Invoice Boilerplate

Overview:

Invoice Boilerplate is a simple automated LaTeX invoicing system designed for freelancers. It is built with minimal requirements to create professional-looking invoices with ease. It automates the process by populating a LaTeX template with data from a YAML file and compiling it into a PDF ready for printing, faxing, emailing, or archiving.

Features:

• Easy setup and customization: Open the details.yml file in a text editor and fill it with your details, recipient's details, services/prices, and desired settings.
• Automated template population: Running the make command triggers Pandoc to iterate over the YAML file, populate the template.tex file with the data, and pipe the result to XeTeX for typesetting and PDF compilation.
• VAT handling: The system internally handles VAT calculations using the spreadtab package in LaTeX. You only need to provide the VAT rate and prices, and the boilerplate takes care of the rest.
• Language customization: You can easily translate the template into languages other than English by finding the relevant strings in template.tex and modifying them.
• Windows compatibility: While not tested, it is possible to run the Invoice Boilerplate on Windows by installing Pandoc and LaTeX, potentially through Cygwin, or running a specific PowerShell command.

Summary:

Invoice Boilerplate is a user-friendly LaTeX invoicing system for freelancers. It provides an automated process to generate professional invoices by populating a LaTeX template with data from a YAML file. With minimal LaTeX knowledge required, users can easily customize the template, handle VAT calculations, and generate PDF invoices in different languages. The system requires LaTeX with additional packages and Pandoc for document conversion. While primarily designed for Linux, it is potentially compatible with Windows systems as well.