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How to move an existing LaTeX project into Luzbase

Bring the paper you're halfway through: export it as a .zip, import it in one step, and check the three things worth checking before you keep writing.

Luzbase Team

3 min read

An imported my-paper.zip with its main file found, a sections folder kept and a .venv folder skipped.
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  • Luzbase Team
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3 min

You don't need to start a new paper to try Luzbase. Most people arrive halfway through one: a thesis on their laptop, a paper in another online editor, a project in a Git repository. This guide moves it across in a few minutes.

1. Get your project into a .zip

Whatever you're using now, you need one .zip file with your project inside.

  • On your computer: compress the project folder. On macOS, right-click it and choose Compress. On Windows, right-click and choose Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder.
  • From another online LaTeX editor: most have a "Download source" or "Download as zip" option in the project menu.
  • From a Git repository: download the repository as a zip, or zip your local folder.

Don't worry about clutter. Luzbase cleans it up for you (see step 3).

2. Import it

  1. In your dashboard, click New project.
  2. Give it a name.
  3. Under Start from, choose Import .zip and select your file.
  4. Click Import project.

Luzbase unpacks it and finds the main .tex file automatically. If your zip has everything inside a single top-level folder, that folder is removed so your files sit at the root of the project.

The limit is 500 MB per zip, which is plenty for any paper and almost any thesis.

3. What gets left out, and why

Real-world project folders collect junk. Luzbase skips it so it doesn't eat your storage:

  • System files: __MACOSX, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, desktop.ini, ._* files
  • Version control: .git, .svn, .hg
  • Code environments: node_modules, venv, .venv, pycache, .ipynb_checkpoints and similar
  • Editor settings: .idea, .vscode

This matters more than you'd think. A paper with an analysis notebook next to it can carry a Python environment of several hundred megabytes. Luzbase tells you which folders it skipped, so nothing disappears silently.

Older files saved in some legacy text encodings are converted to UTF-8 on the way in, so accented characters survive.

4. Compile

Press ⌘Enter (or Ctrl+Enter). If anything fails, the error panel tells you what's wrong in plain language and links to the line.

Then save a version, called something like Imported. Now you have a clean starting point, with full history from here on.

Taking it back out

Your work is never locked in. Under Settings → Export & templates, pick a branch and choose Email me a .zip for a complete copy of the source. Export PDF in the preview downloads the compiled document at any time.

Start free and bring your project.

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