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compile-latex

Compile a Beamer LaTeX slide deck with XeLaTeX (3 passes + bibtex). Use when user says "compile", "build the slides", "rebuild the PDF", "run latex", "render the tex", or asks why a `.tex` file isn't producing a PDF. Operates on `Slides/*.tex`.

Published by pedrohcgs ↗pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow

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compile-latex

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Use compile-latex to compile the Beamer deck [filename] with XeLaTeX, resolve bibliography and references, visually verify the resulting PDF, and report compilation status, warning count, undefined citations, and page count.

Required inputs

  • [filename]

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SKILL.md

name: compile-latexdescription: Compile a Beamer LaTeX slide deck with XeLaTeX (3 passes + bibtex). Use when user says "compile", "build the slides", "rebuild the PDF", "run latex", "render the tex", or asks why a `.tex` file isn't producing a PDF. Operates on `Slides/*.tex`.argument-hint: "[filename without .tex extension]"allowed-tools: ["Read", "Bash", "Glob"]

Compile Beamer LaTeX Slides

Compile a Beamer slide deck using XeLaTeX with full citation resolution.

Steps

  1. Navigate to Slides/ directory and compile with 3-pass sequence:
cd Slides
TEXINPUTS=../Preambles:$TEXINPUTS xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode $ARGUMENTS.tex
BIBINPUTS=..:$BIBINPUTS bibtex $ARGUMENTS
TEXINPUTS=../Preambles:$TEXINPUTS xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode $ARGUMENTS.tex
TEXINPUTS=../Preambles:$TEXINPUTS xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode $ARGUMENTS.tex

Alternative (latexmk):

cd Slides
TEXINPUTS=../Preambles:$TEXINPUTS BIBINPUTS=..:$BIBINPUTS latexmk -xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode $ARGUMENTS.tex

  1. Check for warnings:

    • Grep output for Overfull \\hbox warnings
    • Grep for undefined citations or Label(s) may have changed
    • Report any issues found

  2. Open the PDF for visual verification:

    open Slides/$ARGUMENTS.pdf          # macOS
# xdg-open Slides/$ARGUMENTS.pdf    # Linux

  3. Report results:

    • Compilation success/failure
    • Number of overfull hbox warnings
    • Any undefined citations
    • PDF page count

Why 3 passes?

  1. First xelatex: Creates .aux file with citation keys
  2. bibtex: Reads .aux, generates .bbl with formatted references
  3. Second xelatex: Incorporates bibliography
  4. Third xelatex: Resolves all cross-references with final page numbers

Important

  • Always use XeLaTeX, never pdflatex
  • TEXINPUTS is required: your Beamer theme lives in Preambles/
  • BIBINPUTS is required: your .bib file lives in the repo root