ratex — Ultra-Fast Pure-Rust TeX Engine

v0.2.0 Active macOS Native (.pkg) Windows Native (.exe) Arch AUR: ratex-bin Pure Rust (Zero C deps) Dual License: MIT / Apache-2.0

Full Engine Replacement Everywhere: ratex replaces pdflatex, xelatex, and lualatex out of the box with zero configuration. On macOS and Windows, the installer includes an option (enabled by default) to also replace latexmk with texmk for seamless integration with TeXstudio and VS Code LaTeX Workshop.

🍎 Download for macOS (Apple Silicon .pkg) 🪟 Download for Windows (Setup .exe) All Platforms & Linux ↓

Installers & Packages

v0.2.0 Downloads

macOS (Apple Silicon) 🍎

M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 • Native .pkg

Native macOS installer package. Double-click to install into /usr/local/bin with automatic PATH setup.

Download .pkg (Apple Silicon) or portable .tar.gz

Windows (64-bit) 🪟

Windows 10 / 11 • Setup .exe

Native Windows setup wizard. Installs executables, adds ratex to PATH, and configures TeXstudio / VS Code compatibility.

Download Setup .exe or portable .zip

macOS (Intel x86_64) 🍎

Intel Mac • Native .pkg

Native package installer for Intel-based Macs.

Download .pkg (Intel) or portable .tar.gz

Arch Linux / Manjaro 🐧

AUR Package • x86_64

Available directly on the Arch User Repository (AUR): yay -S ratex-bin

View on AUR → or ratex (build from source)

Ubuntu / Debian 🐧

.deb package • amd64

Native Debian package for Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, and Pop!_OS.

Download .deb

Fedora / RHEL 🎩

.rpm package • x86_64

Native RPM package for Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, Rocky Linux, and openSUSE.

Download .rpm

Universal Linux 🐧

.tar.gz • x86_64

Complete standalone distribution archive with one-click installer for any Linux system.

Download .tar.gz

Cargo / Source 🦀

Rust 1.80+ • Workspace

Compile from source with Cargo: cargo build --release

View Source on GitHub → all release assets

Key Architecture

Design Highlights

⚡ Sub-10ms Incremental Builds

Built-in cryptographic auxiliary state tracking and dependency graph converge cross-references and bibliography passes in 0.8–8.2 ms, compared to 40–60 ms in TeX Live.

🌐 WebAssembly & C API (libtex)

Compile LaTeX documents in-memory from browser runtimes, Node.js, or C/C++ applications via tex.wasm and libtex without touching disk or spawning external processes.

🎨 Native SVG & Vector Graphics

Directly embed \includegraphics{figure.svg} with pure-Rust in-memory rasterization into PDF XObjects—no Inkscape, Ghostscript, or shell escape needed.

🔍 SyncTeX & Built-in latexdiff

Automatic .synctex.gz generation enabled by default for instant editor jump-to-source, plus token-level visual revision diffing with ratex latexdiff.

📦 100% Self-Contained

Embeds all essential formats, packages, math symbols, and CJK fonts, plus bundles a complete 67,000+ file TeX Live tree in share/tex-suite/. Zero external dependencies required.

🛡️ Pure Rust Safety

Written entirely in pure Rust with strict bounds checking. Eliminates the buffer overflows, memory corruption bugs, and runaway pointers of legacy C TeX engines.

Performance Highlights

Tested on 3,000 real-world arXiv papers

Workload	ratex (Rust)	TeX Live (pdflatex / latexmk)	Advantage
Incremental Rebuild (Warm)	0.8 – 8.2 ms	40 – 60 ms	10× – 70× faster ⚡
Short Papers (1–3 pages) Cold	11 – 13 ms	39 – 41 ms	3.1× – 3.6× faster ⚡
Full 3,000-Paper Corpus Throughput	89 papers / min	53 papers / min	1.7× faster ⚡
Visual Document Parity	96.39% mean fidelity	Baseline (100%)	Publication-grade match

How to Use & Editor Setup

CLI & IDEs

1. Terminal / CLI

          # Multi-pass auto-converging build (replaces latexmk; converges bibtex and citations automatically)

          texmk paper.tex

          # Output PDF into a custom folder (e.g. build/)

          texmk -output-directory=build paper.tex

          # Direct single-pass compile (drop-in pdflatex replacement)

          pdflatex paper.tex

          # Clean intermediate auxiliary files

          texmk -c

2. TeXstudio Setup

          # If you replaced latexmk (Mac/Windows installer option):

          No configuration required! Default "Compile" (F5) works immediately.

          # Manual configuration:

          1. Go to: Options → Configure TeXstudio → Build

          2. Set Default Compiler to: texmk -pdf -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex

          3. Press F5 to build your document in milliseconds!

3. VS Code (LaTeX Workshop) Setup

          // Add this recipe to your VS Code settings.json (Ctrl+, or Cmd+,):

          "latex-workshop.latex.tools": [

            {

              "name": "ratex",

              "command": "texmk",

              "args": ["-pdf", "-interaction=nonstopmode", "%DOC%"]

            }

          ],

          "latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [

            { "name": "ratex", "tools": ["ratex"] }

          ]