Extension:Wiki2LaTeX

News, Support and Stuff
To find out anything new about Wiki2LaTeX you can check out the Wiki2LaTeX-Weblog.

There is also a Google Group, which is open now to any user. There you can discuss and ask anything about Wiki2LaTeX. I am also reading the two Mediawiki Newsgroups Mediawiki-l and Wikitech-l, so you can get answers there, too.

While at the moment there are still plenty of red links in this very documentation area, it is the place where I try to put any information to.

What can this extension do?
This extension converts Mediawiki syntax into LaTeX-code, and makes the result available as: The extension is written in php and uses its own parser, which is based on the original one of Mediawiki.
 * a text area, from which the code can be copied
 * a .tex file
 * a .pdf file

Since the parser supports Parser Extension Tags, this extension enables Mediawiki to be used as a tool to create nicely printable documents. The parser also uses Mediawiki's Hook-system, so you can hook in functions, which change the default behavior of Wiki2LaTeX.

Supported Syntax features

 * ParserFunctions are supported (tested for 'if' and 'switch' only!)
 * ParserExtension-tags are supported.
 * Lists, even nested ones
 * italic and bold font-styles are supported
 * Internal and external links
 * Special characters are masked to LaTeX-commands
 * Some HTML-entities are parsed into their LaTeX-equivalents
 * The nowiki-tag is supported
 * Mediawikis Template-system can be used (with named and unnamed template parameters).
 * Tables

Please note, that even though it is supported, it can't be guaranteed, that everything works flawlessly. Not every possible case has been tested, so please report errors, in case something went wrong.

Limitations
There are some limitations:


 * pdf-export requires much cpu power. So it can't be recommended to allow users to personally export an article to pdf.
 * All parts are tested on Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 only.

Please be aware that this extension is still in its beta phase. There might be security issues, performance issues and any thinkable issue could come up. So this extension is not (yet) intended to be used on a public wiki, though it works as expected for quite a time now on my personal server to create documents for university and letters.

Planned features

 * Fix some issues regarding templates
 * Support interwiki links
 * Support custom Magicword-variables
 * Add the ability to edit the latex-code before compiling it
 * Support special classes on div and span tags

Documentation

 * 1) A more detailed documentation page is being created.
 * 2) Please have look at the wiki on the project site, where you can find some documentation.

Usage
After installation, there is a link next to the edit tab, which is labeled as "LaTeX/PDF". Click on it, choose some options and export the article.

Download and Installation
Download and installation are straightforward:

The second line, which creates the LaTeX namespace is optional, and allows customizing LaTeX-Templates and PDF-Creation, see also custom namespace
 * 1) Download from
 * 2) Unpack the archive into the folder '/extensions/w2l'.
 * 3) Unzip the file w2l-0.10rc.zip inside the w2l directory
 * 4)  Copy the config file w2lConfig.sample.php to w2lConfig.php.  Optionally, have a look at the file w2lDefaultConfig.php, as some settings might need changes.
 * 5) Add the following lines to LocalSettings.php, near the end of the file, but before the end PHP-tag ?> (if it exists):
 * require_once($IP."/extensions/w2l/wiki2latex.php");
 * $wgExtraNamespaces[100] = "LaTeX";

A "latex/pdf" tab should now appear at the top of pages, if you are logged in.

Installation Problems
According to Issue 52 at Google Code, the current distribution (including 0.10rc) has bugs due to recent version of PHP becoming more strict.
 * edit w2lHelper.php, line 121 to read:
 * public function UnknownAction($action, $article) { (that is, delete the &)
 * Similarly, contrib/math.php, line 21
 * "There are probably other similar errors" (although perhaps not critical)

If pdflatex is not in the path, you may provide an explicit path in w2lConfig.php by editing to read:
 * $w2lConfig['ltx_command'] = ' /path/to/your/pdflatex -interaction=batchmode %file%';

Wiki2LaTeX is not guaranteed to work on Fedora, and is beta anyway, and there seem to be various problems when pdflatex is called on recent versions (Fedora Cora 12)
 * 1) selinux may prevent pdflatex from being called
 * 2) cat /selinux/enforce gives 0/1 to indicate disabled/enabled selinux.  echo 0 > /selinux/enforce to turn off, echo 1 > /selinux/enforce to turn on
 * 3) There are reports that apache does not have a home directory, preventing pdflatex from working properly

Update existing installations

 * 1) Read Release Notes as config changes might be required.
 * 2) Backup all files
 * 3) Remove all files except w2lConfig.php
 * 4) Unpack all new files into that folder

Development
Wiki2LaTeX uses Google Code for SVN and Bug-tracking.