Include pdf-graphic without including the whole pdf

Question

I have drawn a lattice in latex with tikz, successfully compiled it to a pdf and been able to include it in my document. However, the whole PDF (i.e. A4 page) is included and I only want to include the lattice I have drawn.

Is it possible to automatically only include that lattice and not all the "blank space" around it? (I know "crop" is an option, but if I want to change the lattice so that it changes size, it will be a bother to update the crop coordinates all the time.)

Answer 1

In your original TikZ drawing, use standalone document class or preview and the picture will be cropped automatically.

Then you can include the resulting pdf to your main file.

Answer 2

If you don't want to use the solution by percusse, you can use pdfcrop. It's a perl script that removes all white borders of a pdf. Works with multiple pages too.