Load LaTeX documents into MS Word with rendered math-environments, figures, and tables

Make a LateX document easily readable in MS Word, without any file-conversion.

Purpose

• This Word-plugin prepares a LaTeX documents in MS Word such that revision can be done using MS Word itself
• Optional: Use MS Word as a LaTeX editor

Features

• LaTeX-environments are added as pictures in MS Word: Figure, table, math environments (such as equation, align etc.), and LaTeX markup can be hidden or greyed out, by making use of the formatting/hiding features of MS Word
• The prettified .docx (which is in fact a LaTeX file) can be edited further in MS Word, or copied back to your favourite LaTeX editor (just Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C).

Files/Installation

• MS Word template with macros: LatexEditor.dotm. Put this Word template into the start-up folder of MS Word: C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
• LaTeX-ribbon-tab: Word Customizations.exportedUI. In Word, import the customization file in to the ribbon: Right-Click on ribbon -> Customize the Ribbon.... This simple import procedure overwrites other custom ribbons; however, most users have no custom ribbons (ACROBAT and other "professional" add-in ribbon-tabs seems to get preserved).

Features

The macros in the MS Word template let you (all functionality through buttons on the new LaTeX tab in the Word ribbon):

• Preview LaTeX-environments (in current version, all environements are previewed at once): equation, align, table, figure, etc. (see full list below)
• Format some common LaTeX-markup to gray or white, and format text inside label, (eq)ref, cite(tp) to blue (see full list below)
• Format LaTeX-section markups into MS Word headings (see full list below). With this, navigation and section-folding is possible by using MS Word's navigation pane, as well as re-ordering whole sections
• Hide LaTeX-markup (by using the "hidden text" feature of MS Word). See full list of markup below.
• Run pdfLaTeX for the whole Word document and display the resulting .pdf
• Delete LaTeX-markup
• Unicode <-> TeX-conversion of a few characters/markup items (see full list further below):

Prerequisites

• LaTeX installation (with the usual latemk command)

• Installed LaTeX packages: standalone, preview, amsmath, amssymb

• ghostscript installation (e.g. from https://www.ghostscript.com/). For previewing, the macro-code first ask you to browse manually for the .exe, or else it searches the usual 32-bit or 64-bit progam folders on the c-drive (i.e. gswin32c.exe or gswin64c.exe). Info: Ghostcript is used as the .pdf -> .png converter.

• Tick the required References in the VBA-editor of Word (ALT-F11 -> References):

  • VBA Scripting Runtime (or similar named)
  • VBA Regex (or similar named)

  Else the code gives errors: Object not found, etc.

• Trust Center of Word: Add location of macro-file to Trusted Location etc.

Example workflow

1. After you drafted your .tex in your preferred LaTeX-editor, open the .tex in MS Word

• The MS-DOS import setting works for example (other import settings may work, too)
• Optionally: You draft your LaTeX directly in MS Word

2. For a nice viewing in MS Word:
   • Set paragraph spacing to zero
   • Align paragraphs to block
   • LaTeX-comments must be written with two %% to be hidden after the special formatting commands (hiding). Hence, comments with single % are comments in MS Word visible for co-authors
3. Run the corresponding preview command (accessible through the new LaTeX-Ribbon) to insert tables, figures and equations as pictures
4. Prepare the file for revision in MS Word:

• Convert the preview-images into inline pictures (button on LaTeX-Ribbon), then hide the markup completely.

5. If some LaTeX clutter is not recognized by hiding, marke this text and set hidden yourself in MS Word

Note: MS Word programming jargon

• A picture in MS Word can be in the so-called canvas layer, then this picture is called a shape
• Alternatively, a picture can be in the in the so-called document layer (inline with text), then it is called an inline shape.
• If the generated shapes are converted to inline shapes, then a control character is added by Word into the text neaerby.
  • Hence, if you want to copy-back your LaTeX-code to another editor, delete the inline shapes first (which deletes also the hidden control character)
  • Indeed, the LaTeX-Ribbon-command RunLaTeX deletes also all inline shapes in order to be able to to run pdftex on the document.

