LaTeXiS — Intelligent LaTeX Assistant for Spanish‑speaking Researchers (VS Code)
LaTeXiS is a VS Code extension designed to simplify LaTeX writing for Spanish-speaking students, researchers, and thesis writers. It streamlines inserting figures, equations, tables, and managing references with easy-to-use commands.
Project scope and philosophy (v0.2)
LaTeXiS is not a snippet collection.
It is a productivity-oriented academic LaTeX toolkit designed to support real research workflows: long theses, multi-file projects, frequent revisions, and iterative writing.
Core principles:
- Minimal commands, maximum impact.
- One command per domain (references, tables, figures, TODOs, compilation, scaffolding).
- Automation over configuration.
- Safe operations (idempotent, no silent overwrites).
- Clear feedback to the user (warnings > hard errors).
- Centralized preamble management (all packages are maintained in config.tex).
Quick start (3 steps)
- Open your LaTeX project in VS Code.
- Use the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) to run LaTeXiS commands.
- Insert figures, equations, tables, or manage references with simple prompts and automatic formatting.
Package management model
LaTeXiS enforces a single-source-of-truth preamble model.
- All LaTeX packages (
\usepackage{...}) are automatically inserted into config.tex.
main.tex remains minimal and structural (documentclass, inputs, document flow).- This avoids duplicated packages, keeps large projects readable, and simplifies maintenance.
If config.tex does not exist, LaTeXiS falls back to inserting packages into main.tex.
Main commands
Gestionar referencias
Insert and manage references easily by DOI or Title. LaTeXiS fetches metadata and updates your bibliography automatically.
Bibliography setup is split intentionally:
- Packages and bibliography resources are configured in
config.tex.
\printbibliography is inserted into main.tex before \end{document} when needed.
Insert reference by DOI example:
@article{sample2023,
author = {Author, A.},
title = {Sample Article},
journal = {Journal Name},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1234/exampledoi}
}
Insert reference by Title example:
Search by title keywords; LaTeXiS retrieves matching entries from OpenAlex or Crossref.
Typical workflow:
- Run
LaTeXiS: Gestionar referencias
- Choose insertion method (DOI or Title)
- LaTeXiS fetches metadata (OpenAlex / Crossref)
- Bibliography files are updated
\autocite{} is inserted at the cursor position
User result:
- Clean BibLaTeX entries
- No duplicate references
- Correct citation keys
- Fully automated bibliography setup
Insertar tabla
Desde Excel
Import formatted tables from .xlsx files, preserving merges and alignment.
Example output:
\begin{table}[hbtp]
\centering
\caption{Descripción de la tabla}
\label{tab:excel-table}
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
\toprule
Nombre & Apellido & Edad \\
\midrule
Jose & Fernandez & 25 \\
Maria & Martinez & 20 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
What LaTeXiS handles automatically:
- Clean LaTeX table formatting
- Preservation of merged cells and alignment
- Required packages are added to config.tex automatically (never to main.tex).
Desde portapapeles
Paste tab-separated data copied from Excel or Sheets directly as a clean LaTeX table.
Example output:
\begin{table}[H]
\centering
\caption{Descripción de la tabla}
\label{tab:etiquetaTabla}
\begin{tabular}{llr}
\toprule
Nombre & Apellido & Edad \\
\midrule
Jose & Fernandez & 25 \\
Maria & Martinez & 20 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
User result:
- Clean LaTeX tables using
booktabs
- No manual column alignment
- No broken formatting
- Ready-to-compile tables in one step
Insertar figura
Insert figures with automatic package management and image path setup. Supports multiple layouts and pasting images from the clipboard.
Example output (standard figure):
\begin{figure}[H]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{mi_imagen}
\caption{Descripción de la figura}
\label{fig:etiqueta}
\end{figure}
What LaTeXiS handles automatically:
- Figure environment creation
- Image path management
- Required package detection
- Figure folder creation if missing
- Required packages are added to config.tex automatically (never to main.tex).
User result:
- Zero manual LaTeX boilerplate
- Consistent figure insertion across the project
Insertar ecuación
Insert common math environments with correct formatting and line breaks.
Example output (align*):
\begin{align*}
\nabla \cdot \vec{E} &= \frac{\rho}{\varepsilon_0} \\
\nabla \cdot \vec{B} &= 0
\end{align*}
User result:
- Correct math environments
- Consistent formatting
- Faster writing of mathematical content
- Required packages are added to config.tex automatically (never to main.tex).
Embedded TODO management
LaTeXiS allows you to manage TODOs directly inside LaTeX source files, without external tools or additional workflows.
TODOs are treated as a natural part of the academic writing process and are fully integrated with the real document structure.
TODO syntax
% TODO: Review experimental results
- TODOs are detected exclusively inside LaTeX comments.
- They never interfere with compilation.
- Safe for large, multi-file projects.
