Suppress the processing of all images

Question

I am trying to make a draft by forcing LaTeX to ignore all images. How do I tell LaTeX to suppress all the image filenames (in the \includegraphics command) and just insert an empty box? The problem with the [draft] options is that it still requires me to have all images in the folder where I have my .tex files.

Answer 1

\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}

will give a black box for all images. All absolute width/height settings are recognized.

Answer 2

The quickest way I can think of is to simply redefine the command:

\renewcommand{\includegraphics}[2][]{\fbox{}}

will get you an empty box;

\renewcommand{\includegraphics}[2][]{\fbox{#2}}

will get you a box with the intended filename inside it. If you need, say, a specific size box, you can mess around with similar boxmaking commands in place of \fbox until you have it doing what you need. But the important thing is: anytime you want a command to do something different than what it does, \renewcommand! :)