diffify

Flatten and make a LaTeX diff file between the most recent git commit, i.e. master, and an older commit.

Installation

Simply download everything. For a quick start, check out example.py.

Prerequisites

We use latexdiff to generate the diff file. For instructions on how to install and use latexdiff, see here.

Tip: If you have trouble with installing or using latexdiff, the script also generates flattened versions of the TeX files. Set clean_up = False (See example.py) to keep these files, then use an online tool, such as this one, to generate the diff file.

Tip: You will also need pdflatex and bibtex to compile the PDF of the diff file. You probably have them already. But if for some reason they are not working properly, simply set clean_up = False to keep the .tex file, then use a different method to generate the PDF.

Usage

First, import diffify() from diffify.py:

from diffify import diffify

Set the path to the main .tex file and the old commit to be compared with master:

main_path = 'example/main.tex' # Path to the main file
old_ver = '4a9379f25c69ce2a0879f76198f3d78239e3fd30' # previous commit to be compared with master

Call diffify() to make the diff file:

diffify(
        main_path,
        old_ver,
        new_ver = 'master'      # Can change 'master' to a different commit
        make_pdf = True,        # Make a pdf from the diff file. May throw an error if latexpdf is not properly setup
        clean_up = True)        # Clean the temp LaTeX files. Keep only the diff PDF

Tip: You can also use diffify to flatten the TeX files by simply setting old_ver to any commit, e.g. master, and clean_up = False to keep the flattened files.

Recent changes:

• Can customize the diff markup, e.g. color, strikeout, etc. See example.py for more details
• Can change 'master' to a different commit.
• Add an option to remove comments from the flattened file. Should be used with care.