📄 AutoPDF

A powerful tool that creates PDFs using LaTeX and Go's templating syntax with advanced features.

• ⚡ Simple. Neat. Fast. Powerful. ⚡
• Perfect for creating professional, customizable PDF documents
• Leverages the most powerful PDF document generator: $\LaTeX$
• Advanced templating with complex variables and for loops
• Persistent CLI settings and configuration management
• Built with DDD, SOLID principles, and GoF design patterns

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Built with ❤️ by BuddhiLW. Using Bonzai 🌳.

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Install

go install github.com/BuddhiLW/AutoPDF/v2/cmd/autopdf@latest

Building on AutoPDF with Claude Code

AutoPDF ships skills that teach a coding agent how to integrate it, so a project adopting AutoPDF does not have to feed it documentation by hand:

/plugin marketplace add BuddhiLW/AutoPDF
/plugin install autopdf@autopdf

Skill	Covers
autopdf	Install, CLI, YAML config, choosing an integration path
autopdf-embed	Go library: api.Engine, testing without LaTeX, logging, v1→v2
autopdf-templates	delim[[ ]] syntax, nested values, loops, escaping
autopdf-preview	Component documents, preview sessions, SSE/WebSocket/HTTP2
autopdf-plato	Slides from Markdown/Org, Beamer, adding a render target

They load on demand, so a project that only generates PDFs never pays for the preview documentation. See skills/ to vendor them into a single project instead.

Features

🚀 Core Features

• LaTeX PDF Generation: Professional document creation
• Template Processing: Go template syntax with custom delimiters
• YAML Configuration: Flexible and readable configuration
• Multiple Engines: Support for pdflatex, xelatex, and more
• PDF Conversion: Convert PDFs to images (PNG, JPEG, etc.)

🔧 Advanced Features

• Complex Variables: Nested objects, arrays, and mixed data types
• For Loops: Range loops over arrays and objects
• Component Documents: Immutable semantic trees compiled into deterministic LaTeX fragments
• Live Preview Pipeline: Revisioned, cancellable previews that send changed pages only
• Persistent Settings: CLI settings that survive across sessions
• Structured Logging: Detailed logging with zap integration
• Configuration Management: Export/import configurations

🏗️ Architecture

• Domain-Driven Design (DDD): Clear domain boundaries
• SOLID Principles: Maintainable and extensible code
• GoF Design Patterns: Factory, Builder, Strategy, Command
• Clean Architecture: Separation of concerns
• Test-Driven Development: Comprehensive test coverage

Usage

Basic Usage

# Simple document generation
autopdf build template.tex config.yaml

# With cleaning
autopdf build template.tex config.yaml clean

# With conversion
autopdf build template.tex config.yaml --convert png,jpeg

Advanced Usage

# Complex variables with nested structures
autopdf build advanced_document.tex complex_config.yaml

# For loops with dynamic content
autopdf build loops_document.tex loops_config.yaml

# Persistent settings
autopdf verbose 3
autopdf clean on
autopdf debug switch

Go Library

Use pkg/api.Engine when embedding AutoPDF. It provides a context-aware, concurrency-safe contract without requiring imports from AutoPDF internals.

engine, err := api.NewEngine()
if err != nil {
    return err
}

result, err := engine.Generate(ctx, api.Request{
    TemplatePath: "document.tex",
    OutputPath:   "output.pdf",
    Variables: map[string]string{
        "title": "Embedded AutoPDF",
    },
})
if err != nil {
    return err
}

fmt.Printf("generated %d bytes\n", len(result.PDF))

Custom renderers, caching layers, and test fakes can implement api.Generator and be installed with api.WithGenerator. See Embedding AutoPDF for extension, logging, cancellation, and migration guidance.

Component documents and live previews

For structured editors, api.DocumentEngine turns a renderer-independent document.DocumentSpec into cached fragments and a deterministic LaTeX projection. Production generation still returns the existing api.Result, so adopters can add components without replacing their current PDF boundary.

Interactive sessions keep TeX auxiliary state warm, cancel superseded builds, use focused \\includeonly builds for section components, fingerprint rendered pages, and rasterize or transmit only changed pages. The optional HTTP adapter adds monotonic revisions and replayable events for browser clients over either server-sent events or WebSocket.

