article-render-pdf

Article Render PDF

Use this skill to turn a web article, blog post, or X/Twitter article into a complete, compileable .tex note and a rendered PDF.

This skill complements youtube-render-pdf and bilibili-render-pdf for text-based content sources.

Supported Sources

Goal

Produce a professional Chinese article note from a URL.

The output must:

• be written in Chinese with technical terms preserved in English
• faithfully represent the original author's content and arguments
• be structurally organized with \section{...} and \subsection{...}
• be a complete .tex document from \documentclass to \end{document}
• be compiled successfully to PDF as part of the final delivery

Translation Detection (Critical)

Before processing any article, check if it is a translation:

Detection Signals

• Title contains 【译】, [译], 翻译, Translation
• Body mentions 原文链接, 原文作者, Original by, Source:
• Author is a known translator (e.g., @dotey 宝玉, @MinLiBuilds 实践哥MinLi)

When Translation Is Detected

1. Extract the original source URL from the article body or entity links
   • Check entityMap in fxtwitter response for LINK entities
   • Search the first few paragraphs for 原文链接 or Original:
2. Fetch the original content using the appropriate method
3. Generate notes from the original, not the translation
4. On the front page, credit:
   • Original author and link
   • Translator as reference
   • Note: "本笔记基于英文原文整理"
5. The translation may be used as terminology reference for Chinese technical terms

Finding Original X Articles

When the translation links to another X post:

# Extract entity URLs from fxtwitter response
article.content.entityMap → look for type: "LINK" entries
# The URL often points to the original author's X article

When the original is a podcast/video:

• Search YouTube: yt-dlp "ytsearch:SPEAKER PODCAST_NAME YEAR"
• Get transcript: youtube-transcript-api or auto-captions

Content Acquisition

X/Twitter Articles

# Fetch full article JSON (zero auth, no API key needed)
curl -s "https://api.fxtwitter.com/{user}/status/{id}" | python3 -c "
import sys, json
data = json.load(sys.stdin)
tweet = data['tweet']
article = tweet.get('article', {})
blocks = article.get('content', {}).get('blocks', [])
# Extract text with structure
for block in blocks:
    btype = block.get('type', '')
    text = block.get('text', '')
    if 'header' in btype:
        print(f'\n## {text}\n')
    elif btype == 'unordered-list-item':
        print(f'- {text}')
    elif btype == 'ordered-list-item':
        print(f'1. {text}')
    elif btype == 'blockquote':
        print(f'> {text}')
    elif btype == 'code-block':
        print(f\"\`\`\`\n{text}\n\`\`\`\")
    else:
        print(text)
"

Key fields in the fxtwitter response:

• tweet.article.title — article title
• tweet.article.content.blocks — structured content blocks
• tweet.article.content.entityMap — links, media, embedded tweets
• tweet.author.name — author display name
• tweet.created_at — publish date
• tweet.views — view count

Blogs and Documentation

# Use fetch_content for full text (supports pagination)
mcp__duckduckgo-search__fetch_content(url, max_length=20000)
# If content exceeds 20K chars, use start_index for pagination
mcp__duckduckgo-search__fetch_content(url, start_index=20000, max_length=20000)

Image Extraction

For articles with embedded images:

• X Articles: extract media URLs from entityMap entries with type MEDIA
• Blogs: extract <img> tags from fetched HTML
• Download images to the article directory for LaTeX inclusion

Writing Rules

1. Write the notes in Chinese unless the user explicitly requests another language.

2. Organize the document with \section{...} and \subsection{...}. Reconstruct the teaching flow when needed; do not blindly mirror original article order.

3. Start from assets/notes-template.tex. Adapt the metadata block for articles:

   • Change 课程笔记 to 文章笔记 on the front page
   • \noteauthors{...} → "基于 [Author Name] 文章内容整理". Never use "XX & Codex", "XX & AI", or similar
   • \notedate{...} → the article's actual publish date (e.g., "2025-03-15"). Never use \today
   • \videochannel → article author / source platform
   • \videopublishdate → publish date
   • \videoduration → estimated reading time (e.g., "阅读时长：约 15 分钟")
   • \videourl → article URL (always fill this in — you have the URL the user provided)
   • \videocoverpath → leave empty (articles typically have no cover image)
   • \repourl{https://github.com/hqhq1025/ai-course-notes} → keep the default; do not change or delete

4. For translated articles, add a note below the metadata box:

   \vspace{0.3cm}
   {\small 本笔记基于英文原文整理。原文作者：XXX，译者参考：YYY。\par}
   

5. Use highlight boxes deliberately:

   • importantbox for core concepts, key arguments, design principles
   • knowledgebox for background context, related work, terminology
   • warningbox for common misconceptions, pitfalls, caveats the author raises
   • No images inside boxes
   • No quota per section; add as many as the content justifies

6. When a mathematical formula or data comparison appears:

   • Show formulas in display math using $...$
   • Use LaTeX tables (tabular / booktabs) for structured comparisons

7. When code examples appear:

   • Wrap in lstlisting with a descriptive caption

8. Preserve notable quotes from the original author using \textit{...} or the quote environment.

9. End every major section with \subsection{本章小结}. Add \subsection{拓展阅读} when there are worthwhile external links.

10. End the document with \section{总结与延伸} containing:

    • Structured distillation of core claims
    • Your own synthesis and cross-links between sections
    • Concrete takeaways or open questions

11. Do not emit [cite]-style placeholders anywhere in the LaTeX.

Directory Structure

articles/
├── anthropic-harness-design/      # kebab-case topic name
│   ├── content.txt                # fetched article text
│   ├── metadata.json              # author, date, url, type
│   ├── harness-design-notes.tex   # LaTeX source
│   └── harness-design-notes.pdf   # compiled PDF
├── dotey-karpathy-translation/    # translation example
│   ├── content.txt                # translated text (reference)
│   ├── original_content.txt       # original English text
│   ├── original_metadata.json     # original source metadata
│   ├── metadata.json
│   ├── dotey-karpathy-translation-notes.tex
│   └── dotey-karpathy-translation-notes.pdf
└── ...

File Naming Rule

The .tex and .pdf files MUST be named <dirname>-notes.tex and <dirname>-notes.pdf, where <dirname> is the article directory name. For example, if the directory is anthropic-harness-design/, the files must be anthropic-harness-design-notes.tex and anthropic-harness-design-notes.pdf. Never use bare notes.tex or other ad-hoc names.

Delivery

Deliver all of the following:

• the fetched article content as content.txt
• article metadata as metadata.json
• for translations: original_content.txt and original_metadata.json
• the final .tex file
• the compiled PDF (two passes of xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode)
• evidence that the compiled PDF was visually inspected via rendered pages/contact sheet and corrected if needed

Compilation

cd <article-dir>
xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode <file>.tex  # first pass (generate references)
xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode <file>.tex  # second pass (resolve references)

After compilation, follow ../video-render-common/writing-and-figures.md PDF Visual QA: render PDF pages, inspect a contact sheet/full-size suspicious pages, fix layout/rendering problems, and recompile before delivery.

Rules

• Follow the ai-course-notes/CLAUDE.md conventions for LaTeX structure, boxes, and figures
• Always compile PDF twice (xelatex two passes) to resolve references
• When source is a translation, trace back to the original and use that as primary source
• Technical terms keep English original even when notes are in Chinese
• Do NOT use TikZ for any visualization — it causes compilation timeouts. Use LaTeX tables or pre-generated images instead

Asset

• assets/notes-template.tex: default LaTeX template to copy and fill