Ubuntu Manpage: latexdiff - determine and markup differences between two latex files

NAME

       latexdiff - determine and markup differences between two latex files

SYNOPSIS

       latexdiff [ OPTIONS ] old.tex new.tex > diff.tex

DESCRIPTION

Briefly, latexdiff is a utility program to aid in the management of revisions of latex documents. It
compares two valid latex files, here called "old.tex" and "new.tex", finds significant differences
between them (i.e., ignoring the number of white spaces and position of line breaks), and adds special
commands to highlight the differences. Where visual highlighting is not possible, e.g. for changes in
the formatting, the differences are nevertheless marked up in the source.

The program treats the preamble differently from the main document. Differences between the preambles
are found using line-based differencing (similarly to the Unix diff command, but ignoring white spaces).
A comment, ""%DIF >"" is appended to each added line, i.e. a line present in "new.tex" but not in
"old.tex". Discarded lines
are deactivated by prepending ""%DIF <"". Changed blocks are preceded by comment lines giving
information about line numbers in the original files. Where there are insignificant differences, the
resulting file "diff.tex" will be similar to "new.tex". At the end of the preamble, the definitions for
latexdiff markup commands are inserted. In differencing the main body of the text, latexdiff attempts to
satisfy the following guidelines (in order of priority):

1. If both "old.tex" and "new.tex" are valid LaTeX, then the resulting "diff.tex" should also be valid
LateX. (NB If a few plain TeX commands are used within "old.tex" or "new.tex" then "diff.tex" is not
guaranteed to work but usually will).

2. Significant differences are determined on the level of individual words. All significant differences,
including differences between comments should be clearly marked in the resulting source code
"diff.tex".

3. If a changed passage contains text or text-producing commands, then running "diff.tex" through LateX
should produce output where added and discarded passages are highlighted.

4. Where there are insignificant differences, e.g. in the positioning of line breaks, "diff.tex" should
follow the formatting of "new.tex"

For differencing the same algorithm as diff is used but words instead of lines are compared. An attempt
is made to recognize blocks which are completely changed such that they can be marked up as a unit.
Comments are differenced line by line but the number of spaces within comments is ignored. Commands
including all their arguments are generally compared as one unit, i.e., no mark-up is inserted into the
arguments of commands. However, for a selected number of commands (for example, "\caption" and all
sectioning commands) the last argument is known to be text. This text is split into words and differenced
just as ordinary text (use options to show and change the list of text commands, see below). As the
algorithm has no detailed knowledge of LaTeX, it assumes all pairs of curly braces immediately following
a command (i.e. a sequence of letters beginning with a backslash) are arguments for that command. As a
restriction to condition 1 above it is thus necessary to surround all arguments with curly braces, and to
not insert extraneous spaces. For example, write

\section{\textem{This is an emphasized section title}}

and not

\section {\textem{This is an emphasized section title}}

\section\textem{This is an emphasized section title}

even though all varieties are the same to LaTeX (but see --allow-spaces option which allows the second
variety).

For environments whose content does not conform to standard LaTeX or where graphical markup does not make
sense all markup commands can be removed by setting the PICTUREENV configuration variable, set by default
to "picture" and "DIFnomarkup" environments; see --config option). The latter environment
("DIFnomarkup") can be used to protect parts of the latex file where the markup results in illegal
markup. You have to surround the offending passage in both the old and new file by "\begin{DIFnomarkup}"
and "\end{DIFnomarkup}". You must define the environment in the preambles of both old and new documents.
I prefer to define it as a null-environment,

"\newenvironment{DIFnomarkup}{}{}"

but the choice is yours. Any markup within the environment will be removed, and generally everything
within the environment will just be taken from the new file.

It is also possible to difference files which do not have a preamble.
In this case, the file is processed in the main document mode, but the definitions of the markup
commands are not inserted.

All markup commands inserted by latexdiff begin with ""\DIF"". Added blocks containing words, commands
or comments which are in "new.tex" but not in "old.tex" are marked by "\DIFaddbegin" and "\DIFaddend".
Discarded blocks are marked by "\DIFdelbegin" and "\DIFdelend". Within added blocks all text is
highlighted with "\DIFadd" like this: "\DIFadd{Added text block}" Selected `safe' commands can be
contained in these text blocks as well (use options to show and change the list of safe commands, see
below). All other commands as well as braces "{" and "}" are never put within the scope of "\DIFadd".
Added comments are marked by prepending ""%DIF > "".

