Templating Rules

jtex uses nunjucks, which is a javascript port of Jinja templating language with the modifications to allow easy reading and syntax highlighting with $\LaTeX$. The nunjucks ecosystem is compatible with jinja templates, and they are modified with custom rules.

Syntax¶

Statements can be if-blocks or for-loops, a minimal freeform $\LaTeX$ example illustrating these would be:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\section{Famous People}
%% Print a list of famous people defined in the context dictionary
\begin{itemize}
[# for person in famous_people #]
\item [-person.name-], [-person.job-] [# if person.email #]([-person.email-])[# endif #]
[# endfor #]
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

Other environment differences¶

In addition to the custom syntax we also set the following options:

jinja provide a whole host of tags, expressions and filters at global scope.

Filters¶

Some of the main filters used in the $\LaTeX$ templates, are, for example, join, title, or trim.

template.tex

\keywords{[- doc.keywords | join(", ") -]}

output.tex

\keywords{Keyword1, keyword2}

Controlling Whitespace¶

Jinja allows you to strip all leading or trailing whitespace by adding a minus sign (-) to the start or end block or a variable. See nunjucks docs for more information.

The following expression will ensure that a template block, that may be templated over many lines in the template, will only show up on a single line in the exported LaTeX. In this case the syntax is [#- for blocks and [-- for variables.

[#- if parts.acknowledgments -#]
\section*{Acknowledgments}
[- parts.acknowledgments -]
[#- endif -#]

This can also be used for inline variables that will have the final output only exist on a single line in the final export.

Expressions¶

Note that even though the template is being rendered from a javascript environment, expressions and comparisons are Python-like. That is, they follow and over && as well as not over !.