Specify output directory for htlatex

Question

I would like to know how I can specifiy the output directory for the html/css generated by htlatex.

My call is as follows:

htlatex main.tex

The files are generated in the same directory where main.tex is located. But I would rather like to write it to a folder named html contained in the current directory (./html).

I read about adding "" "-d/mypath/" args but it didn't work out.

Can someone help me? I also have some problems to get documentation as calling htlatex with -h or --help doesn't work out.

http://tug.org/applications/tex4ht/mn.html was not useful either.

Answer 1

A little investigation reveals that htlatex is indeed a sh script file, at least in my system:

$ which htlatex
/usr/texbin/htlatex
$ file /usr/texbin/htlatex
/usr/texbin/htlatex: symbolic link to `../../texmf-dist/scripts/tex4ht/htlatex.sh'

And the contents of that script are:

$ cat /usr/texbin/htlatex
#!/bin/sh
        latex $5 '\makeatletter\def\HCode{\futurelet\HCode\HChar}\def\HChar{\ifx"\HCode\def\HCode"##1"{\Link##1}\expandafter\HCode\else\expandafter\Link\fi}\def\Link#1.a.b.c.{\g@addto@macro\@documentclasshook{\RequirePackage[#1,html]{tex4ht}}\let\HCode\documentstyle\def\documentstyle{\let\documentstyle\HCode\expandafter\def\csname tex4ht\endcsname{#1,html}\def\HCode####1{\documentstyle[tex4ht,}\@ifnextchar[{\HCode}{\documentstyle[tex4ht]}}}\makeatother\HCode '$2'.a.b.c.\input ' $1
        latex $5 '\makeatletter\def\HCode{\futurelet\HCode\HChar}\def\HChar{\ifx"\HCode\def\HCode"##1"{\Link##1}\expandafter\HCode\else\expandafter\Link\fi}\def\Link#1.a.b.c.{\g@addto@macro\@documentclasshook{\RequirePackage[#1,html]{tex4ht}}\let\HCode\documentstyle\def\documentstyle{\let\documentstyle\HCode\expandafter\def\csname tex4ht\endcsname{#1,html}\def\HCode####1{\documentstyle[tex4ht,}\@ifnextchar[{\HCode}{\documentstyle[tex4ht]}}}\makeatother\HCode '$2'.a.b.c.\input ' $1
        latex $5 '\makeatletter\def\HCode{\futurelet\HCode\HChar}\def\HChar{\ifx"\HCode\def\HCode"##1"{\Link##1}\expandafter\HCode\else\expandafter\Link\fi}\def\Link#1.a.b.c.{\g@addto@macro\@documentclasshook{\RequirePackage[#1,html]{tex4ht}}\let\HCode\documentstyle\def\documentstyle{\let\documentstyle\HCode\expandafter\def\csname tex4ht\endcsname{#1,html}\def\HCode####1{\documentstyle[tex4ht,}\@ifnextchar[{\HCode}{\documentstyle[tex4ht]}}}\makeatother\HCode '$2'.a.b.c.\input ' $1
        tex4ht -f/$1  -i~/tex4ht.dir/texmf/tex4ht/ht-fonts/$3
        t4ht -f/$1 $4 ## -d~/WWW/temp/ -m644

So it consists of a sequence of calls to latex, tex4ht and finally t4ht. Apparently the script expects 5 parameters ($1 to $5) and from their use we can deduce, more or less, their function:

• $1 is the name of the file containing the latex source. It is passed to all the tools in the chain.
• $2 is part of a parameter passed to a mysterious command \HCode defined in place for the latex command, and whose mission I didn't try to understand. I will ignore this parameter until someone better equiped than me can discover its function
• $3 is passed to tex4ht as part of the -i option, and thus serve to specify a folder for fonts.
• $4 is passed to t4ht so looks like a place where we can specify additional switches for t4ht.
• $5 is passed to latex, so it looks like a place where we can specify additional switches for latex.

Using t4ht --help we discover that the -d option can be used here to specify the destination directory, so I tried:

$ htlatex Example.tex "" "" -d/tmp/

And it worked. The result goes to /tmp/, but note that this affects only to the final step. The first steps still use the current directory, so all intermediate and auxiliary files are still there. I guess you cannot get ride of them with a switch.