arXiv — NLP / Computation & Language · · 3 min read

AI-Friendly LaTeX: Using LaTeX Code as a Knowledge Source for Retrieval-Augmented Generation

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Computer Science > Information Retrieval

arXiv:2605.22923 (cs)
[Submitted on 21 May 2026]

Title:AI-Friendly LaTeX: Using LaTeX Code as a Knowledge Source for Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Authors:Tom Verhoeff
View a PDF of the paper titled AI-Friendly LaTeX: Using LaTeX Code as a Knowledge Source for Retrieval-Augmented Generation, by Tom Verhoeff
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Abstract:Large language models can answer questions about textbooks, lecture notes, and programming exercises more reliably when their answers are grounded in an explicit knowledge source. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a common approach: relevant fragments of a document are retrieved and inserted into the model context before answering. For mathematical and technical material, the original LaTeX source can be a better starting point than a PDF, because it contains structural information, labels, sectioning commands, macros, and authorial intent that are often lost or distorted in PDF extraction. However, LaTeX source is not automatically AI-friendly. Cross-references must be resolved, custom macros must be interpreted, exercises and examples must be identified, and author-supplied semantic metadata may be needed. This article describes a focused preprocessing approach for turning LaTeX source, together with its compiled auxiliary files and optional author annotations, into Markdown and JSONL chunks suitable for indexing in a vector database.
Comments: 19 pages, 3 figures
Subjects: Information Retrieval (cs.IR); Computation and Language (cs.CL)
ACM classes: H.3.3; H.3.1; I.7.2; I.2.7
Cite as: arXiv:2605.22923 [cs.IR]
  (or arXiv:2605.22923v1 [cs.IR] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.22923
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

From: Tom Verhoeff [view email]
[v1] Thu, 21 May 2026 18:01:51 UTC (162 KB)
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