• Component composition and fast previews
• Streaming transports: SSE, WebSocket, HTTP/2
• Preview latency budgets and measurement
• Embedding AutoPDF

Streaming transports

The preview adapter serves one event feed through several wire formats, so a client picks the transport that suits it without changing replay semantics:

api, _ := rest.NewPreviewAPI(rest.PreviewAPIOptions{
    Engine:          engine,
    CompilerFactory: factory,
})

router := chi.NewRouter()
rest.RegisterPreviewRoutes(router, api)

// HTTP/2 over TLS and cleartext (h2c), with timeouts that do not
// truncate long-lived streams.
server, _ := rest.NewServer(rest.ServerOptions{Addr: ":8080", Handler: router})
server.ListenAndServe()

Route	Transport
GET /sessions/{id}/events	Server-sent events, Last-Event-ID replay
GET /sessions/{id}/ws	WebSocket, ?after= replay

Both share the same cursor, history ring, and ordering. Revision submission is bounded per session and answers 429 when the queue is saturated, so a fast client receives backpressure instead of accumulating server-side work.

Presentations from Markdown or Org

A beamer render target compiles a DocumentSpec into a PDF deck. Pair it with plato, which parses Markdown and Org into that spec, and one source produces both a Reveal deck and a Beamer PDF:

plato spec talk.org -o talk.json
autopdf deck talk.json talk.pdf assets=./public theme=metropolis

Rebuilding on every save:

autopdf deck watch talk.json talk.pdf \
  watch=talk.org command="plato spec talk.org -o talk.json"

AutoPDF never parses the source itself — command is a shell hook, so any front end that emits a DocumentSpec works the same way. A render target supplies its own catalog and an api.ManifestProjector; adding one is a new package rather than a change to pkg/api.

• AutoPDF × plato: the vocabulary, the degradations, the drift gate

Configuration Examples

Basic Configuration

template: "document.tex"
output: "output.pdf"
engine: "pdflatex"
variables:
  title: "My Document"
  author: "AutoPDF User"
  date: "2025-01-07"

Complex Variables

template: "advanced_document.tex"
output: "advanced_output.pdf"
engine: "pdflatex"
variables:
  title: "Advanced Document"
  metadata:
    version: "1.0.0"
    tags: ["example", "advanced", "complex"]
    settings:
      verbose: true
      debug: false
  items:
    - name: "Feature 1"
      enabled: true
      priority: 1
    - name: "Feature 2"
      enabled: false
      priority: 2

Template Syntax

Basic Variables

\title{delim[[.title]]}
\author{delim[[.author]]}
\date{delim[[.date]]}

Complex Variables

% Direct access to nested properties
Version: delim[[.metadata.version]]
Verbose: delim[[.metadata.settings.verbose]]

% Range loops over arrays
delim[[range .complex.metadata.tags]]
delim[[.]]\par
delim[[end]]

% Range loops over objects
delim[[range .complex.items]]
\subsection{delim[[.name]]}
Enabled: delim[[.enabled]]
Priority: delim[[.priority]]
delim[[end]]

Examples

📁 Test Examples

The test/ directory contains comprehensive examples:

Basic Usage (test/basic_usage/)

• Simple variable substitution
• Basic YAML configuration
• LaTeX document generation

Advanced Features (test/advanced_features/)

• Complex nested variables
• Range loops and dynamic content
• Mixed data types and structures

For Loops (test/for_loops/)

• Array iteration with range loops
• Object property access in loops
• Nested loop structures

Persistent Settings (test/persistent_settings/)

• CLI settings management
• Configuration persistence
• Cross-session settings

Legacy Examples

• test/model_letter/: Letter document example
• test/model_xelatex/: XeLaTeX engine example
• test/complex_variables/: Complex variable demonstration

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install AutoPDF:

   go install github.com/BuddhiLW/AutoPDF/v2/cmd/autopdf@latest

2. Try Basic Example:

   cd test/basic_usage
   autopdf build document.tex config.yaml

3. Explore Advanced Features:

   cd test/advanced_features
   autopdf build advanced_document.tex config.yaml

4. Test For Loops:

   cd test/for_loops
   autopdf build loops_document.tex config.yaml

🛠️ CLI Commands

Build Commands

# Basic build
autopdf build TEMPLATE [CONFIG]

# With options
autopdf build TEMPLATE [CONFIG] [OPTIONS]

Setting Commands

# Verbose settings
autopdf verbose [LEVEL|on|off]

# Clean settings
autopdf clean [on|off|switch|status]

# Debug settings
autopdf debug [on|off|switch]

# Force settings
autopdf force [on|off|switch]

Utility Commands

# Clean auxiliary files
autopdf clean <path>

# Convert PDF to images
autopdf convert <pdf> <formats>

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.