Please add WSL XeLatex Support

[ngzHappy]

Windows LaTex is too slow, use wsl Latex is better.

[isteinbrecher]

Thanks for opening this issue @ngzHappy this is for sure a very useful extension. Allowing this shouldn't be too much of an effort, hopefully we can have a look at this in the near future.

[foreverkon]

Hello, any progress on this request?
I encountered an error when trying to use WSL XeLaTeX with a wrapper script. Here is the error message:

---
LaTeX2AI version: 1.0.3
LaTeX2AI git sha: 57794702274dd356ba36dbfc5114cd2bded71099
Illustrator Version: 0x28000061
---
Error thrown at: C:\Adobe Illustrator 2024 SDK\samplecode\latex2ai\src\utils\12a_execute.cpp::146L2A::UTIL::INTERNAL::ExecuteCommandLineWindowsNoConsole
Error, process 'xelatex -interaction nonstopmode -halt-on-error -file-line-error "C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp\AI_30_1\LaTeX2AI\LaTeX2AI_item\LaTeX2AI_item.tex" could not be created! Got error: Cannot find the specified file.

But I successfully ran this command in PowerShell:

> xelatex -interaction nonstopmode -halt-on-error -file-line-error "C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp\AI_30_1\LaTeX2AI\LaTeX2AI_item\LaTeX2AI_item.tex"

This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592653-2.6-0.999997 (TeX Live 2025) (preloaded format=xelatex)
 restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode

(/mnt/c/Users/<USERNAME>/AppData/Local/Temp/AI_30_1/LaTeX2AI/LaTeX2AI_item/LaTeX2AI_item.tex
LaTeX2e <2024-11-01> patch level 2
L3 programming layer <2025-01-18>
(./LaTeX2AI_header.tex
(/usr/local/texlive/2025/texmf-dist/tex/latex/standalone/standalone.cls
Document Class: standalone 2025/02/22 v1.5a Class to compile TeX sub-files stan
dalone
(/usr/local/texlive/2025/texmf-dist/tex/latex/tools/shellesc.sty)
... // read many files
(/usr/local/texlive/2025/texmf-dist/tex/latex/l3backend/l3backend-xetex.def)
No file LaTeX2AI_item.aux.

[1] (./LaTeX2AI_item.aux) )
Output written on LaTeX2AI_item.pdf (1 page).
Transcript written on LaTeX2AI_item.log.

My xelatex command is a batch file (.bat) wrapper for WSL, not an native executable. The wrapper script looks like this:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set args=
for %%a in (%*) do (
    set "arg=%%a"
    if exist "!arg!" (
        for /f "delims=" %%p in ('wsl wslpath "%%a"') do set "arg=%%p"
    )
    set args=!args! "!arg!"
)
wsl --shell-type login xelatex %args%

The error occurs in ExecuteCommandLineWindowsNoConsole which uses CreateProcessW.
It tries to execute xelatex directly (looking for an executable), which fails.
To support batch file wrappers, the command string constructed likely needs to be prefixed with cmd.exe /c.

BTW, this wrapper works fine with IguanaTex (a PowerPoint add-in).

[isteinbrecher]

Thanks @foreverkon for this description! Indeed that does not work with the current state of LaTeX2AI. It principle the fix should be relatively easy, but requires some rework of the UI and internals and will take some time. I don’t know when I will get the time to look into this, but I will keep you posted here.

If you want, you can also look at this yourself, the build instructions can be found here:
https://github.com/isteinbrecher/LaTeX2AI/blob/main/doc/BUILD_FROM_SOURCE.md