Within deleted blocks text is highlighted with "\DIFdel". Deleted comments are marked by prepending
""%DIF < "". Non-safe command and curly braces within deleted blocks are commented out with
""%DIFDELCMD < "".

OPTIONS

Preamble
The following options determine the visual markup style by adding the appropriate command definitions to
the preamble. See the end of this section for a description of available styles.

--type=markupstyle or -t markupstyle
Add code to preamble for selected markup style. This option defines "\DIFadd" and "\DIFdel" commands.
Available styles:

"UNDERLINE CTRADITIONAL TRADITIONAL CFONT FONTSTRIKE INVISIBLE CHANGEBAR CCHANGEBAR CULINECHBAR
CFONTCBHBAR BOLD"

[ Default: "UNDERLINE" ]

--subtype=markstyle or -s markstyle
Add code to preamble for selected style for bracketing commands (e.g. to mark changes in margin).
This option defines "\DIFaddbegin", "\DIFaddend", "\DIFdelbegin" and "\DIFdelend" commands.
Available styles: "SAFE MARGIN COLOR DVIPSCOL ZLABEL ONLYCHANGEDPAGE (LABEL)*"

[ Default: "SAFE" ] * Subtype "LABEL" is deprecated

--floattype=markstyle or -f markstyle
Add code to preamble for selected style which replace standard marking and markup commands within
floats (e.g., marginal remarks cause an error within floats so marginal marking can be disabled
thus). This option defines all "\DIF...FL" commands. Available styles: "FLOATSAFE TRADITIONALSAFE
IDENTICAL"

[ Default: "FLOATSAFE" ]

--encoding=enc or -e enc
Specify encoding of old.tex and new.tex. Typical encodings are "ascii", "utf8", "latin1", "latin9".
A list of available encodings can be obtained by executing

"perl -MEncode -e 'print join ("\n",Encode-"encodings( ":all" )) ;' >

[Default encoding is utf8 unless the first few lines of the preamble contain an invocation
"\usepackage[..]{inputenc}" in which case the encoding chosen by this command is asssumed. Note that
ASCII (standard latex) is a subset of utf8]

--preamble=file or -p file
Insert file at end of preamble instead of generating preamble. The preamble must define the
following commands "\DIFaddbegin, \DIFaddend, \DIFadd{..}, \DIFdelbegin,\DIFdelend,\DIFdel{..}," and
varieties for use within floats "\DIFaddbeginFL, \DIFaddendFL, \DIFaddFL{..}, \DIFdelbeginFL,
\DIFdelendFL, \DIFdelFL{..}" (If this option is set -t, -s, and -f options are ignored.)

--packages=pkg1,pkg2,..
Tell latexdiff that .tex file is processed with the packages in list loaded. This is normally not
necessary if the .tex file includes the preamble, as the preamble is automatically scanned for
"\usepackage" commands. Use of the --packages option disables automatic scanning, so if for any
reason package specific parsing needs to be switched off, use --packages=none. The following
packages trigger special behaviour:

"amsmath"
Configuration variable MATHARRREPL is set to "align*" (Default: "eqnarray*"). (Note that many
of the amsmath array environments are already recognised by default as such)

"endfloat"
Ensure that "\begin{figure}" and "\end{figure}" always appear by themselves on a line.

"hyperref"
Change name of "\DIFadd" and "\DIFdel" commands to "\DIFaddtex" and "\DIFdeltex" and define
new "\DIFadd" and "\DIFdel" commands, which provide a wrapper for these commands, using them
for the text but not for the link defining command (where any markup would cause errors).

"apacite"
Redefine the commands recognised as citation commands.

"siunitx"
Treat "\SI" as equivalent to citation commands (i.e. protect with "\mbox" if markup style
uses ulem package.

"cleveref"
Treat "\cref,\Cref", etc as equivalent to citation commands (i.e. protect with "\mbox" if
markup style uses ulem package.

