LaTeX in Docker

This repository defines a set of images which may be used to run LaTeX in a container, for example in CI/CD. They come in several flavors, which correspond to TeX Live schemes (see the table below). The default scheme is full which contains all packages.

If some package is missing you can always use tlmgr to install it. The image is based on alpine, so system packages may be installed using apk.

Scheme	Image	Size
minimal	kjarosh/latex:2024.4-minimal	~40 MB
basic	kjarosh/latex:2024.4-basic	~90 MB
small	kjarosh/latex:2024.4-small	~180 MB
medium	kjarosh/latex:2024.4-medium	~500 MB
full	kjarosh/latex:2024.4	~2 GB

The images are made in such a way that they reuse layers. For example full will add a layer to medium with packages that are not present there. This makes it easier to manage and saves space.

Usage

If you're writing a CI/CD configuration, check out CI/CD Examples!

Assuming you want to quickly compile a file named main.tex in the current directory to a PDF and place the output in ./out:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/src" -w /src -u "$UID:$GID" kjarosh/latex:2024.4 latexmk -pdf -outdir=out -auxdir=out/aux main.tex

If you want to work on your LaTeX project and see your changes live, add -pvc at the end. This will recompile the project automatically each time a source file changes.

If you want to use a different engine, use e.g. -xelatex for XeLaTeX or -lualatex for LuaLaTeX.

Other useful options you may want to check out include e.g. -c, -g, or -silent.

See latexmk documentation for detailed usage and options.

If you don't want to use latexmk you are free to issue any command you want (latex, pdflatex, xelatex, etc.) and it should just work. For more complex building processes, using a building tool such as make is advised. In that case you'll need to install it by issuing apk add make inside the container.

Versions

There are several types of versions described below.

If you're unsure which version to use, use the latest stable version.

Stable Versions

Stable versions are in the format of <major>.<minor> (e.g. 2022.1). The major version relates to TeX Live version (which is the year), the minor version is the version of the image within the given year.

Stable versions offer image updates & fixes and include the set of packages for the given TeX Live version at the time of release.

TeX Live version	Latest stable version
2024	2024.4
2023	2023.4
2022	2022.3
2021	2021.4
2020	2020.2
2019	2019.2
2018	2018.2

All stable versions are available on the releases page.

Development Versions

If you want to use the newest TeX Live or visit an old release from the past, you can use development versions.

Development versions are released automatically every day and come in several formats:

1. devel — The lastest development build which uses the main TL mirror. Using this version is highly discouraged, especially in CI/CD, as in case a newer TeX Live release appears, tlmgr will not work.

2. devel-<TL_VERSION>-<DATE> — A development version containing TeX Live in version <TL_VERSION>, based on a historic mirror from <DATE> (so that tlmgr will work). Usually these images are created once and not updated in the future.

3. devel-<TL_VERSION> — The newest development build for the given TeX Live release. When <TL_VERSION> is the current TeX Live version, this image will usually be newer than the latest stable release of <TL_VERSION>. However, when <TL_VERSION> is not the current TeX Live version, the latest stable release usually will contain maintenance fixes and base image updates.

4. devel-any-<DATE> — A development version containing TeX Live from <DATE>. This is the same as devel-<TL_VERSION>-<DATE>, but without <TL_VERSION> in case someone wants to use the TeX Live from <DATE> without knowing <TL_VERSION>.

CI/CD Examples

GitHub Actions

Example using latexmk:

name: Compile LaTeX
on: [ push ]
jobs:
  container:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: kjarosh/latex:2024.4
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build using latexmk
        run: latexmk -pdf -output-directory=out main.tex

      - name: Upload document
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: main-document
          path: out/index.pdf

GitLab CI/CD

Example using latexmk:

build:
  stage: build
  image: kjarosh/latex:2024.4
  script:
    - latexmk -pdf -output-directory=out main.tex
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - out/index.pdf