multidocument Multiple-File LaTeX Template

Multiple-file LaTeX template for long documents.

Compiling

For tooling to find the files, make sure that TEXMFHOME is set to the path to texmf. You can configure a shell by changing directory to the repository root and running . ./activate. The project justfile is already configured to work properly.

Use just to compile the project. Note that just treats paths relative to the directory containing the justfile.

# Default action renders the final PDF and opens it with `open`.
$ just
# Renders the final PDF.
$ just build-final
# Get the path to the rendered PDF.
$ just output-path
# Clean up build artifacts.
$ just clean

Run just --list to get a full listing of available commands.

You can specify an entrypoint (for example, the file src/children/child.tex) to most recipes by passing the path relative from src/; for example, just build-final children/child.tex. You can override the default settings by setting the main variable in the justfile.

Project Organization

LaTeX source files for text content are kept under src/, with the entrypoint at src/main.tex. Reusable project-wide configuration is siloed into sty and cls files underneath texmf. To use a shared preamble for all documents, create a new cls and set it as the base class in multidocument's arguments. Use the cls file to set the

Text Content

Text content is organized hierarchically underneath src/. An entrypoint file has the following structure:

% src/main.tex
\documentclass[baseclass=multiexample]{multidocument}

% All imports required by the entire document.
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\rinput{children/child.tex}
\rinput{children/cousin.tex}

\end{document}

multidocument takes two optional arguments:

• root specifies a relative path to the root directory of the project. It defaults to root=.. This is most important for subdocuments.
• baseclass specifies a base class. Relative sectioning commands are only set up for the article base class. It defaults to baseclass=article.

Subdocuments need to be included with the \rinput command, with an unprefixed relative path from the project root.

Sections in subdocuments should also use the \rsection, \rsubsection, and \rsubsubsection commands, which adjust sectioning levels automatically. When a subdocument has been included with the \rsinput command instead of \rinput, the sectioning level of the included document is reduced by one. This functionality is tested with article.

Subdocuments can be compiled individually so long as all packages they require are imported in their preamble. This repository contains an example, with the following file structure:

src/
    |-> children/
    |   |-> child.tex
    |   |-> cousin.tex
    |   |-> grandchildren/
    |   |   |-> grandchild.tex
    |-> main.tex
texmf/
    |-> tex/
    |   |-> xelatex/
    |   |   |-> cls/
    |   |   |   |-> multiexample.cls