TITLE: Compiling a single master.tex from a modular document
DATE: 2020-04-25
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
====================================================================
I've recently submitted a paper to a peer reviewed journal. During
the final proofing process it was clear that the editors at the
journal had taken my original paper.tex file, which calls a load of
other .tex files using \input{}, as well as a .bib file with
\bibliography{}, and subbed in the contents of those files to form
one .tex file which could then be compiled on its own, without the
additional files originally called by my paper.tex.
It seemed like this process could be automated somewhat, so I set
about writing a bash script.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Run latexmk
latexmk $1
# Get filename without extension
base="${1%.*}"
# Create main.tex
cp "${base}.tex" "main.tex"
# Create \input{} filepaths array
inputs=($(grep -E '\\input{.*}' $1 | sed
's/.*{\([^]]*\)}.*/\1/g'))
# Create \input{} line number array
inputlines=($(grep -n '\\input{.*}' $1 | cut -f1 -d: ))
# Loop over each element of both array to create a sed statement
# which replaces the \input{} lines with the contents of the
referenced file
for ((i=0;i<${#inputlines[@]};++i)); do
printf -v s '%s%s\n%s\n' "$s" "${inputlines[i]}r
${inputs[i]}" "${inputlines[i]}d"
done
# Run sed
sed -i.bak -e "$s" main.tex
# Find bibliography line number
bibline="$(grep -n '\\bibliography{.*}' main.tex | cut -f1 -d:
)"
# Replace \bibliography{} with formatted contents of
# .bbl file generated by latexmk
sed -i.bak -e "${bibline}r ${base}.bbl" -e "${bibline}d"
main.tex
# Clean up intermediate files
rm main.tex.bak
latexmk -C
First the script runs latexmk to compile the intermediate files and
a .pdf. Then the script creates two array variables, one containing
the filepaths of every file that is called by \input{} and the
other containing the line numbers in paper.tex of each of those
\input{} lines. Then the script runs a for loop which creates a big
long multi-part sed statement, which replaces the lines with
input{} with the contents of that file. As a side note, this is the
first time I've really used the sed r operator, and it looks super
useful. Finally the script does similar but without a for loop to
replace the bibliography command with the contents of paper.bbl,
which is a TeX formatted file containing the bibliography,
generated by latexmk from the .bib file. After that there is just
some clean up to remove intermediate files and you're left with
main.tex, which can then be sent off to reviewers or used for final
proofing before publication, without the hassle of handling
multiple documents. While multiple documents is useful during
document creation, I feel it's less useful when you are trying to
typeset the final document.
I got a lot of help and inspiration from the following
StackExchange posts:
- bibtex - Dealing with strict rules for paper submission using
LaTeX - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
- automation - How do I combine several tex files into one? - TeX
- LaTeX Stack Exchange
- input - Generating a single TeX file by merging different TeX
files - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
[bibtex - Dealing with strict rules for paper submission using
LaTeX - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange]:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/514153/dealing-with-strict-r
ules-for-paper-submission-using-latex
[automation - How do I combine several tex files into one? - TeX
- LaTeX Stack Exchange]:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/25713/how-do-i-combine-sever
al-tex-files-into-one
[input - Generating a single TeX file by merging different TeX
files - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange]:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/62232/generating-a-single-te
x-file-by-merging-different-tex-files
And from this question which I asked myself to help figure out the
for loop bit:
- Insert file contents at line number from bash arrays - Stack
Overflow
[Insert file contents at line number from bash arrays - Stack
Overflow]:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60980245/insert-file-contents-at
-line-number-from-bash-arrays/60989942?noredirect=1#comment107902183
_60989942
