Print frames rather than boxes with demo/draft version of graphics/graphicx

Question

I recently switched to demo such that I could compile my .tex file without needing the actual image files. Now, instead of the image there is a black box. Is there anyway to get a black border such that when I am printing copies of this I don't waste precious black ink.

Answer 1

\usepackage{graphicx}

\makeatletter
  \AtBeginDocument{%
    \def\Ginclude@graphics#1{%
      \begingroup\fboxsep=-\fboxrule
      \fbox{\rule{\@ifundefined{Gin@@ewidth}{150pt}{\Gin@@ewidth}}{0pt}%
        \rule{0pt}{\@ifundefined{Gin@@eheight}{100pt}{\Gin@@eheight}}}\endgroup}}
\makeatother

Answer 2

Since the demo option to graphicx makes all \includegraphics commands print a 150pt x 100pt rectangle and there's no way around that easily, you could just redefine the \includegraphics command:

\renewcommand{\includegraphics}[2][]{%
  \setlength{\fboxsep}{-\fboxrule}% Remove frame separator/gap
  \framebox{\rule{0pt}{100pt}\rule{150pt}{0pt}}% Framed box of 150pt x 100pt
}

Now you can remove the demo option from graphicx and use the document as is with the same \framebox-filled result. Since the command has the same format \includegraphics[..]{...}, no further modifications are needed; all arguments (both optional and mandatory) are discarded.

Answer 3

Here is another way (albeit slightly overkill with \tkiz for drawing the box, but you can adapt the other solutions for the box drawing if that is not desired -- I tend to think \tikz first for some reason :-). The only real enhancement here from the other solutions is to use \def\DemoOption{demo} when in demo mode and \def\DemoOption{} when not in demo mode. This could be improved by using a command line option to set \DemoOption.

Since the graphicx pacakge defines \def\Ginclude@graphics when in demo mode, we just need to redfine that after \begin{document}:

\def\DemoOption{demo}% Use this in demo mode
%\def\DemoOption{}% Use this when done want figures included
\RequirePackage[\DemoOption]{graphicx}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xstring}

\begin{document}
\makeatletter%
\IfStrEq{\DemoOption}{demo}{%
    \renewcommand{\Ginclude@graphics}[1]{%
      \tikz \draw (0,0) rectangle (150pt,100pt);%
}}{}%
\makeatother

\includegraphics{whatever}
\end{document}