a separate
step. This is enforced by the use of the -no-pdf option. If %O
is part of the command for invoking xelatex, then latexmk will
insert the -no-pdf option automatically, otherwise you must pro-
vide the option yourself. See the documentation for the -pdfxe
option for why latexmk makes a .xdv file rather than a .pdf file
when xelatex is used.
To do a coordinated setting of all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex,
$latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex, see the section "Ad-
vanced Configuration".
%xelatex_input_extensions
This variable specifies the extensions tried by latexmk when it
finds that an xelatex run resulted in an error that a file has
not been found, and the file is given without an extension.
This typically happens when LaTeX commands of the form \in-
put{file} or \includegraphics{figure}, when the relevant source
file does not exist.
In this situation, latexmk searches for custom dependencies to
make the missing file(s), but restricts it to the extensions
specified by the variable %xelatex_input_extensions. The de-
fault extensions are 'tex', 'pdf', 'jpg, and 'png'.
See details of the %latex_input_extensions for other information
that equally applies to %xelatex_input_extensions.
$xelatex_silent_switch ["-interaction=batchmode"]
Switch(es) for the xelatex program (specified in the variable
$xelatex) when silent mode is on.
See details of the $latex_silent_switch for other information
that equally applies to $xelatex_silent_switch.
CUSTOM DEPENDENCIES
In any RC file a set of custom dependencies can be set up to convert a
file with one extension to a file with another. An example use of this
would be to allow latexmk to convert a .fig file to .eps to be included
in the .tex file.
Defining a custom dependency:
The old method of configuring latexmk to use a custom dependency was to
directly manipulate the @cus_dep_list array that contains information
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defining the custom dependencies. (See the section "Old Method of
Defining Custom Dependencies" for details.) This method still works,
but is no longer preferred.
A better method is to use the subroutines that allow convenient manipu-
lations of the custom dependency list. These are
add_cus_dep( fromextension, toextension, must, subroutine )
remove_cus_dep( fromextension, toextension )
show_cus_dep()
The arguments are as follows:
from extension:
The extension of the file we are converting from (e.g. "fig").
It is specified without a period.
to extension:
The extension of the file we are converting to (e.g. "eps"). It
is specified without a period.
must: If non-zero, the file from which we are converting must exist,
if it doesn't exist latexmk will give an error message and exit
unless the -f option is specified. If must is zero and the file
we are converting from doesn't exist, then no action is taken.
Generally, the appropriate value of must is zero.
function:
The name of the subroutine that latexmk should call to perform
the file conversion. The first argument to the subroutine is
the base name of the file to be converted without any extension.
The subroutines are declared in the syntax of Perl. The func-
tion should return 0 if it was successful and a nonzero number
if it failed.
Naturally add_cus_dep adds a custom dependency with the specified from
and to extensions. If a custom dependency has been previously defined
(e.g., in an rcfile that was read earlier), then it is replaced by the
new one.
The subroutine remove_cus_dep removes the specified custom dependency.
The subroutine show_cus_dep causes a list of the currently defined cus-
tom dependencies to be sent to the screen output.
How custom dependencies are used:
An instance of a custom dependency rule is created whenever latexmk de-
tects that a run of *latex needs to read a file, like a graphics file,
whose extension is the to-extension of a custom dependency. Then la-
texmk examines whether a file exists with the same name, but with the
corresponding from-extension, as specified in the custom-dependency.
If it does, then a corresponding instance of the custom dependency is
created, after which the rule is invoked whenever the destination file
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(the one with the to-extension) is out-of-date with respect to the cor-
responding source file.
To make the new destination file, the Perl subroutine specified in the
rule is invoked, with an argument that is the base name of the files in
question. Simple cases just involve a subroutine invoking an external
program; this can be done by following the templates below, even by
those without knowledge of the Perl programming language. Of course,
experts could do something much more elaborate.
One item in the specification of each custom-dependency rule, labeled
"must" above, specifies how the rule should be applied when the source
file fails to exist.
When latex reports that an input file (e.g., a graphics file) does not
exist, latexmk tries to find a source file and a custom dependency that
can be used to make it. If it succeeds, then it creates an instance of
the custom dependency and invokes it to make the missing file, after
which the next pass of latex etc will be able to read the newly created
file.
