Overview

SpartanTeX provides a web service that compiles LaTeX source code written in Google Docs and returns the resulting PDF document. Together with the Google Docs editor, SpartanTeX is a collaboration friendly LaTeX authoring environment. It offers collaborative editing and revision control through Google Docs and easy compilation using LaTeX on the SpartanTeX site, without a local installation of LaTeX. Note that most of the Google Docs functionality, such as editing, sharing, and revision control, is only available through Google Docs and not through SpartanTeX.

SpartanTeX supports BibTeX bibliographies, \input and \include commands, documentclasses uploaded by the user, and the inclusion of images with \includegraphics.

Authors, Acknowledgement, Support

Brian Sinclair and Sebastian Pauli from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNC Greensboro designed and wrote SpartanTeX. Frances Clerk designed the web interface. SpartanTeX uses the silk icon set released by Mark James under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

For support send email to tex.uncg.edu@gmail.com.

Document List

Actions	Document	Temporary Files	Owner	Last Updated	Dependencies
Compile	The Riemann Zeta Function	source log aux blg PDF	Meerkatz	08-08-03 23:34	known unknowns
Compile	Assignment_2.tex	source log aux PDF	Meerkatz	08-08-03 23:34

The SpartanTeX document list shows your text documents from Google Docs and allows you to compile them using LaTeX. Files uploaded to Google Docs through SpartanTeX are uloaded to as plain text files and show up in Google Docs (and SpartanTeX) under their original filename including the extension. While Google Docs only allows the upload of files with extensions such as .txt or .doc, you can upload files with any extension through SpartanTeX.

Actions

Compile downloads the document to SpartanTex and compiles it by calling pdflatex twice (or the sequence pdflatex, bibtex, pdflatex, pdflatex, if BibTeX is used); where pdflatex is run in nonstop mode. If a document is succesfully compiled, the generated PDF is opened in a PDF previewer. If the compilation fails the pdflatex logfile is displayed in a pop up window. Pressing <Home> compiles the first document displayed in the document list.

SpartanTeX can compile source that contains UTF-8 characters. If the source contains the string 'utf8' (as in \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}), it will not filter out all non-ASCII characters. If your main file includes other files these should also include 'utf8' (for instance in a comment), so that SpartanTeX does not strip non-ASCII characters from the included files.

Get downloads the document, extracts the first image from it, and displays it.

(edit) opens the document in the Google Docs editor.

Temporary Files

The source code is stored as a Google document, it is downloaded to SpartanTeX, when you click Compile. Click to download the source code onto your machine. The other temporary files are generated when compiling the document and are stored on the SpartanTeX server. When selected the files are displayed in a pop up window. If you permit javascript to raise and lower windows in your browser's preferences, the pop up window will appear on top. Clicking removes the temporary files on the SpartanTeX server.

• source is the source code.
• log is the LaTeX logfile, opens it at the first error.
• aux is the LaTeX auxiliary file.
• toc is the LaTeX auxiliary file used for generating the table of contents.
• blg is the BibTeX logfile.
• PDF is the last successfully compiled document.
• image shows the image, if the document has the extension .png or .jpg.

In Google Docs document are uniquely identified by a document ID. There can be several documents with the same title. SpartanTeX uses the title to as filenames for the temporary files. If there are several documents with the same name or files of the same name with different extensions, this can lead to some confusion. The temporary files listed for all documents with the same title are the temporary files of the document with that title that has been compiled last.

Dependencies

SpartanTeX supports BibTeX bibliographies, \input and \include commands, documentclasses uploaded by the user, and the inclusion of images with \includegraphics.

Referenced text files are taken from the users Google documents, which are identified by their title. SpartanTeX tries to download the specified files and shows you whether the files have been downloaded successfully or not . Document class files (.cls) only show up as dependencies, when they are successfully downloaded.

Images

You can include images in documents that you compile with SpartanTeX. If your source code contains the command \includegraphics{foo.png} then SpartanTeX will find the document called foo.png, download it, and extract the first image from it. This image is included in your document. Currently .png and .jpg formats are supported. All other content in the document containing the image is ignored.

Unicode

SpartanTeX can compile source that contains UTF-8 characters. If the source contains the string 'utf8' (as in \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}), it will not filter out all non-ASCII characters. If your main file includes other files these should also include 'utf8' (for instance in a comment), so that SpartanTeX does not strip non-ASCII characters from the included files.

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNC Greensboro For support send email to tex.uncg.edu@gmail.com