arlatex

ARLATEX(1)                       User Commands                      ARLATEX(1)

NAME
       arlatex - archive a number of ancillary LaTeX files into a master .tex
       file

SYNOPSIS
       arlatex [--outfile=filename.tex] --document=filename.tex filename ...

       arlatex --version

       arlatex --help

DESCRIPTION
       arlatex is an archiving program like shar, tar, zip, etc.  Unlike those
       other archivers, however, arlatex is designed specifically for use with
       LaTeX.  arlatex takes the name of a master .tex file and a number of
       ancillary files used by that master file (e.g., .tex, .sty, .cls, and
       .eps files).  From these, arlatex outputs a single file that, when it's
       run through latex, both regenerates the ancillary files and compiles
       the document into a .dvi file.

       arlatex has a few advantages over other archiving programs:

       o   The .tex files produced by arlatex are in a plain-text format.
           They are therefore perfectly portable and trivial to e-mail to
           colleagues.

       o   arlatex needs only LaTeX to run.  There is no dependence on any
           external tools.

       o   There is no explicit extraction step.  As the generated document is
           run through latex, it extracts the ancillary files and builds the
           document in the same step.  The user running latex may not even
           notice that additional files are being produced.

       arlatex works by writing a number of "\begin{filecontents*}" ...
       "\end{filecontents*}" blocks to the output file, followed by the
       contents of the master file.  (In fact, any LaTeX comments at the
       beginning of the master file are hoisted to the top of the generated
       file.  This enables the author to draw attention, if so desired, to the
       fact that ancillary files will be generated.)  The "filecontents*"
       environment, part of standard LaTeX2e, writes its contents verbatim to
       a specified file.

OPTIONS
       --version
           Output the arlatex script's version number.

       --help
           Output brief arlatex usage information.

       --document=.tex file
           Specify the master document.  The output from arlatex is this file
           with all of the other files named on the command line prepended to
           it.  Note that "--document" is a mandatory parameter; arlatex will
           abort with an error message if "--document" is not specified.

       --outfile=.tex file
           Specify the output file.  The output file looks just like the
           master document, but with a number of "filecontents*" environments
           preceding the "\documentclass" line.  If "--outfile" is not
           specified, output will be written to the standard output device.

EXAMPLES
       Suppose you have a paper called paper.tex that loads a custom package
       with "\usepackage{mypackage}".  You want to submit the paper to a
       conference, but you want to be absolutely certain that mypackage.sty
       doesn't get lost as your paper is shuttled from person to person.
       Here's how arlatex can be of use:

           arlatex --document=paper.tex mypackage.sty --outfile=paper-submit.tex

       When paper-submit.tex is processed with latex, it builds just like the
       original paper.tex, except that it additionally creates a mypackage.sty
       in the current directory:

           This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.1)
           (paper-submit.tex
           LaTeX2e <1999/12/01> patch level 1
           Babel <v3.6Z> and hyphenation patterns for american, french, german,
           ngerman, italian, nohyphenation, loaded.

           LaTeX Warning: Writing file `./mypackage.sty'.

           (/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
           Document Class: article 1999/09/10 v1.4a Standard LaTeX document class
           (/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/size12.clo)) (mypackage.sty)
                                         .
                                         .
                                         .

       As another example, here's how you could bundle together all of the
       files needed to build a large document for longevity:

           arlatex --document=thesis.tex abstract.tex introduction.tex
             background.tex approach.tex experiments.tex relatedwork.tex
             conclusions.tex before.eps after.eps fast.eps slow.eps
             podunkUthesis.cls --outfile=thesis-all.tex

       As the number of files to archive together increases it becomes more
       cumbersome to run arlatex manually.  Fortunately, using arlatex with
       bundledoc is straightforward.  bundledoc finds all of the files needed
       to build the document, and arlatex combines them into a single file.
       The following are examples of the "bundle:" line you might use in a
       bundledoc configuration file:

       Unix:
           bundle: (arlatex --document=$BDBASE.tex $BDINPUTS \
             --outfile=$BDBASE-all.tex)

       Windows:
           bundle: arlatex --document=%BDBASE%.tex %BDINPUTS% \
             --outfile=%BDBASE%-all.tex

       See the bundledoc documentation for more information.

CAVEATS
       arlatex makes use of LaTeX2e's "filecontents*" environment.
       "filecontents*" refuses to overwrite an existing file.  However, it
       also refuses to create a file that exists anywhere that LaTeX can find
       it.  That is, if the user running latex on an arlatex-generated .tex
       file already has a /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/whatever/whatever.sty
       file then "filecontents*" will refuse to create a whatever.sty file,
       even in a different directory.

SEE ALSO
       bundledoc(1), latex(1), shar(1), tar(1), zip(1)

AUTHOR
       Scott Pakin, scott+bdoc@pakin.org

v1.03                             2018-05-23                        ARLATEX(1)