Can one TeX file output to multiple PDF files?

Question

I'd like to be able to create a TeX file that will output multiple PDF files with one compilation. I'm not even sure if this is possible. Here is the setup:

I am writing dozens of cover letters for job applications, and wish for them to all look "personalized". So I defined a function which calls multiple variables, such as the address, name of the institution, open position, etc., and outputs a "personalized" cover letter for each function call. The problem is that compilation of the TeX file outputs just one file. Since I will be submitting all of these files online eventually, I would like each letter to be in its own file. Is there a way to do this at the TeX level?

Answer 1

How do you store this information? You could just have one info-file for each letter

% letter1.adr
\def\toname{Foo}

and

% letter2.adr
\def\toname{Bar}

and then have a main file

% main.tex
\documentclass[addrfield]{scrlttr2}
\input \jobname.adr

\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{\toname}
\opening{Dear \toname, }
 A nice letter.
\end{letter}
\end{document}

Then you can comile all letters from the command line with something like

for %i in (*.adr) do pdflatex -jobname=%i main.tex

The koma bundle also provides tools for more sophisticated address files.

Answer 2

The answer is no, TeX outputs one PDF file.

I'd use a tool to split the PDF files afterwards. pdfpages (TeX) pdfsam, and pdftk should do the trick.

Answer 3

Yes it is possible if you enable \write18 (e.g. pdflatex --shell-escape with MiKTeX). Then you can call pdflatex again inside your document. An example (the code is not from me). It will generate three documents \jobname1-\jobname3:

\documentclass{article}

\ifx\conditionmacro\undefined
  \immediate\write18{%
    pdfLaTeX --jobname="\jobname1"
    \gdef\string\conditionmacro{1}\string\input\space\jobname
  }%
  \immediate\write18{%
    pdfLaTeX --jobname="\jobname2"
    \gdef\string\conditionmacro{2}\string\input\space\jobname
  }%
  \immediate\write18{%
    pdfLaTeX --jobname="\jobname3"
    \gdef\string\conditionmacro{3}\string\input\space\jobname
  }%
  \expandafter\stop
\fi

\begin{document}
\ifnum\conditionmacro=1 Condition is 1\fi
\ifnum\conditionmacro=2 Condition is 2\fi
\ifnum\conditionmacro=3 Condition is 3\fi

\verb|\conditionmacro| is \texttt{\meaning\conditionmacro}.
\end{document}

Answer 4

You can do as Patrick says, or you can generate TeX files from a script language (say, Perl + Template Toolkit) and then use environment variables to pass the parameters.

E.g. on Linux with bash, you can do $ PARAM1=VALUE1 PARAM2=VALUE2 perl ./compile.pl

Answer 5

I don't think you can make a single .tex file produce multiple .PDFs, however you could create some very simple .tex files (one per PDF you want to create), which simply set up a few macros (your personalised variables) and then \input (or \include) the common .tex file.

Running pdflatex (or whatever TeX-to-xxx converter/compiler you like best) on each of the small files will produce all your PDFs.

(Probably worth writing a little script to compile each one if the differing elements are more than very simple macro replacements)

Answer 6

Expanding on my comment to Alexei, If you make a file test.tex with:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

Hello [% name %]

\end{document}

and a test.pl with:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Template;

my $tt = Template->new(); 

my @names = ('john','sally');
my $infile = 'test.tex';

foreach my $name (@names) {
  my %data;
  my $outname = $name . 'tex';
  $data{'name'} = $name;
  $tt->process($infile,\%data, $outname);
  system("latexmk -pdf $outname");
  system("latexmk -c");
}

when you execute test.pl you should get a john.tex and a john.pdf, etc in the same folder. Its a simple example but I'm sure you can extend it to what you need. PS if you don't know latexmk, check it out!

Answer 7

You should be able to do this with the letter options in KOMA script, it's briefly in the manual although I haven't personally experimented with it.

Answer 8

Since cover letter usually does not exceed 1 page, it is possible to extract given range of pages from Adobe Acrobat using Tools | Pages | Extract | Extract Pages As Separate Files.