Pre-configured workspace for LaTeX projects

This repository contains customized blank project for development pdf documentation in LaTeX format. The project is configured for the devcontainer environment, so there is no need to install any local dependencies.

Features

• No need to install locally LaTeX and other dependencies
• Automatically conversion plantUML diagrams from the text description to the resulting pdf document (command \RenderPlantUML)
• Importing and inserting vector images from drawio format (command \RenderDrawio)
• The ability to add a watermark to the entire document
• Examples of frequently used constructs in documentation (tables, item lists and so on)
• Configured CI/CD (Github Actions) for pdf document assembly

Project structure

Main LaTeX source file located in the root folder: main.tex.

Title page description: title.tex.

External plantUML and .drawio files are located in a folder: /diagrams.

Folder Chapters contains the chapters of the document in the LaTeX language.

Requirements

• Docker no older than v.23
• Microsoft VS Code (recommended)

First launch

• Clone the repository
• In VS Code, open the downloaded folder and select the option 'Reopen in container' in a pop-up window

Compiling the documentation

VS Code pre-assigned tasks

Some pre-assigned tasks are configured to build resulting pdf document using MS VS Code. To use it press Ctrl + Shift + B then select apropriate target.

The following tasks are available to run:

1. Build pdf - This will start resulting pdf document build.
2. Full clean build pdf - This will remove all intermidiate created files during builds before and start document build (executed twice, so the table of contents will be generated correctly).
3. Clear LaTeX cache and temporary files - This will clean temporary LaTeX files.

Manual building

In any other case, there is a possibility to build resulting pdf document manually. You can run local builder to compile LaTex source to .pdf file. To do so just open project in dev-container and when you want to build, run in container terminal:

xvfb-run lualatex --shell-escape main.tex

To cleanup temp files use:

latexmk -c

Note: in order for the table of contents to be generated correctly, you must run build command twice.