Note for advanced usage: The operating system's environment variable
TEXINPUTS can be used to specify a search path for finding files by la-
tex etc. Correspondingly, when a missing file is reported, latexmk
looks in the directories specified in TEXINPUTS as well as in the cur-
rent directory, to find a source file from which an instance of a cus-
tom dependency can be used to make the missing file.
Function to implement custom dependency, traditional method:
The function that implements a custom dependency gets the information
on the files to be processed in two ways. The first is through its one
argument; the argument contains the base name of the source and desti-
nation files. The second way is described later.
A simple and typical example of code in an initialization rcfile using
the first method is:
add_cus_dep( 'fig', 'eps', 0, 'fig2eps' );
sub fig2eps {
system( "fig2dev -Leps \"$_[0].fig\" \"$_[0].eps\"" );
}
The first line adds a custom dependency that converts a file with ex-
tension "fig", as created by the xfig program, to an encapsulated post-
script file, with extension "eps". The remaining lines define a sub-
routine that carries out the conversion. If a rule for converting
"fig" to "eps" files already exists (e.g., from a previously read-in
initialization file), the latexmk will delete this rule before making
the new one.
Suppose latexmk is using this rule to convert a file "figure.fig" to
"figure.eps". Then it will invoke the fig2eps subroutine defined in
the above code with a single argument "figure", which is the basename
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of each of the files (possibly with a path component). This argument
is referred to by Perl as $_[0]. In the example above, the subroutine
uses the Perl command system to invoke the program fig2dev. The double
quotes around the string are a Perl idiom that signify that each string
of the form of a variable name, $_[0] in this case, is to be substi-
tuted by its value.
If the return value of the subroutine is non-zero, then latexmk will
assume an error occurred during the execution of the subroutine. In
the above example, no explicit return value is given, and instead the
return value is the value returned by the last (and only) statement,
i.e., the invocation of system, which returns the value 0 on success.
If you use pdflatex, lualatex or xelatex instead of latex, then you
will probably prefer to convert your graphics files to pdf format, in
which case you would replace the above code in an initialization file
by
add_cus_dep( 'fig', 'pdf, 0, 'fig2pdf' );
sub fig2pdf {
system( "fig2dev -Lpdf \"$_[0].fig\" \"$_[0].pdf\"" );
}
Note 1: In the command lines given in the system commands in the above
examples, double quotes have been inserted around the file names (im-
plemented by '\"' in the Perl language). They immunize the running of
the program against special characters in filenames. Very often these
quotes are not necessary, i.e., they can be omitted. But it is nor-
mally safer to keep them in. Even though the rules for quoting vary
between operating systems, command shells and individual pieces of
software, the quotes in the above examples do not cause problems in the
cases I have tested.
Note 2: One case in which the quotes are important is when the files
are in a subdirectory and your operating system is Microsoft Windows.
Then the separator character for directory components can be either a
forward slash '/' or Microsoft's more usual backward slash '\'. For-
ward slashes are generated by latexmk, to maintain its sanity from
software like MiKTeX that mixes both directory separators; but their
correct use normally requires quoted filenames. (See a log file from a
run of MiKTeX (at least in v. 2.9) for an example of the use of both
directory separators.)
Note 3: The subroutines implementing custom dependencies in the exam-
ples given just have a single line invoking an external program.
That's the usual situation. But since the subroutines are in the Perl
language, you can implement much more complicated processing if you
need it.
Removing custom dependencies, and when you might need to do this:
If you have some general custom dependencies defined in the system or
user initialization file, you may find that for a particular project
they are undesirable. So you might want to delete the unneeded ones.
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A situation where this would be desirable is where there are multiple
custom dependencies with the same from-extension or the same to-exten-
sion. In that case, latexmk might choose a different one from the one
you want for a specific project. As an example, to remove any "fig" to
"eps" rule you would use:
remove_cus_dep( 'fig', 'eps' );
If you have complicated sets of custom dependencies, you may want to
get a listing of the custom dependencies. This is done by using the
line
show_cus_dep();
in an initialization file.
Function implementing custom dependency, alternative methods:
So far the examples for functions to implement custom dependencies have
used the argument of the function to specify the base name of converted
file. This method has been available since very old versions of la-
texmk, and many examples can be found, e.g., on the web.
However in later versions of latexmk the internal structure of the im-
plementation of its "rules" for the steps of processing, including cus-
tom dependencies, became much more powerful. The function implementing
a custom dependency is executed within a special context where a number
of extra variables and subroutines are defined. Publicly documented
ones, intended to be long-term stable, are listed below, under the
heading "Variables and subroutines for processing a rule".