Bibliography

There is no preview of bibliography, because this can be done in a minute manually:

1. Run the runLaTeX-macro, or use your preferred Latex-editor to produce a .pdf of your work (which has the reference section)
2. Then view the .pdf with word, and paste the reference section at the end

Example: test.docx

Original .tex inside Word

Prettified .tex inside Word

This is the same, valid .tex as before, but just with some text formatted as hidden in MS Word, and title, section etc. formatted by Word's Title, Heading 1, ec., and the environments previewed as pictures (either in the canvas layer (as so-called shapes in MS Word), or in the document layer (as inline shapes).

List of recognized LaTeX markup

The following LaTeX markup is recognized for gray-out coloring or hiding (* = zero or more characters):

• \ref{}, \eqref{3}, \cite[], \label{*}
• \begin{equation*} * \end{equation*}
• \begin{table*}\end{table}
• \begin{figure*}\end{figure}
• \begin{align*}\end{align}
• \begin{multline*}\end{multline}
• \begin{gather*}\end{gather}
• \begin{alignat*}\end{alignat}
• \begin{flalign*}\end{flalign}
• \begin{abstract}*\end{abstract}
• \begin{document}, \end{document}
• \begin{frontmatter}, \end{frontmatter}
• \begin{keyword}, \end{keyword}
• \section*{, \subsection*{, \subsubsection*{
• \usepackage*{*}
• \documentclass*{*}
• \maketitle
• \begin{itemize}, \end{itemize}
• \begin{enumerate}, \end{enumerate}
• \ead{, \corref{}, \cortext{, \address{, \journal{*}
• \medskip, \bigskip, \smallskip, \sep
• \bibliography{*}
• \title{
• \author{, \date{
• %%*^13 (this is a comment line, starting with %%)

The following LaTeX environment are compiled and their picture is added (* = zero or more characters; the * inside braces is literal):

• \begin{equation}*\end{equation}
• \begin{table}*\end{table}
• \begin{figure}*\end{figure}
• \begin{align}*\end{align}
• \begin{multline}*\end{multline}
• \begin{gather}*\end{gather}
• \begin{alignat}*\end{alignat}
• \begin{flalign}*\end{flalign}
• \begin{equation*}\end{equation}
• \begin{table*}\end{table}
• \begin{figure*}\end{figure}
• \begin{align*}\end{align}
• \begin{multline*}\end{multline}
• \begin{gather*}\end{gather}
• \begin{alignat*}\end{alignat}
• \begin{flalign*}\end{flalign}

The text in the following markup gets a word-style font:

• \section -> Heading 1 (MS Word style)
• \subsection -> Heading 2
• \subsubsection -> Heading 3
• \subsubsubsction -> Heading 4
• \title -> Title
• \author, \date -> Subtitle

The following LaTeX-items can be interchanged with UTF characters (4-digit numbers):

• "2022" <-> "\item" (UTF: bullet)
• "00A0" <-> "~" (UTF: non-breaking white-space)
• "2014" <-> "---" (UTF:em-dash)
• "2013" <-> "--" (UTF: en-dash)
• "201C" <-> "``"
• "00AB" <-> "``"
• "201D" <-> "''"
• "00BB" <-> "''"
• "2018" <-> "`"
• "2019" <-> "'"
• "2026" <-> "\textellipsis" (UTF: ...)

Caveats

• Make sure to use only `convert to gray' before previewing (that this, do not hide the LaTeX markup), such that the blue highlighting is not shifted
• Only LaTeX files which consists of ASCII characters only work surely (not UTF files).

Path to the ghostscript executable

You will be asked whether to search for the path yourself (path includes filename), or the program tries to search in "C:\Program Files\gs\gs*\bin\gswin64c.exe" or "C:\Program Files (x86)\gs\gs*\bin\gswin32c.exe".

Limitations/Bugs

• Currently, you can preview and delete all generated pictures only together at once, which may take some time
• Only most common LaTeX-markup is recognized (labels, refs, and cites get not fully deleted)
• Equation numbering is basic (e.g. align gets not multiple equation numbers)
• The snippets of the environments, when converted to inline-shapes, do not wrap properly on a line on their own

Auxiliary info

• To edit the Word-template .dotm, do not double-click in Windows Explorer (this opens a derived new document), but use the Open-dialog from Word
• For conversion of figures and tables, you need the software ghostscript. in fact, a ghostscript executable is also delivered with by the common LaTeX distributions TeXLive or MikTeX, but these are somehow truncated versions seems not to work: in Texlive: "C:...\texlive<year>\tlpkg\tlgs\bin\gswin64c.exe"; in MikTeX: "...\MikTex...\mgs.exe".