[texhax] latexdiff question

[Jeff Barnett]

Kathryn Gucer wrote, On 4/5/2014 1:26 PM:
> Dear TUG members,
>
> I am editor working on an academic book written in LaTeX.  I am 
> writing with a question about latexdiff, a Perl script that allows 
> multiple TeX users to track changes they have made to one TeX file 
> (http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/latexdiff)
>
> Here's the problem that I'm encountering. I am working on a complex 
> .tex file (Draft1.tex)  that pulls the parts a book (e.g., table of 
> contents, chapters, bibliography) together and integrates them into a 
> .pdf of the entire book when I compile it in MikTeK 2.9. These parts 
> (e.g., chap1.tex, chap2.tex, and so on)  are .tex files that are 
> external to Draft1.tex and they cannot be compiled individually.
>
> When I use latexdiff to generate a comparison between Draft1.tex 
> (author's original) and Draft2.tex (draft with my changes), the 
> resulting .pdf does not show or track any changes to the text in the 
> external file: it only shows the author's full original 307-page 
> document. Since the bulk of the author's work is in these external 
> files, I will need to find a way to show changes in them.
>
> Is it possible that latexdiff cannot work on complex master files? Can 
> anyone here offer some insight?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Kathryn
Are you using "\include" or "\input" commands to assemble your document? 
The first one does, indeed, allow separate compilation of the parts 
(with some restriction). I cannot help you with the main part of your 
problem since I'm not familiar with latexdiff.

Jeff Barnett