Examples of their use is given in the following examples, concerning
multiple index files and glossaries.
The only index-file conversion built-in to latexmk is from an ".idx"
file written on one run of *latex to an ".ind" file to be read in on a
subsequent run. But with the index.sty package, for example, you can
create extra indexes with extensions that you configure. Latexmk does
not know how to deduce the extensions from the information it has. But
you can easily write a custom dependency. For example if your latex
file uses the command "\newindex{special}{ndx}{nnd}{Special index}" you
will need to get latexmk to convert files with the extension .ndx to
.nnd. The most elementary method is to define a custom dependency as
follows:
add_cus_dep( 'ndx', 'nnd', 0, 'ndx2nnd' );
sub ndx2nnd {
return system( "makeindex -o \"$_[0].nnd\" \"$_[0].ndx\"" );
}
push @generated_exts, 'ndx', 'nnd';
Notice the added line compared with earlier examples. The extra line
gets the extensions "ndx" and "nnd" added to the list of extensions for
generated files; then the extra index files will be deleted by clean-up
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operations
But if you have yet more indexes with yet different extensions, e.g.,
"adx" and "and", then you will need a separate function for each pair
of extensions. This is quite annoying. You can use the Run_subst
function to simplify the definitions to use a single function:
add_cus_dep( 'ndx', 'nnd', 0, 'dx2nd' );
add_cus_dep( 'adx', 'and', 0, 'dx2nd' );
sub dx2nd {
return Run_subst( "makeindex -o %D %S" );
}
push @generated_exts, 'ndx', 'nnd', 'adx', 'and';
You could also instead use
add_cus_dep( 'ndx', 'nnd', 0, 'dx2nd' );
add_cus_dep( 'adx', 'and', 0, 'dx2nd' );
sub dx2nd {
return Run_subst( $makeindex );
}
push @generated_exts, 'ndx', 'nnd', 'adx', 'and';
This last example uses the command specification in $makeindex, and so
any customization you have made for the standard index also applies to
your extra indexes.
Similar techniques can be applied for glossaries.
Those of you with experience with Makefiles, may get concerned that the
.ndx file is written during a run of *latex and is always later than
the .nnd last read in. Thus the .nnd appears to be perpetually out-of-
date. This situation, of circular dependencies, is endemic to latex,
and is one of the issues that latexmk is programmed to overcome. It
examines the contents of the files (by use of a checksum), and only
does a remake when the file contents have actually changed.
Of course if you choose to write random data to the .nnd (or the .aux
file, etc) that changes on each new run, then you will have a problem.
For real experts: See the %hash_calc_ignore_pattern if you have to deal
with such problems.
Old Method of Defining Custom Dependencies:
In much older versions of latexmk, the only method of defining custom
dependencies was to directly manipulate the table of custom dependen-
cies. This is contained in the @cus_dep_list array. It is an array of
strings, and each string in the array has four items in it, each sepa-
rated by a space, the from-extension, the to-extension, the "must"
item, and the name of the subroutine for the custom dependency. These
were all defined above.
An example of the old method of defining custom dependencies is as fol-
lows. It is the code in an RC file to ensure automatic conversion of
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.fig files to .eps files:
push @cus_dep_list, "fig eps 0 fig2eps";
sub fig2eps {
return system( "fig2dev -Lps \"$_[0].fig\" \"$_[0].eps\"" );
}
This method still works, and is almost equivalent to the code given
earlier that used the add_cus_dep subroutine. However, the old method
doesn't delete any previous custom-dependency for the same conversion.
So the new method is preferable.
ADVANCED CONFIGURATION: SOME EXTRA RESOURCES AND ADVANCED TRICKS
For most purposes, simple configuration for latexmk along the lines of
the examples given is sufficient. But sometimes you need something
harder. In this section, I indicate some extra possibilities. Gener-
ally to use these, you need to be fluent in the Perl language, since
this is what is used in the rc files.
In this section, I include first, a description of a number of vari-
ables and subroutines that provide, among other things, access to la-
texmk's internal data structures for handling dependencies. Then I de-
scribe the hook mechanism whereby at certain points in the processing,
latexmk can call user-defined subroutines.
See also the section DEALING WITH ERRORS, PROBLEMS, ETC. See also the
examples in the directory example_rcfiles in the latexmk distributions.
