git-latexdiff_ps

Overview

This repository contains a PowerShell script, git-latexdiff.ps1, designed to generate a LaTeX diff between two Git commits or branches (i.e generate a pdf containing the difference between two commits or branches in a tex repository). The script leverages Git and LaTeX tools to create a visual diff of a LaTeX document, highlighting changes between the specified versions. The script should be run from the repository directory.

There is already a git-latexdiff tool available here, but it only runs in Bash and does not have a standalone executable for Windows. This PowerShell version, while less featured, gets the task done natively in Windows systems using powershell.

Features

• Compare LaTeX documents between two Git commits or branches.
• Automatically detects the main LaTeX file if not specified.
• Supports BibTeX integration.
• Customizable output PDF file name.
• Option to suppress verbose output and clean up temporary files.
• Compatible with the system's default PDF viewer or a specified viewer.

Requirements

• Git
• Perl
• latexpand
• latexdiff
• (Optional) BibTeX

These tools should be installed and accessible from the console. You will not be needing this script if you do not have Git installed in your system. If you use MiKTeX for compiling TeX files, latexpand and latexdiff can be easily installed from the MiKTeX console. To install perl search for strawberry perl and install it (confirm that perl.exe is acessable from the powershell console by running the command perl -v).

Note on BibTeX

If BibTeX is not available, you should use the -NoBibtex flag while running the script to skip the BibTeX step.

Parameters

• Old: The old commit or branch to compare from. Default is HEAD.
• New: The new commit or branch to compare to. Default is -- (working directory).
• Main: The main LaTeX file to use. If not specified, the script will try to detect it.
• NoView: Do not open the resulting PDF file.
• NoBibtex: Do not run BibTeX. By default, BibTeX is run.
• Output: The output PDF file name. Default is diff.pdf.
• TmpdirPrefix: The prefix for the temporary directory. Default is the system's TEMP directory.
• Silent: Suppress verbose output.
• NoCleanup: Do not clean up temporary files.
• Help: Show help information.
• PdfViewer: The PDF viewer to use. Default is the system's default viewer.

Usage

To use the script, run the following command in PowerShell:

git-latexdiff.ps1 -Old "commit1" -New "commit2" -Main "main.tex" -Output "diff_output.pdf"

This command compares the LaTeX document main.tex between commit1 and commit2, and outputs the diff to diff_output.pdf. The commit1 and commit2 can the hashes of the corresponding commits, branch names or the pointer to a commit such as HEAD~1, HEAD~2etc.

Additional Setup

To use this script, add the directory containing git-latexdiff.ps1 to the system PATH.

If you are running a ps1 file in the PowerShell for the first time, set the execution policy in PowerShell by executing the following command as an administrator:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

License

I do not know much about licensing. I made this script for my personal use since I like to use PowerShell to get things done. You can do whatever you want with the script unless it’s something illegal. I will not be responsible for anything you do with this script, and it does not come with any guarantees.