Miscellaneous

Some (maybe) useful tools

#Create booklet from PDF

Use pdfbook2:

pdfbook2 --paper=a4paper --inner-margin=100 file.pdf

You can use options for the --out-margin as well as for top and bottom. Note: if you preview the output pdf, odd pages will be upside-down. That’s what you want if your print settings are Two sided: Long Edge (Standard), Pages per side: 1.

#Increase contrast in a PDF

Convert PDF pages to individual images

convert -density 600 your_pdf_filename.pdf  output-%02d.jpg

Adjust image quality

convert output*.jpg -normalize -threshold 80% final-%02d.jpg

If you want a pdf back:

convert final*.jpg my_new_highcontrast.pdf

See superuser.com for more links and comments.

#Compress (multiple) images

To compress one image:

convert image.jpg -quality 50% image-compressed.jpg

To compress all images in the folder where you are (output of pwd)

for i in *; do convert $i -quality 50% $i-out.jpg ; done;

See askubuntu.

#Compress PDF

Assuming that these are PDF containing only large images, this works well:

ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook input.pdf output.pdf

The other options for dPDFSETTINGS are: /screen lower quality, smaller size. (72 dpi)

/ebook for better quality, but slightly larger pdfs (150 dpi)

/prepress output similar to Acrobat Distiller “Prepress Optimized” setting (300 dpi)

/printer selects output similar to the Acrobat Distiller “Print Optimized” setting (300 dpi)

/default selects output intended to be useful across a wide variety of uses (possibly larger output)

#Grayscale output

To generate a PDF in grayscale (useful for printing) in $\LaTeX$

\usepackage{xcolor}             % for output 
\selectcolormodel{gray}         % in grayscale

Note: external figures will stay in their original colour. See TeXstackexchange and latex.org.

#Break display equations on multiple pages

Use the command \allowdisplaybreaks, see this for more options.

The environments split and aligned should prevent a block from page breaks.

#biblatex/biber

You can keep your bibliography in a single .bib file in a separated repository, and include it via git submodule in each of your project. Here are some reasons for which you may wish to do so.

biber supports multiple keys: they are called IDS, see this question.

#latexdiff-git

Generate a PDF to view diff on LaTeX source between commits. For example:

latexdiff-git --revision e26bbec file.tex

where you want to replace e26bbec with your commit hash.

Use --flatten if you are including other sources with \input or \include in your TeX.

#git

#git: tags

Use git tag -l to list all tags. To add the tag v0.7 on the last commit:

git tag v0.7 -m "This is an odd version"

#git: compare two commits

Run git show to see the difference between HEAD and the last commit. Run

git diff HEAD~3        (diff between working tree  and the last 3 commits)
git diff HEAD~3 HEAD   (diff between     HEAD      and the last 3 commits)

Note: git show = last commit log + git diff HEAD~1 HEAD. Use

git show HEAD file.tex

to show the difference for a single file. See stackoverflow

#git: compare two files in different branches

git diff branch1 branch2 myfile.cs

As suggested in stackoverflow.

#git: history of a file

git log -p -- file.tex

#git: history around a line

For the chunk of lines: 313 – 316 for example:

git log --topo-order --graph -u -L313,316:file.tex

#git: rebasing

To rebase a branch onto master, first checkout the branch

git checkout brach_to_rebase

from there, tell git where to rebase it, for example:

git rebase master

To rebase interactively the last 2 commits (from HEAD), or to squash the last commit

git rebase -i HEAD~2

#git: pull & rebase

To pull and rebase your recents commits on top:

git pull origin --rebase

Set this by default via: git config --global pull.rebase true. There are several merging strategies, the most common are: resolve, recursive and octopus.🐙

#git: worktree

Add a new worktree tracking an existing remote branch:

git worktree add <path> <remote>/<branch>

Use -b <new_branch> to track the worktree in a local branch. See my answer on stackexchange.

#git: delete remote branch

Simply git push with a -d flag, then specify the name of the remote branch:

git push -d origin branch

#TableMode

Tables in Emacs

Run: M-x table-insert and fill the table. When you are done, use M-x table-generate-source to generate code in HTML, LaTeX, Wiki and Mediawiki, and more.

#Magit

Use git inside Emacs.

Run: M-x magit-status to see git status. From the status buffer you can:

  • stage files with s , or with M-x magit-stage-file
  • commit your changes with c c (type the message then C-c C-c to actually commit),
  • do a git push P u or a git pull F u.