Even if none of the examples apply to your case, they may give you use-
ful ideas
Variables and subroutines for processing a rule
A step in the processing is called a rule. One possibility to implement
the processing of a rule is by a Perl subroutine. This is always the
case for custom dependencies. Also, for any other rule, you can use a
subroutine by prefixing the command specification by the word "inter-
nal" -- see the section FORMAT OF COMMAND SPECIFICATIONS.
When you use a subroutine for processing a rule, all the possibilities
of Perl programming are available, of course. In addition, some of la-
texmk's internal variables and subroutines are available. The ones
listed below are intended to be available to (advanced) users, and
their specifications will generally have stability under upgrades. Gen-
erally, the variables should be treated as read-only: Changing their
values can have bad consequences, since it is liable to mess up the
consistency of what latexmk is doing.
$rule This variable has the name of the rule, as known to latexmk.
Note that the exact contents of this variable for a given rule
may be dependent on the version of latexmk
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$$Pbase
This gives the basename for the rule. Generally, it determines
the names of generated files. E.g., for a run of *latex, the
name of the .log file is the aux directory concatenated with the
basename and then `.log'.
For a *latex rule, the basename is without a directory compo-
nent. For other rules, it includes the directory component (if
any is used).
This (annoying) difference is associated with the different ways
in which the commands invoked by latexmk work when the command
line includes a name for a source file that includes a directory
component. For the *latex commands, the directory of the source
file is irrelevant to the directory component the generated
files, which instead is determined by the values in the -aux-di-
rectory and/or -output-directory options.
In contrast, many other programs (e.g., biber, bibtex) put their
generated files in the same directory as the source file, merely
with a changed extension.
Note the double dollar signs: In Perl terms, the variable $Pbase
is a reference to a variable that contains the basename. The
second dollar sign derefences the reference to give the actual
value. (A reference is is used rather like a pointer, and the
`P' (for `pointer') at the start of the variable name is a con-
vention used in latexmk to indicate that the variable is a ref-
erence variable.)
$$Pdest
This gives the name of the main output file if any. Note the
double dollar signs.
$$Psource
This gives the name of the primary source file. Note the double
dollar signs.
add_hook( <stack_name>, <subroutine> )
See the section `Hooks' for more details.
This adds the subroutine specified in the second argument to la-
texmk's stack of hooks specified by the stack name. It returns
1 on sucess, and zero otherwise (e.g., if the specified hook
stack doesn't exist).
The subroutine can be specified by a reference to the subrou-
tine, as in
add_hook( 'after_xlatex_analysis', mmz_analyze )
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Given that the subroutine mmz_analyze has been defined in the rc
file.
The subroutine can be specified by a string whose value is the
name of the subroutine, e.g.,
add_hook( 'after_xlatex_analysis', 'mmz_analyze' )
In simple cases, the subroutine can be an anonymous subroutine
defined in the call to add_hooks,
add_hook( 'after_main_pdf', sub{ print "TEST\n"; return 0; }
);
Observe that on success, the subroutine should return 0 (like a
call to Perl's system subroutine), so normally this should be
coded explicitly. If a hook subroutine returns a non-zero
value, latexmk treats that as an error condition.
ensure_path( var, values ...)
The first parameter is the name of one of the system's environ-
ment variables for search paths. The remaining parameters are
values that should be in the variable. For each of the value
parameters, if it isn't already in the variable, then it is
prepended to the variable; in that case the environment variable
is created if it doesn't already exist. For separating values,
the character appropriate the the operating system is used --
see the configuration variable $search_path_separator.
Example:
ensure_path( 'TEXINPUTS', './custom_cls_sty_files//' );
(In this example, the trailing '//' is documented by TeX systems
to mean that *latex search for files in the specified directory
and in all subdirectories.)
Technically ensure_path works by setting Perl's variable
$ENV{var}, where var is the name of the target variable. The
changed value is then passed as an environment variable to any
invoked programs.
pushd( path ), popd()
These subroutines are used when it is needed to temporarily
change the working directory, as in
pushd( 'some_directory' );
... Processing done with 'some_directory' as the working
directory
popd()
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They perform exactly the same function as the commands of the
same names in operating system command shells like bash on Unix,
and cmd.exe on the Windows.
rdb_add_generated( file, ... )
This subroutine is to be used in the context of a rule, that is,
from within a subroutine that is carrying out processing of a
rule. Such is the case for the subroutine implementing a custom
dependency, or the subroutine invoked by using the "internal"
keyword in the command specification like that in the variable
$latex.
