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Guide

A preflight kit for LaTeX papers and theses. It checks the build, the PDF, the references, accessibility and venue rules, for authors working by hand or with an AI agent.

Overfull is a preflight kit for LaTeX papers and theses. Before you submit, it answers questions that are tedious to check by hand and easy to get wrong:

  • Does the document build without errors, and does the PDF contain ?? or [?]?
  • Does every reference in references.bib exist, and does it match the indexed record?
  • Is the PDF tagged and accessible, with alt text, a language and a title?
  • Does it meet the venue’s rules: page limit, anonymity, AI-use disclosure, arXiv packaging?

It comes as a command-line tool (overfull), a Docker image with TeX Live, templates for a thesis, a paper and slides, a GitHub Action, and a browser check for a log, .bib or PDF you already have.

Two ways in

By hand. You write LaTeX the way you always have. make build produces the PDF and make check tells you, in plain language, what is wrong and where. You need only Docker. See Working by hand.

With an agent. You work with an AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or Gemini CLI. The templates include AGENTS.md and a set of skills that tell the agent how to build, add references and verify its work. The agent runs overfull check --json after every change and stops when there are no errors. See Working with an agent.

Both paths run the same checks and get the same results.

What Overfull does not do

Overfull never writes research content. It does not draft paragraphs, generate references or summarise papers. It adds information neither you nor a model has on its own: whether a DOI resolves, what is actually in the PDF, what the venue requires. You remain responsible for every sentence and every reference.

Start in five minutes

The first build downloads the Docker image (about 3 GB compressed, 9–10 GB on disk); after that, builds take seconds.

With the overfull command from the GitHub Releases download (or only Docker, see Install):

overfull init paper my-paper
cd my-paper
make build
make check

init copies the paper template (use thesis or slides for the others). make build compiles the PDF in Docker, so you do not need a local TeX installation. make check prints a report like this (the first line shows the status, then one line per check, then the problems):

overfull paper.pdf  WARN
  ✓ build          Build succeeded (paper.pdf, 8 pages)
  ! output         1 × overfull-box
  ✓ references     12 of 12 references verified
  ✓ accessibility  Tagged, PDF/UA valid (veraPDF)
  ✓ venue          profile paper, main text 7 of 8 pages (8 total)

  ! sections/method.tex:31  Text sticks 14.2pt into the margin (lines 31–33)  overfull-box

Already have a project? Run overfull check in its folder after a build. See Configuration to point it at your files.

Next steps

  • Install: Docker, a clone, the release download, Dev Container, Overleaf.
  • Checks: what each check does and what it cannot detect.
  • References: how verification works.
  • Accessibility: tagged PDFs and why they now matter.

All pages

Start

  1. GuideA preflight kit for LaTeX papers and theses. It checks the build, the PDF, the references, accessibility and venue rules, for authors working by hand or with an AI agent.
  2. InstallRun Overfull with only Docker or a single-file download from GitHub Releases, in a VS Code Dev Container, alongside Overleaf through Git, or from source.
  3. Migrate from OverleafUse Overfull with an Overleaf project through Git, or move builds off Overleaf to your machine and GitHub Actions.

With an agent

  1. Working with an agentSet up Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or Gemini CLI on an Overfull project, the build-and-check loop agents follow, how to review their pull requests, and what they must not do.

By hand

  1. Working by handThe classic LaTeX workflow with Overfull, using make build, make watch and make check, VS Code with LaTeX Workshop, and how to read the check report.

Checks

  1. ChecksThe five Overfull checks (build, output, references, accessibility, venue), severities and statuses, how each check works, and what it cannot detect.
  2. ReferencesHow Overfull verifies bibliography entries against CrossRef, doi.org, arXiv, DBLP and (with an API key) OpenAlex, the outcomes, false positives, opting out, configuration, offline use, and why it never calls a reference fake.
  3. AccessibilityWhy accessible PDFs now matter for theses and papers, what tagged PDF and PDF/UA mean, how the Overfull templates produce them, how to write alt text, how veraPDF fits in, and what still needs a human check.
  4. VenuesVenue profiles (generic, thesis, paper, arxiv, double-blind), venue fields in overfull.yml, page-limit counting with an end label, anonymity checks, and AI-use disclosure.

Reference

  1. CLI referenceEvery overfull command and flag, exit codes, the --json output of each command, and the JSON report schema with an example.
  2. ConfigurationReference for overfull.yml, the project configuration file read by every overfull command and the GitHub Action.
  3. GitHub ActionRun Overfull checks in GitHub Actions with amet13/overfull@v3, its inputs and outputs, and how it differs from the template workflow that builds in Docker.

Project

  1. FAQCommon questions about Overfull, its checks, references, agents, privacy and templates.
  2. Responsible useWhat Overfull is for, how it supports research integrity, AI-use disclosure, human review, and what it will not help with.
  3. Migrate from tex-thesisWhat changed when the tex-thesis template became Overfull, and how to move an existing thesis to the new thesis template or add Overfull checks to it.

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