NAME

       detex - a filter to strip TeX commands from a .tex file.

SYNOPSIS

       detex [ -clnstw ] [ -e environment-list ] [ filename[.tex] ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       Detex  reads  each  file  in  sequence,  removes  all  comments  and TeX control sequences and writes the
       remainder on the standard output.  All text in math mode and display mode is removed.  By default,  detex
       follows  \input  commands.   If  a file cannot be opened, a warning message is printed and the command is
       ignored.  If the -n option is used, no \input or \include commands will be processed.  This allows single
       file processing.  If no input file is given on the command line, detex reads from standard input.

       If the magic sequence ``\begin{document}'' appears in the text, detex assumes it is  dealing  with  LaTeX
       source  and  detex  recognizes  additional  constructs  used  in  LaTeX.   These include the \include and
       \includeonly commands.  The -l option can be used to force LaTeX mode and the -t option can  be  used  to
       force TeX mode regardless of input content.

       Text  in various environment modes of LaTeX is ignored.  The default modes are array, eqnarray, equation,
       longtable, picture, tabular and verbatim.  The -e option  can  be  used  to  specify  a  comma  separated
       environment-list  of  environments to ignore.  The list replaces the defaults so specifying an empty list
       effectively causes no environments to be ignored.

       The -c option can be used in LaTeX mode to have detex echo the arguments to  \cite,  \ref,  and  \pageref
       macros.  This can be useful when sending the output to a style checker.

       Detex  assumes  the  standard character classes are being used for TeX.  Detex allows white space between
       control sequences and magic characters like `{' when recognizing things like LaTeX environments.

       The -r option tries to naively replace  $..$,  $$..$$,  \(..\)  and  \[..\]  with  nouns  and  verbs  (in
       particular, "noun" and "verbs") in a way that keeps sentences readable.

       If  the  -w  flag  is  given,  the  output  is a word list, one `word' (string of two or more letters and
       apostrophes beginning with a letter) per line, and all other characters ignored.  Without -w  the  output
       follows  the  original,  with  the  deletions  mentioned  above.   Newline characters are preserved where
       possible so that the lines of output match the input as closely as possible.

       The -1 option will prefix each printed line with `filename:linenumber:` indicating  where  that  line  is
       coming from in terms of the original (La)TeX document.

       The  TEXINPUTS environment variable is used to find \input and \include files.  Like TeX, it interprets a
       leading or trailing `:' as the default TEXINPUTS.  It does not support the `//' directory expansion magic
       sequence.

       Detex now handles the basic TeX ligatures as a special case,  replacing  the  ligatures  with  acceptable
       character  substitutes.   This  eliminates  spelling  errors  introduced  by  merely  removing them.  The
       ligatures are \aa, \ae, \oe, \ss, \o, \l (and  their  upper-case  equivalents).   The  special  "dotless"
       characters \i and \j are also replaced with i and j respectively.

       Note  that  previous  versions of detex would replace control sequences with a space character to prevent
       words from running together.  However, this caused accents  in  the  middle  of  words  to  break  words,
       generating  "spelling  errors"  that were not desirable.  Therefore, the new version merely removes these
       accents.  The old functionality can be essentially duplicated by using the -s option.

SEE ALSO

       tex(1)

DIAGNOSTICS

       Nesting of \input is allowed but the number of opened files must not exceed the  system's  limit  on  the
       number  of  simultaneously  opened  files.  Detex ignores unrecognized option characters after printing a
       warning message.

AUTHOR

       Originally written by Daniel Trinkle, Computer Science Department, Purdue University.

       Maintained by Piotr Kubowicz <https://github.com/pkubowicz/opendetex>.

BUGS

       Detex is not a TeX interpreter (it essentially reads the input with a (f)lex program), so  it  is  easily
       confused by some constructs. Most errors result in too much rather than too little output.

       Running LaTeX source without a ``\begin{document}'' through detex may produce errors.

       Suggestions for improvements are (mildly) encouraged.

TeX Live                                        15 September 2022                                       DETEX(1)