Its arguments are a sequence of filenames which are generated
during the running of the rule. The names might arise from an
analysis of the results of the run, e.g., in a log file, or from
knowledge of properties of the specific rule. Calling
rdb_add_generated with these filenames ensures that these files
are flagged as generated by the rule in latexmk's internal data
structures. Basically, no action is taken if the files have al-
ready been flagged as generated.
A main purpose of using this subroutine is for the situation
when a generated file is also the source file for some rule, so
that latexmk can correctly link the dependency information in
its network of rules.
Note: Unlike some other subroutines in this section, there is no
argument for a rule for rdb_add_generated. Instead, the subrou-
tine is to be invoked during the processing of a rule when la-
texmk has set up an appropriate context (i.e., appropriate vari-
ables). In contrast, subroutines with a rule argument can be
used also outside a rule context.
rdb_ensure_file( $rule, file )
This subroutine ensures that the given file is among the source
files for the specified rule. It is typically used when, during
the processing of a rule, it is known that a particular extra
file is among the dependencies that latexmk should know, but its
default methods don't find the dependency. Almost always the
first argument is the name of the rule currently being
processed, so it is then appropriate to specify it by $rule.
For examples of its use, see some of the files in the directory
example_rcfiles of latexmk's distribution. Currently the cases
that use this subroutine are bib2gls-latexmkrc, exceltex_la-
texmkrc and texinfo-latexmkrc. These illustrate typical cases
where latexmk's normal processing fails to detect certain extra
source files.
Note that rdb_ensure_file only has one filename argument, unlike
other subroutines in this section. If you want to apply its ac-
tion to multiple files, you will need one call to
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rdb_ensure_file for each file.
rdb_ensure_files_here( file, ... )
Like subroutine rdb_ensure_files, except that (a) it assumes the
context is of a rule, and the files are to be added to the
source list for that rule; (b) multiple files are allowed.
rdb_remove_files( $rule, file, ... )
This subroutine removes one or more files from the dependency
list for the given rule.
rdb_remove_generated( file, ... )
This subroutine is to be used in the context of a rule, that is,
from within a subroutine that is carrying out processing of a
rule. It performs the opposite action to rdb_add_generated.
Its effect is to ensure that the given filenames are not listed
in latexmk's internal data structures as being generated by the
rule.
rdb_list_source( $rule )
This subroutine returns the list of source files (i.e., the de-
pendency list) for the given rule.
rdb_set_source( $rule, file, ... )
rdb_set_source( $rule, @files )
This subroutine sets the dependency list for the given rule to
be the specified files. Files that are already in the list have
unchanged information. Files that were not in the list are
added to it. Files in the previous dependency list that are not
in the newly specified list of files are removed from the depen-
dency list.
Run_subst( command_spec )
This subroutine runs the command specified by command_spec. The
specification is a string in the format listed in the section
"Format of Command Specifications". An important action of the
Run_subst is to make substitutions of placeholders, e.g., %S and
%D for source and destination files; these get substituted be-
fore the command is run. In addition, the command after substi-
tution is printed to the screen unless latexmk is running in
silent mode.
test_gen_file_time ( <file> )
This subroutine is used in the context of a rule. It returns
true or false according to whether or not a file of the given
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name both exists and was generated in the latest run of the
rule. If the subroutine returns false, but the file exists,
then the file is a leftover from a previous run.
The test for a file being generated on the current run is
whether the modification time of the file is at least as recent
as the time that the run of the rule was started. An allowance
for the granularity of the values of modification time on file
systems is made. See the description of the variable $file-
time_causality_threshold for details.
In addition, latexmk makes allowance for the possiblity that
files are hosted on a different computer than that running la-
texmk and that the system clock times on the two computers are
mismatched. Latexmk automatically detects (and reports) any
significant mismatch and corrects for it.
Coordinated Setting of Commands for *latex
To set all of $dvilualatex, $hilatex, $latex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and
$xelatex to a common pattern, you can use one of the following subrou-
tines, std_tex_cmds, alt_tex_cmds, and set_tex_cmds.
To get the standard commands, use
&std_tex_cmds;
This results in $latex = 'latex %O %S', and similarly for $dvilualatex,
$hilatex, $pdflatex, $lualatex, and $xelatex. Note the ampersand in
the invocation; this indicates to Perl that a subroutine is being
called. (The use of this subroutine enables you to override previous
redefinitions of the $latex, etc variables, which might have occurred
in an earlier-read rc file.)
