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Files & bibliography

Real documents are more than one .tex file — they pull in bibliographies, images, and included sub-documents. The files option carries all of them into the compilation sandbox.

Attaching files

Section titled “Attaching files”

files is a Record<string, Buffer>. Each key becomes a filename inside the sandbox, so your LaTeX references them by exactly that name.

import { readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';
import { compile } from '@nandan-varma/platex';


const result = await compile(source, {
  bibliography: 'bibtex',
  files: {
    'refs.bib': await readFile('refs.bib'),
    'figures/logo.png': await readFile('logo.png'),
    'chapters/intro.tex': await readFile('intro.tex'),
  },
});

Given the keys above, your source uses them directly:

\includegraphics{figures/logo.png}
\input{chapters/intro}
\bibliography{refs}

Which maps to this sandbox layout:

  • main.tex (your source)
  • refs.bib
  • Directoryfigures/
    • logo.png
  • Directorychapters/
    • intro.tex

Over HTTP

Section titled “Over HTTP”

When sending files to the remote service (or through a request handler), Buffer values are transported as base64 strings on the wire:

files: {
  'refs.bib': bibBuffer.toString('base64'),
  'logo.png': logoBuffer.toString('base64'),
}

The library handles this conversion for you when you call compile() with real Buffers; you only base64-encode manually when constructing an HTTP request body by hand. See the HTTP API.

Bibliography

Section titled “Bibliography”

The bibliography option chooses the engine used when your document cites sources:

Value Engine When to use
'bibtex' (default) BibTeX Classic \bibliography{} + .bst styles
'biber' Biber biblatex-based documents
'none' — No bibliography processing 
const result = await compile(source, {
  bibliography: 'biber',
  files: { 'refs.bib': await readFile('refs.bib') },
});

With local system TeX Live, platex runs the bibliography tool between LaTeX passes: it detects \citation{} entries in the .aux file, runs bibtex/biber, then re-runs LaTeX so citations and the reference list resolve. With Tectonic (remote/bundled), multi-pass compilation and bibliography are handled internally by the engine.

A complete example

Section titled “A complete example”
import { readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';
import { compile } from '@nandan-varma/platex';


const source = await readFile('main.tex', 'utf-8');


const result = await compile(source, {
  bibliography: 'bibtex',
  files: {
    'refs.bib': await readFile('refs.bib'),
    'figures/plot.pdf': await readFile('figures/plot.pdf'),
  },
});


if (result.pdf) {
  await writeFile('out.pdf', result.pdf);
}

Where to next

Section titled “Where to next”
Compiling LaTeXEvery option on compile() explained.
CLI & watch modeAttach files and directories from the terminal.