Welcome to TeXSmith¶

TeXSmith turns Markdown into press-ready LaTeX — or Typst, with --format typst. Keep your docs authored in Markdown, then compile polished PDFs for print, journals, or long-form review packages—without maintaining several sources of truth. No need to learn LaTeX, install heavy toolchains, or wrestle with complex conversion setups.

Furthermore, TeXSmith is optimized for MkDocs thanks to the TeXSmith MkDocs plugin, which seamlessly integrates into your documentation pipeline.

You can use TeXSmith to generate academic papers, technical reports, letters, minutes, or class materials with diagrams, tables, citations, and more.

Why would I use TeXSmith?¶

TeXSmith bridges the gap between lightweight Markdown authoring and the typographic power of LaTeX. It is ideal for:

• Writing scientific articles.
• Writing product documentation.
• Writing books.
• Writing letters.
• Writing technical reports.
• Writing cooking recipes and more.

The combination with MkDocs provides a single source of truth for both web and PDF output, which improves collaboration because all documentation lives in Markdown in a Git repository. Versioning with MkDocs stays simple and natural.

Why teams choose TeXSmith¶

Pipeline parity

The CLI and Python API share the same conversion engine, so automation scripts and ad-hoc conversions stay in sync.

Template-friendly

Wrap multiple documents into a single LaTeX project, map bodies into template slots, and restyle any construct by redefining its contract macro.

Diagnostics you can trust

Every finding prints in one shape with a stable code, whether the Rust parser or TeXSmith found it. --strict refuses to build a PDF from a document that has one.

The dialect¶

TeXSmith reads TMark: CommonMark, plus the extension set every MkDocs site already loads, plus exactly four syntactic families for what print needs — attributes, roles, container directives and data directives — and two sigils: # defines, @ refers.

See @fig:trace and @sec:boot; the measurement is from @ein05.

![Trace](trace.png){width=60%}

Figure: The watchdog firing twice. {#fig:trace}

::: warning {title="LaTeX toolchain"}
Install TeX Live before `texsmith --build`.
:::

It has a specification, a parser, a canonical printer and a linter, so tmark check FILE tells you exactly what the converter read, and tmark lint --fix FILE rewrites an older document into the canonical spelling. Upgrading from TeXSmith 0.6? See Migrating to TMark.

How is it different from Pandoc?¶

Pandoc is a powerhouse, but reproducing an extended Markdown dialect in Pandoc requires custom filters and ongoing maintenance. TeXSmith delivers parity with the MkDocs world out of the box:

• Handles Material-only components such as tabbed content, callouts, and keyboard keys.
• Ships with diagram converters (Mermaid, Draw.io) that plug directly into the LaTeX build step.
• Exposes the same primitives via the CLI and Python API, so automation scripts match what authors do locally.
• Every construct says how it degrades elsewhere, and Pandoc's own citation grammar is accepted for import.

Use both tools together when it makes sense; reach for TeXSmith when MkDocs → LaTeX compatibility is the priority.