To be able to use the string provided by the -pretex option (if any),
you can use
&alt_tex_cmds;
This results in $latex = 'latex %O %P', etc. Again note the ampersand
in the invocation; this indicates to Perl that a subroutine is being
called.
A more general way of specifying the variables is using
set_tex_cmds( 'CMD_SPEC' );
Here CMD_SPEC is the command line without the program name. This re-
sults in $latex = 'latex CMD_SPEC', and similarly for $pdflatex, etc.
(An ampersand preceding the subroutine name is not necessary here,
since the parentheses show Perl that a subroutine is being invoked.)
An example that provides the --interaction=batchmode option to the
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*latex commands would be
set_tex_cmds( '--interaction=batchmode %O %S' );
This results in $latex = 'latex --interaction=batchmode %O %S ', etc.
Note that when '%O' appears after the added option, as here, options
provided on the command line to latexmk can override the supplied one.
A more general command line can be set up by using the placeholder '%C'
in CMD_SPEC. The '%C' is substituted by the basic name of the command,
i.e., whichever of 'latex', 'pdflatex', etc is appropriate. (More than
one occurrence of '%C' is allowed.) For example to use the develop-
ment/pre-release versions of latex, etc, which have names, 'latex-dev',
'pdflatex-dev', etc, you could use
set_tex_cmds( '%C-dev %O %S' );
This results in $latex = 'latex-dev %O %S', etc. (The pre-release pro-
grams latex-dev etc are provided in current distributions of TeXLive
and MiKTeX.)
Hooks
Latexmk provides a way to arrange for user-defined subroutines to be
called at certain points in the processing. These can be used to con-
figure appropriate behavior and actions beyond latexmk's normal behav-
ior. For a good example of how they can be used to accommodate la-
texmk's behavior to particular packages, see the file memoize_latexmkrc
in the example_rcfiles subdirectory of the latexmk distribution. (In a
standard TeXLive installation, that subdirectory is to be found in
texmf-dist/doc/support/latexmk/)
The hook mechanism is complementary to the method of redefining command
strings like $pdflatex etc. The two methods have overlapping domains
of usefulness.
Note that the hook mechanism is newly made public in v. 4.84 of la-
texmk. It is subject to change and improvement as experience is
gained.
The hooks are arranged in named hook stacks, and a hook subroutine is
added to a given stack by latexmk's add_hook subroutine (documented
above). The currently available stacks are as follows, listed in the
approximate order in which they are encountered in processing a docu-
ment:
before_xlatex
The subroutines in this hook stack are called just before a
*latex programs is run.
after_xlatex
The subroutines in this hook stack are called after a *latex
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programs is
run. Before the subroutines are called, latexmk has done some im-
mediate
postprocessing, e.g., to move the generated pdf file from the aux
directory to the output directory when $emulate_aux is set to 1.
after_xlatex_analysis
The subroutines in this hook stack are called after latexmk has
done its
dependency analysis after a *latex programs is run. Subroutines in
this
stack provide a useful way of adding items to the dependency infor-
mation
associated with particular packages and that latexmk doesn't
automatically deal with.
after_main_pdf
The subroutines in this hook stack are called after one of the
rules that
creates the document's pdf file. (This covers any of pdflatex, lu-
alatex,
dvipdf, ps2pdf, xdvipdfmx.)
cleanup
The subroutines in this hook stack are called whenever latexmk is
about
to do a cleanup operation. They can be used, for example, to tai-
lor the
deleted files to the pecularities of particular packages when la-
texmk's
general mechanisms for specifying files to be deleted are too in-
flexible.
These subroutines are called before latexmk does any of its own
file
deletion; thus the hook subroutines have access to all the gener-
ated
files that give package-specific information.
cleanup_extra_full
The subroutines in this hook stack are called in addition to the
ones in
the cleanup stack, whenever a full cleanup operation is to be done
(i.e.,
one that includes the pdf, ps etc files). They are called immedi-
ately
after those in the cleanup stack, but still before latexmk does any
of
its own file deletion.
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(Any other stacks defined in latexmk.pl but not listed above are to be
regarded as experimental and subject to change.)
Each subroutine should return 0 on success and a non-zero value on
failure. This matches the convention used for running programs, e.g.,
by Perl's system subroutine, and the matching convention used for sub-
routines for custom dependencies in latexmk.