"glossaries"
Define most of the glossaries commands as safe, protecting them with \mbox'es where needed

"mhchem"
Treat "\ce" as a safe command, i.e. it will be highlighted (note that "\cee" will not be
highlighted in equations as this leads to processing errors)

"chemformula" or "chemmacros"
Treat "\ch" as a safe command outside equations, i.e. it will be highlighted (note that "\ch"
will not be highlighted in equations as this leads to processing errors)

[ Default: scan the preamble for "\usepackage" commands to determine
loaded packages. ]

--show-preamble
Print generated or included preamble commands to stdout.

Configuration
--exclude-safecmd=exclude-file or -A exclude-file or --exclude-safecmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
--replace-safecmd=replace-file
--append-safecmd=append-file or -a append-file or --append-safecmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
Exclude from, replace or append to the list of regular expressions (RegEx) matching commands which
are safe to use within the scope of a "\DIFadd" or "\DIFdel" command. The file must contain one
Perl-RegEx per line (Comment lines beginning with # or % are ignored). Note that the RegEx needs to
match the whole of the token, i.e., /^regex$/ is implied and that the initial "\" of the command is
not included. The --exclude-safecmd and --append-safecmd options can be combined with the
---replace-safecmd option and can be used repeatedly to add cumulatively to the lists.
--exclude-safecmd and --append-safecmd can also take a comma separated list as input. If a comma for
one of the regex is required, escape it thus "\,". In most cases it will be necessary to protect the
comma-separated list from the shell by putting it in quotation marks.

--exclude-textcmd=exclude-file or -X exclude-file or --exclude-textcmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
--replace-textcmd=replace-file
--append-textcmd=append-file or -x append-file or --append-textcmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
Exclude from, replace or append to the list of regular expressions matching commands whose last
argument is text. See entry for --exclude-safecmd directly above for further details.

--replace-context1cmd=replace-file
--append-context1cmd=append-file or =item --append-context1cmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
Replace or append to the list of regex matching commands whose last argument is text but which
require a particular context to work, e.g. \caption will only work within a figure or table. These
commands behave like text commands, except when they occur in a deleted section, when they are
disabled, but their argument is shown as deleted text.

--replace-context2cmd=replace-file
--append-context2cmd=append-file or =item --append-context2cmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
As corresponding commands for context1. The only difference is that context2 commands are completely
disabled in deleted sections, including their arguments.

--exclude-mboxsafecmd=exclude-file or --exclude-mboxsafecmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
--append-mboxsafecmd=append-file or --append-mboxsafecmd="cmd1,cmd2,..."
Define safe commands, which additionally need to be protected by encapsulating in an \\mbox{..}. This
is sometimes needed to get around incompatibilities between external packages and the ulem package,
which is used for highlighting in the default style UNDERLINE as well as CULINECHBAR CFONTSTRIKE

--config var1=val1,var2=val2,... or -c var1=val1,..
-c configfile
Set configuration variables. The option can be repeated to set different variables (as an
alternative to the comma-separated list). Available variables (see below for further explanations):

"ARRENV" (RegEx)

"COUNTERCMD" (RegEx)

"FLOATENV" (RegEx)

"ITEMCMD" (RegEx)

"LISTENV" (RegEx)

"MATHARRENV" (RegEx)

"MATHARRREPL" (String)

"MATHENV" (RegEx)

"MATHREPL" (String)

"MINWORDSBLOCK" (integer)

"PICTUREENV" (RegEx)

--show-safecmd
Print list of RegEx matching and excluding safe commands.

--show-textcmd
Print list of RegEx matching and excluding commands with text argument.

--show-config
Show values of configuration variables.

--show-all
Combine all --show commands.

NB For all --show commands, no "old.tex" or "new.tex" file needs to be specified, and no differencing
takes place.

Other configuration options:
--allow-spaces
Allow spaces between bracketed or braced arguments to commands. Note that this option might have
undesirable side effects (unrelated scope might get lumpeded with preceding commands) so should only
be used if the default produces erroneous results. (Default requires arguments to directly follow
each other without intervening spaces).

