[texhax] Organizing A Big LaTeX File

[Tom Schneider]

Zac:

> > For a 30 page document, I would not bother with separate files.
> > Even with a long document, I see little reason not to have all
> > the .tex files in the same folder.  I mostly use TeX for writing
> > many chapter books, and I make each 15-30 page chapter into a
> > separate file but have all the files in the same folder, where
> > it is easy to see them all at one time when I click on the folder.
> 
> Okie, thanks for your answers!  I guess I'm the sort who likes to
> organize things into different folders.  I just use vim and the command
> line, so things are not as nice as in WinEdt.  Dave, I've got a different
> perspective now from you, perhaps I'll change my viewpoint in the future!

I regularly create papers more than 30 pages long.  It is inconvenient
to keep going down into sub directories, so I also keep most files on
one level.  This allows things like `grep string *.tex`.  The
exception is the figures that go in to sub directories where each
figure is generated in its own directory (fig/a, fig/b, fig/c ...).

I also use vim/vi and atchange - which makes a system that is more
powerful than windows based systems because it is flexably
programmable.  Atchange was mentioned in a posting a few days ago:

http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/atchange.html

I built a script called 'l' that runs latex and then automatically
runs bibtex if references are needed.  This allows one to have
atchange be triggered on any part of the paper to generate the whole
automatically.

Regards,

Tom

  Dr. Thomas D. Schneider
  National Institutes of Health
  National Cancer Institute
  Center for Cancer Research Nanobiology Program
  Molecular Information Theory Group
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms at ncifcrf.gov
  permanent email: toms at alum.mit.edu (use only if first address fails)
  http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/