For most of the hook stacks, the subroutines are called in the context
of a rule, with variables like $rule defined. However, some hook
stacks, like the cleanup ones, are called from outside any rule; and
latexmk adjusts the relevant variables to refer to the overall task
(i.e., of processing a particular main .tex file).
Advanced configuration: Using latexmk with make
This section is targeted only at advanced users who use the make pro-
gram for complex projects, as for software development, with the depen-
dencies specified by a Makefile.
Now the basic task of latexmk is to run the appropriate programs to
make a viewable version of a LaTeX document. However, the usual make
program is not suited to this purpose for at least two reasons. First
is that the use of LaTeX involves circular dependencies (e.g., via .aux
files), and these cannot be handled by the standard make program. Sec-
ond is that in a large document the set of source files can change
quite frequently, particularly with included graphics files; in this
situation keeping a Makefile manually updated is inappropriate and er-
ror-prone, especially when the dependencies can be determined automati-
cally. Latexmk solves both of these problems robustly.
Thus for many standard LaTeX documents latexmk can be used by itself
without the make program. In a complex project it simply needs to be
suitably configured. A standard configuration would be to define cus-
tom dependencies to make graphics files from their source files (e.g.,
as created by the xfig program). Custom dependencies are latexmk's
equivalent of pattern rules in Makefiles.
Nevertheless there are projects for which a Makefile is appropriate,
and it is useful to know how to use latexmk from a Makefile. A typical
example would be to generate documentation for a software project. Po-
tentially the interaction with the rest of the rules in the Makefile
could be quite complicated, for example if some of the source files for
a LaTeX document are generated by the project's software.
In this section, I give a couple of examples of how latexmk can be use-
fully invoked from a Makefile. The examples use specific features of
current versions of GNU make, which is the default on both linux and
OS-X systems. They may need modifications for other versions of make.
The simplest method is simply to delegate all the relevant tasks to la-
texmk, as is suitable for a straightforward LaTeX document. For this a
suitable Makefile is like
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.PHONY : FORCE_MAKE
all : try.pdf
%.pdf : %.tex FORCE_MAKE
latexmk -pdf -dvi- -ps- $<
(Note: the last line must be introduced by a tab for the Makefile to
function correctly!) Naturally, if making try.pdf from its associated
LaTeX file try.tex were the only task to be performed, a direct use of
latexmk without a Makefile would normally be better. The benefit of
using a Makefile for a LaTeX document would be in a larger project,
where lines such as the above would be only be a small part of a larger
Makefile.
The above example has a pattern rule for making a .pdf file from a .tex
file, and it is defined to use latexmk in the obvious way. There is a
conventional default target named "all", with a prerequisite of
try.pdf. So when make is invoked, by default it makes try.pdf. The
only complication is that there may be many source files beyond
try.tex, but these aren't specified in the Makefile, so changes in them
will not by themselves cause latexmk to be invoked. Instead, the pat-
tern rule is equipped with a "phony" prerequisite FORCE_MAKE; this has
the effect of causing the rule to be always out-of-date, so that la-
texmk is always run. It is latexmk that decides whether any action is
needed, e.g., a rerun of pdflatex. Effectively the Makefile delegates
all decisions to latexmk, while make has no knowledge of the list of
source files except for primary LaTeX file for the document. If there
are, for example, graphics files to be made, these must be made by cus-
tom dependencies configured in latexmk.
But something better is needed in more complicated situations, for ex-
ample, when the making of graphics files needs to be specified by rules
in the Makefile. To do this, one can use a Makefile like the follow-
ing:
TARGETS = document1.pdf document2.pdf
DEPS_DIR = .deps
LATEXMK = latexmk -recorder -use-make -deps \
-e 'warn qq(In Makefile, turn off custom dependencies\n);' \
-e '@cus_dep_list = ();' \
-e 'show_cus_dep();'
all : $(TARGETS)
$(foreach file,$(TARGETS),$(eval -include $(DEPS_DIR)/$(file)P))
$(DEPS_DIR) :
mkdir $@
%.pdf : %.tex
if [ ! -e $(DEPS_DIR) ]; then mkdir $(DEPS_DIR); fi
$(LATEXMK) -pdf -dvi- -ps- -deps-out=$(DEPS_DIR)/$@P $<
%.pdf : %.fig
fig2dev -Lpdf $< $@
(Again, the lines containing the commands for the rules should be
started with tabs.) This example was inspired by how GNU automake han-
dles automatic dependency tracking of C source files.
