Including full LaTeX documents within others - latex

I'm currently finishing off my dissertation, and would like to be able to include some documents within my LaTeX document.
The files I'd like to include are weekly reports done in LaTeX to my supervisor. Obviously all documents are page numbered seperately.
I would like them to be included in the final document.
I could concatenate all the final PDFs using GhostScript or some other tool, but I would like to have consistent numbering throughout the document.
I have tried including the LaTeX from each document in the main document, but the preamble etc causes problems and the small title I have in each report takes a whole page...
In summary, I'm looking for a way of including a number of 1 or 2 page self-complete LaTeX files in a large report, keeping their original layouts, but changing the page numbering.

For a possible solution of \input-ing the original LaTeX files while skipping their preamble, the newclude package might help.
Otherwise, you can use pdfpages for inserting pre-existing PDFs into your dissertation. I seem to recall that it has a feature of "suppressing" the original page numbers by covering them up with white boxes.

The suggestion from #Will Robertson works great. I'd just like to add an example for all lazy people:
\usepackage{pdfpages}
...
% Insert _all_ pages from some_pdf.pdf:
\includepdf[pages=-]{some_pdf} % the .pdf extension may be omitted
From the documentation of the package:
To include a specific range of pages, you could do pages={4-9}. If start is omitted, it defaults to the first page, if end is omitted, it defaults to the last page.
To include it in landscape mode, do landscape=true

Maintaining the original formatting per document will be difficult if they're using different formats. For example, concatenating different document classes will be near impossible.
I would suggest you go with the GhostScript solution with a slight twist. Latex allows you to set the starting page number using \setcounter{page}{13} for example. If you can find an application that can count the pages of a PDF document (pdfinfo in the pdfjam Ubuntu package is one example), then you can do the following:
Compile the next document to PDF
Concatenate the latest PDF with the current full PDF
Find the page count of the full PDF
Use sed to pluck in a \setcounter{page}{N} command into the next latex file
Go back to the beginning
If you need to do any other processing, again use sed. You should (assuming you fix the infinite loop in the above algorithm ;-) ) end up with a final PDF document with all original PDFs concatenated and continuous line numbers.

Have a look a the combine package, which seems to be exactly what you're searching for.
Since it merges documents at the source level, I guess the page numbers will be correct.

Related

LaTeX create ONLY table of contents

I have some documents scanned as pdf, and since I want to hand them in to my university combined as one document, I want to attach a table of contents to make the reader aware of the fact, that there are several documents inside this pdf. So, since I already have the documents and I am not producing them in Latex anymore, I only want to create the table of contents in Latex. Usually, Latex pulls its information for the toc out of the document it won't have this time. So, is there manual way of creating a table of contents, where I can type in myself, which section exists and what page it is on?
Thank you all in advance
and have a nice weekend!
PS: I double checked if that topic was already dealt with, but I didn't find anything.
So, apparently the answer lies in the .toc file which is auto generated when compiling. This document contains commands with the pattern
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {<number of enumeration>}\ignorespaces <heading>}{<pagenumber>}%
this comment also works when used after the \tableofcontents command.

Octave: saving figure with greek letters and subscripts

I'm currently trying to save a stress vs. strain curve using Octave. On this plot, I want to include text showing the equation for calculating engineering stress and engineering strain. Both of these require greek letters (\sigma and \epsilon respectively) as well as subscripts for the formulae.
Currently, using print with -deps, -dpng, or any other device, it creates a file, however the greek letters appear as the words "sigma" and "epsilon", and wherever I have a subscript, such as 0, it just appears as "_0". This looks very unprofessional.
Since I'm generating some 25 graphs, I don't want to have to go through and do a screenshot for each one. Does octave support saving the generated figure as displayed? I intend to use the generated files in a LaTeX document later (preferably as png so I can email them separately too).
I've also tried changing the "graphics_toolkit" option between fltk and gnuplot however it doesn't seem to help.
Attached to this post is a screenshot of the desired results and the actual results.
I am currently "not allowed" to post images, so I'll link them:
http://i.imgur.com/Tjt5Ecn.png (screenshot, desired result) and http://i.imgur.com/SP3hekd.png (directly saved, actual result)
Does anyone know a good way to print a figure from Octave which includes greek characters and subscripts in the titles?
Since you plan to use your graph in a Latex document, generating the graphs with -depslatex and converting them to pdf is a good idea . (Results look slightly better than direct -dpdflatex).
With -depslatex, you can include Latex code in your figures that will be written to a separate tex file.
Note that you need to use double backslashes \\ to export a single backslash.
graphics_toolkit("gnuplot");
...
legend("$\\varepsilon$");
print(sprintf("graph%s_%d.eps", name, type), '-depslatex', '-S200,270', '-F:9');
system(sprintf("epstopdf graph%s_%d.eps", name, type));
On the Latex side, you then \input the tex file generated by Octave. On the plus side, since you need 25 graphs, you can automatize this process on both sides Octave and Latex.
\newcommand{\mygraph}[1]{%
\graphicspath{{./figures/}}
\resizebox{0.495\linewidth}{!}{\relscale{1.0}\small%
\input{./figures/#1.tex}
}%
}
\mygraph{graph1_1}
Here, a Latex command \mygraph is defined to scale and include a figure located in a subfolder.
(I am using Octave 4.0.0 with gnuplot 4.4 on Ubuntu 12)

