Code2Tex
Code2Tex was created to aid in grading programming assignments. It takes source code and inserts it into a simple LaTeX document from which a PDF can be made. This provides a document with syntax highlighting and clear headings for each file that can be marked up and returned to the students.
Syntax highlighting is provided via the listings LaTeX package. Not all languages are currently supported; the list of included languages is in the package documentation (Javascript is a notable exception, but I have added support for the language thanks to Gary Hammock). For any language that does not have syntax highlighting rules, the file will simply be included as monospaced black text.
Alternatives
- render50 - Developed for Harvard's CS50 course. Solves the same problem with different tools.
Usage / Examples
Run code2tex.py followed by any number of filenames. It will output the
LaTeX document to standard out, which may be redirected to a file:
./code2tex.py file [file [file [...]]] > output.tex
This will create output.tex, ready to pass to pdflatex or xelatex. For
example, if a student with user id "jsmith" submitted several java files:
./code2tex.py jsmith*.java > jsmith.tex
pdflatex jsmith.tex
This would create a PDF named jsmith.pdf containing the contents of all
jsmith*.java files, nicely formatted with syntax highlighting and a separate
header for each.
If you have UTF-8 characters in a filename or within an included file, use
xelatex in place of pdflatex for better unicode handling. The output may
look better if you have the lmodern package installed as well. This should
work for Latin characters, but non-Latin characters may still render
incorrectly within a file listing.
Wildcards and brace expansion can be used to quickly grab files of multiple extensions from within a folder:
./code2tex.py codefolder/*.{html,css,js} > code.tex
Or from multiple nested folders:
./code2tex.py codefolder/*/*.{html,css,js} > code.tex
See the hello_worlds folder for example output; hello_world.tex and
hello_world.pdf were created from the various "Hello, World!" programs in
that directory. The syntax highlighter recognizes a wide variety of
programming languages.
convert_all.py
To quickly convert all user submissions downloaded from a Moodle or Canvas assignment:
- Use the "Download submissions" option in a Moodle or Canvas assignment and extract the resulting zip file.
- run
convert_all.py <directory>where<directory>is the directory with the unzipped files.
The script will attempt to create PDFs from all the files. It parses the filenames constructed from Moodle and outputs PDFs named "[Name]_[ID]_files.pdf".
Dependencies
The python scripts require Python 3 and have no other dependencies.
Producing a PDF of the LaTeX output requires LaTeX. Code2tex's output depends on a few packages that are not always included by default in a LaTeX install; in Ubuntu, for example, you'll need to install the following packages (along with their dependencies):
texlive-fonts-recommended
texlive-latex-extra
texlive-latex-extra-doc
texlive-math-extra
texlive-pictures-doc
Install these with the following command:
sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-latex-extra texlive-latex-extra-doc texlive-math-extra texlive-pictures-doc
On other systems, you will need to find the correct packages. Look for "[latex]-extra" and "math-extra" packages.
Marking up PDFs
Once you have a PDF, various software can be used to mark it up. I and my TAs have had success with PDF-XChange Viewer, the best free Windows software I've found for annotating PDFs. It has a wide range of tools for creating text boxes, circling things, pointing with arrows, etc. In Linux, Xournal is a decent option. Please let me know if you find other applications that work well for this.