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After each run of latexmk, dependency information is put in a file in
the .deps subdirectory. The Makefile causes these dependency files to
be read by make, which now has the full dependency information for each
target .pdf file. To make things less trivial it is specificed that
two files document1.pdf and document2.pdf are the targets. The depen-
dency files are .deps/document1.pdfP and .deps/document2.pdfP.
There is now no need for the phony prerequisite for the rule to make
.pdf files from .tex files. But I have added a rule to make .pdf files
from .fig files produced by the xfig program; these are commonly used
for graphics insertions in LaTeX documents. Latexmk is arranged to
output a dependency file after each run. It is given the -recorder op-
tion, which improves its detection of files generated during a run of
pdflatex; such files should not be in the dependency list. The -e op-
tions are used to turn off all custom dependencies, and to document
this. Instead the -use-make is used to delegate the making of missing
files to make itself.
Suppose in the LaTeX file there is a command \includegraphics{graph},
and an xfig file "graph.fig" exists. On a first run, pdflatex reports
a missing file, named "graph". Latexmk succeeds in making "graph.pdf"
by calling "make graph.pdf", and after completion of its work, it lists
"fig.pdf" among the dependents of the file latexmk is making. Then let
"fig.fig" be updated, and then let make be run. Make first remakes
"fig.pdf", and only then reruns latexmk.
Thus we now have a method by which all the subsidiary processing is
delegated to make.
Escaping of characters in dependency lists: There are certain special
characters that need to be escaped when names of files and directories
containing them appear in a dependency list used by a make program.
Generally, such special characters are best avoided.
By default, latexmk does no escaping of this kind, and the user will
have to arrange to deal with the issue separately, if the relevant spe-
cial characters are used. Note that the rules for escaping depend on
which make program is used, and on its version.
One special case is of spaces, since those are particularly prevalent,
notably in standard choices of name for a user's home directory. So
latexmk does provide an option to escape spaces. See the option
-deps_escape=... and the variable $deps_escape for details.
NON_ASCII CHARACTERS IN FILENAMES, RC FILES, ETC
Modern operating systems and file systems allow non-ASCII characters in
the names of files and directories that encompass the full Unicode
range. Mostly, latexmk deals with these correctly. However, there are
some situations in which there are problems, notably on Microsoft Win-
dows. Prior to version 4.77, latexmk had problems with non-ASCII file-
names on Windows, even though there were no corresponding problems on
macOS and Linux. These problems are corrected in the present version.
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LATEXMK(1) General Commands Manual LATEXMK(1)
DETAILS TO BE FILLED IN
SEE ALSO
latex(1), bibtex(1), lualatex(1), pdflatex(1), xelatex(1).
BUGS (SELECTED)
Sometimes a viewer (gv) tries to read an updated .ps or .pdf file after
its creation is started but before the file is complete. Work around:
manually refresh (or reopen) display. Or use one of the other preview-
ers and update methods.
(The following isn't really a bug, but concerns features of preview-
ers.) Preview continuous mode only works perfectly with certain pre-
viewers: Xdvi on UNIX/Linux works for dvi files. Gv on UNIX/Linux
works for both postscript and pdf. Ghostview on UNIX/Linux needs a
manual update (reopen); it views postscript and pdf. Gsview under MS-
Windows works for both postscript and pdf, but only reads the updated
file when its screen is refreshed. Acroread under UNIX/Linux views
pdf, but the file needs to be closed and reopened to view an updated
version. Under MS-Windows, acroread locks its input file and so the
pdf file cannot be updated. (Remedy: configure latexmk to use suma-
trapdf instead.)
THANKS TO
Authors of previous versions. Many users with their feedback, and es-
pecially David Coppit (username david at node coppit.org) who made many
useful suggestions that contributed to version 3, and Herbert Schulz.
(Please note that the e-mail addresses are not written in their stan-
dard form to avoid being harvested too easily.)
AUTHOR
Current version, by John Collins (Version 4.87). Report bugs etc to
his e-mail (jcc8 at psu.edu).
Released version can be obtained from CTAN:
<
http://www.ctan.org/pkg/latexmk/>, and from the author's website
<
https://www.cantab.net/users/johncollins/latexmk/>.
Modifications and enhancements by Evan McLean (Version 2.0)
Original script called "go" by David J. Musliner (RCS Version 3.2)
15 June 2025 89
