Open Journals PDF Generator

Create a draft PDF of an Open Journals article.

Usage

Add a file .github/workflows/draft-pdf.yml to your repo.

name: Draft PDF
on: [push]

jobs:
  paper:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Paper Draft
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Build draft PDF
        uses: openjournals/openjournals-draft-action@master
        with:
          journal: joss
          # This should be the path to the paper within your repo.
          paper-path: paper.md
      - name: Upload
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: paper
          # This is the output path where Pandoc will write the compiled
          # PDF. Note, this should be the same directory as the input
          # paper.md
          path: paper.pdf

This will build the paper.pdf and make it available for download as an Actions artifact after each build.

If you store your paper files in the same repository as your source code or any other files that are not included in the final rendering, you may want to limit the scope of when this action is triggered, to avoid duplicating the same PDF when unrelated push is made. You can do so, by replacing on: [push] in your draft-pdf.yml with:

on:
  push:
    paths:
      - paper/**
      - .github/workflows/draft-pdf.yml

to capture all changes to your paper files in paper directory, or with:

on:
  push:
    paths:
      - paper.md
      - paper.bib
      - assets/img1.png
      - assets/img2.png
      - .github/workflows/draft-pdf.yml

if you need to specify individual files.

If you would like to store the PDF in your repository after the build, you need to (1) enable repository write access for your Actions under Settings/Actions/General/WorkflowPermissions and (2) add a step which will git add and git commit it within the workflow. You can do the latter manually, or wiht a predefined action, e.g. EndBug/add-and-commit, by appending steps in draft-pdf.yml with:

    - name: Commit PDF to repository
      uses: EndBug/add-and-commit@v9
      with:
        message: '(auto) Paper PDF Draft'
        # This should be the path to the paper within your repo.
        add: 'paper.pdf' # 'paper/*.pdf' to commit all PDFs in the paper directory

Inputs

The build can be configured by setting the following inputs.

journal

The journal to which this paper will be submitted. May be either joss or jose. Defaults to joss.

paper-path

Filename of the paper, relative to the project's root directory. Defaults to paper.md.