--math-markup=level
Determine granularity of markup in displayed math environments: Possible values for level are (both
numerical and text labels are acceptable):

"off" or 0: suppress markup for math environments. Deleted equations will not appear in diff file.
This mode can be used if all the other modes cause invalid latex code.

"whole" or 1: Differencing on the level of whole equations. Even trivial changes to equations cause
the whole equation to be marked changed. This mode can be used if processing in coarse or fine mode
results in invalid latex code.

"coarse" or 2: Detect changes within equations marked up with a coarse granularity; changes in
equation type (e.g.displaymath to equation) appear as a change to the complete equation. This mode is
recommended for situations where the content and order of some equations are still being changed.
[Default]

"fine" or 3: Detect small change in equations and mark up at fine granularity. This mode is most
suitable, if only minor changes to equations are expected, e.g. correction of typos.

--disable-citation-markup or --disable-auto-mbox
Suppress citation markup and markup of other vulnerable commands in styles using ulem
(UNDERLINE,FONTSTRIKE, CULINECHBAR) (the two options are identical and are simply aliases)

--enable-citation-markup or --enforce-auto-mbox
Protect citation commands and other vulnerable commands in changed sections with "\mbox" command,
i.e. use default behaviour for ulem package for other packages (the two options are identical and are
simply aliases)

Miscellaneous
--verbose or -V
Output various status information to stderr during processing. Default is to work silently.

--driver=type
Choose driver for changebar package (only relevant for styles using
changebar: CCHANGEBAR CFONTCHBAR CULINECHBAR CHANGEBAR). Possible drivers are listed in changebar
manual, e.g. pdftex,dvips,dvitops
[Default: dvips]

--ignore-warnings
Suppress warnings about inconsistencies in length between input and parsed strings and missing
characters. These warning messages are often related to non-standard latex or latex constructions
with a syntax unknown to "latexdiff" but the resulting difference argument is often fully functional
anyway, particularly if the non-standard latex only occurs in parts of the text which have not
changed.

--label=label or -L label
Sets the labels used to describe the old and new files. The first use of this option sets the label
describing the old file and the second use of the option sets the label for the new file, i.e. set
both labels like this "-L labelold -L labelnew". [Default: use the filename and modification dates
for the label]

--no-label
Suppress inclusion of old and new file names as comment in output file

--visble-label
Include old and new filenames (or labels set with "--label" option) as visible output.

--flatten
Replace "\input" and "\include" commands within body by the content of the files in their argument.
If "\includeonly" is present in the preamble, only those files are expanded into the document.
However, no recursion is done, i.e. "\input" and "\include" commands within included sections are not
expanded. The included files are assumed to
be located in the same directories as the old and new master files, respectively, making it possible
to organise files into old and new directories. --flatten is applied recursively, so inputted files
can contain further "\input" statements.

Use of this option might result in prohibitive processing times for larger documents, and the
resulting difference document no longer reflects the structure of the input documents.

--help or -h
Show help text

--version
Show version number

Predefined styles
Major types
The major type determine the markup of plain text and some selected latex commands outside floats by
defining the markup commands "\DIFadd{...}" and "\DIFdel{...}" .

"UNDERLINE"
Added text is wavy-underlined and blue, discarded text is struck out and red (Requires color
and ulem packages). Overstriking does not work in displayed math equations such that deleted
parts of equation are underlined, not struck out (this is a shortcoming inherent to the ulem
package).

"CTRADITIONAL"
Added text is blue and set in sans-serif, and a red footnote is created for each discarded
piece of text. (Requires color package)

"TRADITIONAL"
Like "CTRADITIONAL" but without the use of color.

"CFONT" Added text is blue and set in sans-serif, and discarded text is red and very small size.

"FONTSTRIKE"
Added tex is set in sans-serif, discarded text small and struck out

"CCHANGEBAR"
Added text is blue, and discarded text is red. Additionally, the changed text is marked with a
bar in the margin (Requires color and changebar packages).

"CFONTCHBAR"
Like "CFONT" but with additional changebars (Requires color and changebar packages).

"CULINECHBAR"
Like "UNDERLINE" but with additional changebars (Requires color, ulem and changebar packages).

"CHANGEBAR"
No mark up of text, but mark margins with changebars (Requires changebar package).