R --markdown to latex - tables do not show up

I am using Knitr in Rstudio, to generate markdown files. I display the tables via xtable package and it shows up nicely in html file. However, when I converd .md to latex via pandoc - the latex file does not contain the tables as it is supposed to be, but only the values in table without any command.
Markdown - Knitr input
In order to give a better idea, the following table provides a sample of
data rows:
```{r table, results='asis', echo=FALSE}
r = read.table("C:/aR_files/data.txt",sep=",", header=TRUE,as.is=TRUE)
r$X = NULL;
print(xtable(r), type='html')
```
Latex
In order to give a better idea, the following table provides a sample of
data rows:
Row1
Row2
Val1
Val1
I thought I may be missing a latex package, so I downloaded ctable.sty, but still I get the same output. Any ideas appreciated, thanks!
I use a very similar workflow to yours and your best bet is to abandon the often clunky xtable package and use the pander package to print your tables. You can wrap any object that you might want to display as a table in the generic pander() function. This is a wrapper for the pandoc.table() function which has several options. If you specify the option style = "XXX" you can achieve what you are asking about here. There are 4 different styles you can choose from; "multiline" (the default), "grid", "simple", or "rmarkdown". I frequently knit rmarkdown documents from within Rstudio and then convert them to Word documents using the pander package:
library(pander)
Pandoc.convert("C:/Users/BlahBlahBlah/Document.md", format="docx")
All of the 4 table styles get turned into table objects upon conversion to .docx format, but only one table style looks right in the .docx document and the .html file that results from the initial "knit". That style is "rmarkdown". You can implement this 2 ways. One would be:
```{r table, results='asis'}
pandoc.table(myTable, style = "rmarkdown")
```
I prefer to set the table style globally at the beginning of my document however, ensuring that all my tables have the same formatting and also allowing me to use the more succinct pander(x) instead of the more verbose pandoc.table(x, style = "someStyle"):
```{r table, results='asis'}
panderOptions("table.style", "rmarkdown")
pander(myTable)
```
There are some side effects of using the rmarkdown style however. Mainly, it does not support newline characters within cells, so buyer beware. I experimented with the different styles and eventually decided that I liked the default style of "multiline" because of it's flexibility with line breaks within cells, even though the .html files I generate look silly. This doesn't bother me though, as I really only use the .docx files that I convert from the .md files. I wrote a blog post about making nice tables that you might find useful. It weighs the pros and cons of several methods including xtable() and several pander() scenarios.

Mixing a4 and a3 in one Latex file

I am finishing my thesis and have a large appendix. Some tables only look good, if first done on a3 and then (paper)printed on a4. Anyhow, working all the files seperalty is fine, but I struggle to compile all in one.
I use the geometry package and start the document with:
\usepackage[a4paper,left=30mm,right=20mm,top=20mm, bottom=20mm]{geometry}
For the appendix, I want to include the table and use
\newgeometry{a3paper,left=25mm,right=15mm, top=15mm, bottom=15mm}
However, the command is completely ignored and I can read "a3paper,left=25mm,right=15mm, top=15mm, bottom=15mm" above the table.
What did I miss? Is it even possible? If not, how do I get the numbers right, if I have to include it as a pdf (which works)?
Thanks!
I don't think it's possible (at least if your output is DVI). Have a look at Change paper size in the middle of a latex document?.

How to manually equalize columns in an IEEE paper if using BibTex?

IEEE conference publications in two-column format require authors to manually equalize the lengths of the columns on the last page of the final submission. I have typically done this by inserting a \newpage where necessary -- which usually ends up being somewhere amidst my (manually entered) references.
However, I have recently begun using BibTeX to manage references, and have now run into a problem: my last page contains only a few (generated) references, and I can't figure out how to manually equalize the columns.
The last page is the tail end of what is generated by:
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,library}
Any ideas on how I can equalize the columns while continuing to use BibTeX?
I have submitted to both ACM and IEEE conferences and the easiest thing for me has been using:
\usepackage{flushend}
I've heard it doesn't always work well, but it's been great for me
http://www.ctan.org/pkg/flushend
I went back to RTFM again, and it turns out this is addressed right in "How to Use the IEEEtran LaTeX Class" by Michael Shell (maintainer). Section XIV notes that IEEEtran helpfully provides the \IEEEtriggeratref{} command for just this purpose. By default, it fires a \newline at the given BibTeX reference number. You can even change the command to fire with \IEEEtriggercmd{}.
It can also be done by using the balance package. You simply include the balance package in the preamble (\usepackage{balance}) and insert \balance some place on the last page of your document (for instance right in front of the references). However, I'm not sure if it's working if the last page (both columns) is completely full of references...
IEEE requires authors to equalize the lengths of the columns on the last page.
ACM makes us do this too. I just wind up inserting \vfill\break by hand either in the main text or somewhere in the .bbl file, wherever it makes the columns balance. By the time camera-ready copy goes to ACM, they want the .bbl file inlined by hand anyway, so tinkering by hand does not present an additional hardship.
The reference-number trick might be nice except I never use numbered references :-)
The multicols environment works only if you're luck and your last page comes out exactly as bibliography.
It would be extremely good (and not so difficult) if some enterprising hacker would build the "balance the two columns in the last page" functionality straight into LateX's \output routine. The flexibility is there in the underlying engine, and it would make a lot of people happy.
Not sure if multicol conflicts with bibtex at all, and I don't have time to check, sorry. But try this:
use the multicol package:
\usepackage{multicol} in your preamble, then:
\begin{multicols}{2}
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,library}
\end{multicols}
Multicol automatically balances columns. I would recomend using it through out your document, instead of using the .cls or .sty's twocolumn option.

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