Rebase commits marked with !squash automatically with M-x magit-rebase-autosquash.

You can use F – (“Instant Fixup”) to performs a rebase after creating the !fixup commit. See emacs.stackexchage

#Emerge

Merge two file in Emacs.

Run: M-x emerge-files and choose the two files. Then use the following shortcuts:

  • Next difference with n,
  • Previous difference with p

For a difference, you can choose: the A version (left) with a and the B version (right) with b.

Use q to quit and then save the merge (buffer) in a file.

#Convert

#Pandoc

Convert epub in PDF.

pandoc -f epub -t latex --latex-engine=xelatex file.epub -o file.pdf

Other format and options in the manual.

#Convert multiple files

for f in /path/*.jpg /path/*.JPG; do
    convert "$f" "${f%.*}.gif"
done
See [askubuntu](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1161473/convert-every-file-from-jpeg-to-gif-in-terminal)

#Convert doc to pdf

lowriter --convert-to pdf file.doc

See askubuntu

#Convert SVG to PDF

Use Inkscape in a shell:

inkscape file.svg --export-area-drawing --batch-process --export-type=pdf --export-filename=output.pdf

See graphicdesign.stackexchange.

#Convert SVG to TeX

Include it directly as explained here or use Inkscape in a shell:

inkscape -D -z --file=image.svg --export-pdf=image.pdf --export-latex

See tex.stackexchange.

#String to QR code

Install qrencode, then (for a vectorial output):

echo "https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.09580" | qrencode -t SVG > QR.svg

See superuser.com.

#rsync

Sync a local folder with a remote one. ( See unix.stackexchange )

rsync -auv "source_folder/" "user@<source>:<dest_dir>/"

Copy files for backup.

rsync -gloptrunc $srcdir $dstdir

A brief guide, from serverfault.com:

  • g - preserve group ownership info
  • l - copy symlinks as symlinks
  • o - preserve owner info
  • p - preserve permissions
  • t - preserve timestamps
  • r - recurse thru directories
  • u - update, skip any newer files
  • [n] - no, dont do this, do a dry run instead
  • c - checksum, attempt checksums on file blocks when possible (*) note: on local filesystems, this get overridden and entire files are copied instead.
  • v - verbose

#Change PDF metadata

From command line:

exiftool -Title="This is the Title" -Author="Happy Man" -overwrite_original file.pdf

See askubuntu. My friend Andrea developed a user friendly GUI for this task. You can see metadata with pdfinfo.

#Roughly count words in a PDF

pdftotext myfile.pdf - | wc -w

See this question on superuser for more options.

#Count words in a $\TeX$ or $\LaTeX$ file

Use texcount:

texcount -1 -sum -inc file.tex
  • -inc to parse files called with \include and \input,
  • -sum to show the total
  • -1: Same as specifying -brief and -total, to ensure only one output line. Used with -sum to print the total number only.

See the texcount manual.

#Include SVG into TeX

Use the svg package and compile with the option --shell-escape to run Inkscape during compilation.

\usepackage{svg}
[...]
\begin{figure}[tbh]
    \centering
    \includesvg[scale=1.2]{test-svg}
    \caption{Included SVG file}\label{fig:testsvg}
\end{figure}
See [stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/75896765).

#Placement options with LaTeX figures

The order does not matter.

  • h means here (if there is enough room left on the page)
  • t means top: Place it at the top of a page.
  • b means bottom: Place it at the bottom of a page.
  • p means page: Place it on a page containing only floats, such as figures and tables.
  • ! allows to ignore certain parameters of LaTeX for float placement.

See more on TeX.stackexhange.

#Maths symbols in unicode in table of content (toc)

To render maths symbols in section titles, you can use \texorpdfstring :

\texorpdfstring{TeX command}{PDF string you want}

For example: \section{The \texorpdfstring{$(\mu, W)$}{(μ,W)} manifold $M$}.

#Icelandic and accented characters in $\LaTeX$

Reykjavík -> Reykjav\'{\i}k
Tæknigarður -> T{\ae}knigar{\dh}ur
Göteborg -> G\"{o}teborg

See also Pavel Zorin-Kranich page about $\LaTeX$ tools and best practice

Suggestions on How to write maths.

Other useful tools

#reMarkable

Scripts for the reMarkable are here

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