TeXML

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title: "TeXML" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["markup-languages"] topic_path: "technology/programming-languages" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeXML" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	TeXML
logo	[[Image:TeXML.svg
developer	Oleg A. Paraschenko
operating_system	Cross-platform
genre	Typesetting
latest_release_version	December 2010
programming_language	Python
license	MIT/X Consortium license
website	http://www.getfo.org/
::

TeXML [tɛχːml] is – as a process – a TeX-based alternative to XSL-FO.

TeXML has been developed as an open-source project with the aim to automatically present XML data as PDF with sophisticated layout properties.

By means of an auxiliary structure definition, TeXML overcomes the syntax-based differences between TeX and XML.

Technically, the markup elements of TeX are described by using the XML syntax.

History

TeXML is a further development of a specification originally defined by Douglas Lovell at IBM, where Structure and Transformation have to be distinguished.

Structure

:The XML definition of the TeXML structure can be considered as being completed since 1999 (TeXML.dtd).

:It represents the markup link between TeX and XML.

Transformation

:The transformation processes run smoothly since the end of 2010, a productive application of the technology is possible.

:The original approach of using a Java application was published by IBM at IBM alphaWorks, but is no longer present. It was presented in a paper at the 1999 annual meeting of the TeX Users Group.

Application

TeXML is used to generate Technical Documentation from XML data.

After the transformation TeXML → TeX, the entire LaTeX-defined range of TeX macros is available.

By means of using TeX macros, it is possible to publish XML data having configurable layout options.

Specials

TeXML allows automatic publication of XML data by means of a typesetting engine, which was originally designed for manual typesetting.
In contrast to publication using the XSL-FO technique layout properties of XML data can be manipulated by using exception rules in the intermediate code.
Exception rules are learned by the publication process, the layout properties are thus enhanced with each generation cycle.
High-speed publishing processes, an increase in speed of up to 100 times compared to XSL-FO based processes, especially in the case of large documents.

TeXML structure

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/TeXML_structure.jpg"] ::

The Document Type Definition (DTD) of the TeXML structure consists of the XML elements:

Root element: TeXML
Encoding commands: cmd
Encoding environments: env
Encoding groups: group
Encoding math groups: math and dmath
Encoding control symbols: ctrl
Encoding special symbols: spec
PDF literals: pdf

Composition of a TeXML document

An example of an XML document, which has already been transformed into the TeXML structure:

::code[lang=latex] \documentclass[a4paper]{article} \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} Misinterpretation of special characters as being functional characters is called "Escaping", thus: $, ^, > ::

TeXML process

The TeXML process transforms XML data which are described in the auxiliary intermediate TeXML structure to TeX:

::code[lang=latex] \documentclass[a4paper]{article} \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \begin{document} Misinterpretation of special characters as being functional characters is called "Escaping", thus: \textdollar{}, ^{}, \textgreater{} \end{document} ::

Supporting processes

Works on the "Data Collection Level" (XML) and on the "Publication Level" (TeX) are supported by different tools, for example:

Data Collection Level: XML editors :– Eclipse (IDE), open source :– other free XML editors
Publication Level: synchronization between code and generated PDF by means of pdfSync:

:– Windows PC: editor MiKTeX :– Mac OS X: editor TeXShop

Literature

Frank Mittelbach *The LaTeX Companion * – Tools and techniques for computer typesetting
Michel Goossens The XeTeX Companion – TeX meets OpenType and Unicode

References

[https://www.tug.org/tug99/bulletin/preprintmap/node1.html], TUG-99

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::