.docx, a co-author who will not install a TeX distribution, or a
university portal that wants HTML.
There is no lossless conversion, and any tool that promises one is overselling. What
follows is what actually works, and what you should expect to fix by hand afterwards.
Set expectations first
Plan for a manual pass after conversion. For a short paper that is minutes; for a
thesis with custom commands it can be substantial.
Export to Word with Pandoc
Pandoc is the practical choice. It reads LaTeX and writes a native.docx, converting maths into Word’s own equation format rather than images,
which means your equations stay editable in Word.
pandoc-basic.sh
Include the bibliography
Citations need Pandoc’s own citation processor and your.bib file. Without
--citeproc your \cite commands are dropped.
pandoc-bibliography.sh
--csl option takes a Citation Style Language file and controls the output
style. Styles for most journals are available from the
CSL style repository. Omit it
and you get Pandoc’s default author-date style.
Fix images that disappear
This catches almost everyone. Word cannot embed PDF figures. If your LaTeX uses PDF images — which is the norm, because they are vector and scale cleanly — they will be missing or broken in the.docx.
Convert them to a raster format first:
convert-figures.sh
\includegraphics calls at the PNG files, or leave the
extensions off and let the converter pick them up:
Match a required template
Journals that ask for.docx usually supply a template. Pandoc can adopt its styles:
pandoc-reference-doc.sh
Simplify custom macros before converting
Pandoc understands standard LaTeX. Commands you defined yourself are usually dropped along with their content, which is how sections silently go missing. If your document has many such macros, expanding them in a copy of the source is faster than fixing the output.Export to HTML
Three tools, with genuinely different results.make4ht
Part of TeX Live, so it is probably already installed. It runs your document through TeX itself, which means custom macros and packages behave as they do in your PDF — the main advantage over Pandoc.make4ht.sh
LaTeXML
Produces the cleanest semantic HTML with proper MathML. It is what arXiv uses for its HTML papers, and it is the best choice if the output needs to be accessible or indexed well.latexml.sh
Pandoc
Fastest, and fine for simple documents. Maths is rendered by MathJax in the browser rather than converted:pandoc-html.sh
Getting your source out of a cloud editor
Conversion runs on your own machine, so you need the project files locally. In LaTeX Cloud Studio, export the project as a ZIP or push it to GitHub, then run Pandoc on the extracted source — see GitHub sync, import and export. Make sure the export includes your.bib file and figure directory. Pandoc resolves
paths relative to the file it is converting, so run it from the project root:
from-project-root.sh
Check the output before sending it
Conversion failures are quiet. Open the result and confirm:- Every figure is present and legible.
- Equations render as equations, not as raw
$...$. - Citations show as formatted references, not
[?]or empty brackets. - The bibliography exists at the end.
- Tables kept their structure.
- No section is missing — the usual sign of an unexpanded custom macro.
Related Pages
Start in LaTeX Cloud Studio
Open in LaTeX Cloud Studio
Write and compile in the browser, then export the project when you need it locally.
Import and export options
Move projects in and out via GitHub or ZIP.