LaTeXiS provides a persistent sidebar view that organizes TODOs in a hierarchical and navigable structure:
File
└─ Chapter
└─ Section / Subsection
└─ TODO
Features:
- Grouping by
.tex file
- Structured by
\chapter, \section, \subsection, \subsubsection
- Automatic counters per file and section
- Real ordering based on document appearance
- Click a TODO → opens the file and positions the cursor
- Auto-refresh: the view updates automatically on save
Command:
LaTeXiS: TODOs (Sidebar)
User outcome:
- Clear overview of pending work
- Immediate navigation between tasks
- Ideal for theses, books, and long academic reports
Markdown report generation (optional)
In addition to the interactive view, LaTeXiS can generate a static report.
Command:
LaTeXiS: TODOs (Markdown list)
What it does:
- Scans all
.tex files in the project
- Fully regenerates
TODOS.md
- Groups TODOs by file and section
Example (TODOS.md):
## chapters/introduction.tex
- Line 29: Clearly define the research problem.
- Line 38: List the general and specific objectives of the thesis.
## chapters/methodology.tex
- Line 17: Review experimental setup.
Philosophy
- No external dependencies
- No proprietary formats
- TODOs live where knowledge is written
- Designed for real academic writing workflows
Final result:
A lightweight, structural, and fully integrated task system for LaTeX projects.
Draft mode / fast compilation
Large academic projects can become slow to compile.
LaTeXiS introduces a draft compilation mode focused on the active chapter.
Command
LaTeXiS: Alternar modo borrador (compilación rápida)
How it works
- Detects the currently active chapter file.
- Compiles only that chapter using
\includeonly.
- Integrates with LaTeX Workshop (no replacement).
- Does not permanently modify the project.
User result:
- Much faster compilation
- Faster feedback loop while writing
- Ideal for daily thesis work
Writing metrics (experimental)
LaTeXiS includes an experimental writing metrics engine designed for long academic LaTeX documents.
Its goal is to provide real‑time, lightweight, and language‑agnostic feedback on the structure of academic writing.
The metrics are calculated only on the effective document content (between \begin{document} and \end{document}), including all files brought in via \input{} and \include{}.
Metrics currently supported
1. Word count
A word is defined as:
- A contiguous sequence of Unicode letters or digits.
- Numbers with decimal separators (
3.1415, 125,153.14) are treated as a single word.
- LaTeX commands, comments, math environments, and references are excluded.
- Punctuation marks do not create new words.
This approach avoids over‑counting in scientific texts that contain formulas, constants, or numeric values.
2. Paragraph count
A paragraph is defined as:
- A block of non‑empty text separated by one or more blank lines.
- Paragraphs must contain at least one valid word.
- Structural commands such as
\chapter, \section, etc. do not count as paragraphs by themselves.
This definition matches the way paragraphs are understood in academic writing rather than visual formatting.
3. Sentence count
Sentence detection is the most complex metric and uses a heuristic, entropy‑inspired segmentation algorithm.
A sentence boundary is detected based on contextual information, not on fixed dictionaries or hard‑coded abbreviations.
The algorithm considers:
- Terminal punctuation (
., ?, !) as candidates, not guarantees.
- The number of spaces or line breaks after punctuation.
- The length and structure of the token before the punctuation.
- The type of character following the punctuation (uppercase letter, lowercase letter, LaTeX command).
- Local predictability of the surrounding characters (inspired by Shannon entropy).
This allows LaTeXiS to correctly handle:
- Abbreviations such as
Dr., Dra., etc. without relying on language‑specific lists.
- Decimal numbers (
3.1415, 125,153.14) without splitting sentences.
- Scientific writing patterns common in LaTeX documents.
- Sentences followed by LaTeX commands (e.g. citations).
The design goal is robustness and scalability across languages, rather than perfect linguistic parsing.
Design principles
- No external NLP libraries.
- No large language models.
- No language‑specific dictionaries.
- Linear‑time processing suitable for real‑time updates in VS Code.
These metrics are intended to support self‑review and structural awareness, not to replace formal linguistic analysis tools.
Future versions may expose additional metrics and configuration options.
Academic project scaffolding
LaTeXiS can generate a complete academic project structure from scratch.
Command
LaTeXiS: Crear nuevo proyecto académico
Guided workflow
- Select document type:
- Article
- Report
- Thesis / Book
- Enter project title.
- Automatic directory name normalization.
- Choose creation mode:
- Empty directory
- Merge (no overwrite)
- Automatic subfolder
- Project structure is generated.
- Shared assets (figures) are copied.
Example structure (thesis)
my_thesis/
├── main.tex
├── config.tex
├── chapters/
│ ├── introduction.tex
│ ├── methodology.tex
│ └── conclusions.tex
├── figures/
│ └── img_template.png
└── bibliography/
User result:
- Clean, standardized project layout
- No manual setup
- Ready-to-write LaTeX project in seconds
Roadmap
- Enhanced metadata refinement for references
- ISBN and URL imports for citations
- Support for cell colors and typography in Excel tables
- Additional figure templates and customization options
- Modularizing codebase for easier maintenance
Requirements
- VS Code (latest version recommended)
- LaTeX distribution (TeX Live / MiKTeX / MacTeX)
- For references: biber backend
Clipboard image pasting may require OS-specific tools:
- macOS:
pngpaste (brew install pngpaste)
- Linux:
xclip with PNG support
- Windows: No extra tools needed
Author & License
Developed by Luis Robles
Email: albert.physik@gmail.com
Licensed under MIT License.
