Support of custom documentClass(.cls file) for Latex to Html conversion

[maheshbansode]

Describe your proposed improvement and the problem it solves.

• We are processing Latex documents for our one of article publishing system, as part of this processing we are converting Latex documents to html using Pandoc.
• As authors are using custom document class elsarticle (https://ctan.org/pkg/elsarticle?lang=en), few fields/entities are missing after Html conversion.
• We checked Pandoc documentation to use custom .cls(documentClass) file during conversion but we don't see this as an option.
• Do we have any support/alternative for above issue?

Describe alternatives you've considered.

[jgm]

If you can extract the definitions you need into a .sty file, pandoc can parse these (as long as they don't have low-level TeX stuff in them). You can either \include them or just put the sty file before the tex file on the command line.

[fuchtr]

The question is: why does pandoc not read the elsarticle.cls file that is indicated in the \documentclass statement in the LaTeX file? \documentclass[final,5p,times,twocolumn]{elsarticle}. The definitions in that class file, like \ead, and in use in the LaTeX file, \author{Forename Surname}\corref{cor1} \cortext[cor1]{corresponding author} \ead{forename.surname@example.com}, are ignored by pandoc. Regular LaTeX compilation into a PDF will show these details in the footnote on the first page, but pandoc does not appear to output footnotes. Samples are available on request.

[jgm]

That could be a good enhancement to consider. However, pandoc isn't currently capable of parsing the kind of low-level TeX generally found in .cls files (including this one).

[jgm]

Easiest approach is to use a shim that defines the macros you need using simple LaTeX macro definitions; add this shim when you convert with pandoc (it can just be a separate .tex file on the command line before your main one).

[alex180500]

This is a problem that people using premade classes for latex academic articles face. Is there a way to circumvent this?

[maheshbansode]

Yes @alex180500 , If you want to extract specific fields then you can add definitions for those fields in .sty file and provide that .sty file while Pandoc conversion on command line. “pandoc -s anyname.sty filename.tex -o output.html --mathml --mathjax“

[alex180500]

Thanks I will try! What about .clo and .bst files?

[maheshbansode]

I don't have much idea about such files @alex180500 may be @fuchtr has.