General ⇒ possible to compile only chapter

[mappo]

I'm considering converting my one-enormous-main-file system to a structure with a smaller one
that \include:s one-chapter-files.

The problem is that the first command on the first line in these files is \chapter{} and to
preview the document I have to compile the main file.

Here's what I want:
The document is divided into one-chapter-files for easy re-organizing.
The one-chapter-files can be compiled on their own for easy pre-viewing.

Is this possible?
Or is the best solution to exclude \include-lines by %commenting them?

I'm using TeXnicCenter\MikTeX on XP.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi mappo,

you could use \includeonly. Here is a good description: Structuring Large Documents.

Stefan

[T3.]

In the preamble of your document put:

Code: Select all

\includeonly{chap1,chap2}

Then only chap1.tex and chap2.tex will be included, other \include commands will be ignored. This works only for \include commands, \input works as usual.

I, personally, tend to split my documents into many, many files (read 100+) some of them generated automatically by some external tools/scripts. So I use \input command a lot and the above method doesn't work for me. Instead, I usually have a main file like this:

Code: Select all

\input{preamble}
\begin{document}
\input{body}% not a corpse ;)
\end{document}

If I want to preview only some fragment, it is enough to substitute \input{body} -> \input{fragment}

Cheers,

Tomek

Edit:
Damn, I have to write faster, Stefan beat me to it

[mappo]

Great suggestions! Thank you both!

My thesis writing just got an order of magnitude more efficient.

[T3.]

I'm glad we could help

My thesis writing just got an order of magnitude more efficient.

Wow, now that's a difference

Cheers,

Tomek

PS.
If you're constantly recompiling your documents and you're looking for some ways to speed up that process, there are also other possibilities than exclusion of chapters. It's not uncommon that the actual compilation of your document takes much less than loading of all the packages, so exclusion of chapters doesn't help all that much. In such a case dumping a custom format file from the preamble is a very effective way to cut down on the compilation time.