diff --git a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/learn.py b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/learn.py
index ce4048b8f..0f10b0147 100644
--- a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/learn.py
+++ b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/learn.py
@@ -118,16 +118,22 @@ async def process_message(self, message: HumanChatMessage):
             if remote_type == "arxiv":
                 try:
                     id = args.path[0]
-                    args.path = [
-                        arxiv_to_text(id)
-                    ]  # call the function in `directory.py``
+                    args.path = [arxiv_to_text(id, self.root_dir)]
                     self.reply(
-                        f"Processing arxiv file id {id}, saved in {args.path[0]}.",
+                        f"Learning arxiv file with id **{id}**, saved in **{args.path[0]}**.",
                         message,
                     )
+                except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
+                    self.log.error(e)
+                    self.reply(
+                        "No `arxiv` package found. " "Install with `pip install arxiv`."
+                    )
+                    return
                 except Exception as e:
+                    self.log.error(e)
                     self.reply(
-                        f"""The arXiv file could not be processed. Check the paper ID ({id}). Or, verify that the `arxiv` package is installed."""
+                        "An error occurred while processing the arXiv file. "
+                        f"Please verify that the arxiv id {id} is correct."
                     )
                     return
 
diff --git a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/document_loaders/directory.py b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/document_loaders/directory.py
index 083c260b7..e493fb385 100644
--- a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/document_loaders/directory.py
+++ b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/document_loaders/directory.py
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-import datetime
 import hashlib
 import itertools
 import os
 import tarfile
+from datetime import datetime
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import List
 
@@ -12,31 +12,49 @@
 from langchain_community.document_loaders import PyPDFLoader
 
 
-# Download a single tar file from arXiv and store in a temp folder for RAG, then run learn on it.
-def arxiv_to_text(id):  # id is numbers after "arXiv" in arXiv:xxxx.xxxxx
+def arxiv_to_text(id: str, output_dir: str) -> str:
+    """Downloads and extracts single tar file from arXiv.
+    Combines the TeX components into a single file.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    id : str
+        id for the paper, numbers after "arXiv" in arXiv:xxxx.xxxxx
+
+    output_dir : str
+        directory to save the output file
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    output: str
+        output path to the downloaded TeX file
+    """
+
     import arxiv
 
-    # Get the paper from arxiv
-    outfile = id + datetime.datetime.now().strftime("_%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M") + ".tex"
+    outfile = f"{id}-{datetime.now():%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M}.tex"
+    download_filename = "downloaded-paper.tar.gz"
+    output_path = os.path.join(output_dir, outfile)
+
     paper = next(arxiv.Client().results(arxiv.Search(id_list=[id])))
-    paper.download_source(dirpath="", filename="downloaded-paper.tar.gz")
-    # Extract tex files from downloaded tar file
-    with tarfile.open("downloaded-paper.tar.gz") as tar:
+    paper.download_source(filename=download_filename)
+
+    with tarfile.open(download_filename) as tar:
         tex_list = []
         for member in tar:
             if member.isfile() and member.name.lower().endswith(".tex"):
                 tex_list.append(member.name)
                 tar.extract(member, path="")
-    # Concatenate all tex files
-    with open(outfile, "w") as wfd:
+
+    with open(output_path, "w") as w:
         for f in tex_list:
-            with open(f) as infile:
-                wfd.write(infile.read())
+            with open(f) as tex:
+                w.write(tex.read())
             os.remove(f)
 
-    outfile_path = os.path.realpath(outfile)
-    os.remove("downloaded-paper.tar.gz")
-    return outfile_path
+    os.remove(download_filename)
+
+    return output_path
 
 
 # Uses pypdf which is used by PyPDFLoader from langchain