"INVISIBLE"
No visible markup (but generic markup commands will still be inserted.

"BOLD" Added text is set in bold face, discarded is not shown.

Subtypes
The subtype defines the commands that are inserted at the begin and end of added or discarded blocks,
irrespectively of whether these blocks contain text or commands (Defined commands: "\DIFaddbegin,
\DIFaddend, \DIFdelbegin, \DIFdelend")

"SAFE" No additional markup (Recommended choice)

"MARGIN" Mark beginning and end of changed blocks with symbols in the margin nearby (using the standard
"\marginpar" command - note that this sometimes moves somewhat from the intended position.

"COLOR" An alternative way of marking added passages in blue, and deleted ones in red. (It is
recommeneded to use instead the main types to effect colored markup, although in some cases
coloring with dvipscol can be more complete, for example with citation commands).

"DVIPSCOL"
An alternative way of marking added passages in blue, and deleted ones in red. Note that
"DVIPSCOL" only works with the dvips converter, e.g. not pdflatex. (it is recommeneded to use
instead the main types to effect colored markup, although in some cases coloring with dvipscol
can be more complete).

"ZLABEL" can be used to highlight only changed pages, but requires post-processing. It is recommend to
not call this option manually but use "latexdiff-vc" with "--only-changes" option.
Alternatively, use the script given within preamble of diff files made using this style.

"ONLYCHANGEDPAGE"
also highlights changed pages, without the need for post-processing, but might not work
reliably if there is floating material (figures, tables).

"LABEL" is similar to "ZLABEL", but does not need the zref package and works less reliably
(deprecated).

Float Types
Some of the markup used in the main text might cause problems when used within floats (e.g. figures or
tables). For this reason alternative versions of all markup commands are used within floats. The float
type defines these alternative commands.

"FLOATSAFE"
Use identical markup for text as in the main body, but set all commands marking the begin and
end of changed blocks to null-commands. You have to choose this float type if your subtype is
"MARGIN" as "\marginpar" does not work properly within floats.

"TRADITIONALSAFE"
Mark additions the same way as in the main text. Deleted environments are marked by angular
brackets \[ and \] and the deleted text is set in scriptscript size. This float type should
always be used with the "TRADITIONAL" and "CTRADITIONAL" markup types as the \footnote command
does not work properly in floating environments.

"IDENTICAL"
Make no difference between the main text and floats.

Configuration Variables
"ARRENV" If a match to "ARRENV" is found within an inline math environment within a deleted or added
block, then the inlined math is surrounded by "\mbox{"..."}". This is necessary as underlining
does not work within inlined array environments.

[ Default: "ARRENV"="(?:array|[pbvBV]matrix)"

"COUNTERCMD"
If a command in a deleted block which is also in the textcmd list matches "COUNTERCMD" then an
additional command "\addtocounter{"cntcmd"}{-1}", where cntcmd is the matching command, is
appended in the diff file such that the numbering in the diff file remains synchronized with
the numbering in the new file.

[ Default: "COUNTERCMD"="(?:footnote|part|section|subsection" ...

"|subsubsection|paragraph|subparagraph)" ]

"FLOATENV"
Environments whose name matches the regular expression in "FLOATENV" are considered floats.
Within these environments, the latexdiff markup commands are replaced by their FL variaties.

[ Default: "(?:figure|table|plate)[\w\d*@]*" ]

"ITEMCMD" Commands representing new item line with list environments.

[ Default: \"item" ]

"LISTENV" Environments whose name matches the regular expression in "LISTENV" are list environments.

[ Default: "(?:itemize|enumerate|description)" ]

"MATHENV","MATHREPL"
If both \begin and \end for a math environment (environment name matching "MATHENV" or \[ and
\]) are within the same deleted block, they are replaced by a \begin and \end commands for
"MATHREPL" rather than being commented out.

[ Default: "MATHENV"="(?:displaymath|equation)" , "MATHREPL"="displaymath" ]

"MATHARRENV","MATHARRREPL"
as "MATHENV","MATHREPL" but for equation arrays

[ Default: "MATHARRENV"="eqnarray\*?" , "MATHREPL"="eqnarray" ]

"MINWORDSBLOCK"
Minimum number of tokens required to form an independent block. This value is used in the
algorithm to detect changes of complete blocks by merging identical text parts of less than
"MINWORDSBLOCK" to the preceding added and discarded parts.

[ Default: 3 ]

"PICTUREENV"
Within environments whose name matches the regular expression in "PICTUREENV" all latexdiff
markup is removed (in pathologic cases this might lead to inconsistent markup but this
situation should be rare).

[ Default: "(?:picture|DIFnomarkup)[\w\d*@]*" ]

COMMON PROBLEMS AND FAQ

Citations result in overfull boxes
There is an incompatibility between the "ulem" package, which "latexdiff" uses for underlining
and striking out in the UNDERLINE style, the default style, and the way citations are
generated. In order to be able to mark up citations properly, they are enclosed with an "\mbox"
command. As mboxes cannot be broken across lines, this procedure frequently results in overfull
boxes, possibly obscuring the content as it extends beyond the right margin. The same occurs
for some other packages (e.g., siunitx). If this is a problem, you have two possibilities.

1. Use "CFONT" type markup (option "-t CFONT"): If this markup is chosen, then changed
citations are no longer marked up with the wavy line (additions) or struck out (deletions), but
are still highlighted in the appropriate color, and deleted text is shown with a different
font. Other styles not using the "ulem" package will also work.

2. Choose option "--disable-citation-markup" which turns off the marking up of citations:
deleted citations are no longer shown, and added citations are shown without markup. (This was
the default behaviour of latexdiff at versions 0.6 and older)

For custom packages you can define the commands which need to be protected by "\mbox" with
"--append-mboxsafecmd" and "--excludemboxsafecmd" options (submit your lists of command as
feature request at github page to set the default behaviour of future versions, see section 6)

Changes in complicated mathematical equations result in latex processing errors
Try options "--math-markup=whole". If even that fails, you can turn off mark up for equations
with "--math-markup=off".

How can I just show the pages where changes had been made
Use options -"-s ZLABEL" (some postprocessing required) or "-s ONLYCHANGEDPAGE". "latexdiff-vc
--ps|--pdf" with "--only-changes" option takes care of the post-processing for you (requires
zref package to be installed).

BUGS

       Option allow-spaces not implemented entirely consistently. It breaks the rules that number and type of
       white space does not matter, as different numbers of inter-argument spaces are treated as significant.

       Please   submit   bug   reports   using   the   issue   tracker   of   the   github    repository    page
       https://github.com/ftilmann/latexdiff.git,  or send them to tilmann -- AT -- gfz-potsdam.de.  Include the
       version number of latexdiff (from comments at the top of the source  or  use  --version).   If  you  come
       across  latex  files  that  are  error-free  and  conform  to the specifications set out above, and whose
       differencing still does not result in error-free latex, please send me those  files,  ideally  edited  to
       only  contain  the offending passage as long as that still reproduces the problem. If your file relies on
       non-standard class files, you must include those.  I will not look at examples where I  have  trouble  to
       latex the original files.

PORTABILITY

       latexdiff does not make use of external commands and thus should run on any platform  supporting Perl 5.6
       or  higher.   If  files  with  encodings  other  than ASCII or UTF-8 are processed, Perl 5.8 or higher is
       required.

       The standard version of latexdiff requires installation of the Perl package "Algorithm::Diff"  (available
       from  www.cpan.org  -  http://search.cpan.org/~nedkonz/Algorithm-Diff-1.15)  but  a  stand-alone version,
       latexdiff-so, which has this package inlined,  is  available,  too.   latexdiff-fast  requires  the  diff
       command to be present.

AUTHOR

       Version 1.1.1 Copyright (C) 2004-2015 Frederik Tilmann

       This  program  is  free  software;  you  can  redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
       General Public License Version 3

       Contributors of fixes and additions: V. Kuhlmann, J. Paisley, N.  Becker,  T.  Doerges,  K.  Huebner,  T.
       Connors,  Sebastian  Gouezel and many others.  Thanks to the many people who sent in bug reports, feature
       suggestions, and other feedback.

perl v5.22.1                                       2016-01-07                                       LATEXDIFF(1)