Automated copy and paste?

Question

I have found a program that can convert PDF to LaTeX, and so I have .tex files of various math textbooks. I want to make a list of theorems from the book, and so I have been manually copying and pasting from the .tex file. Is there any way I can automate this process? For example, I could copy every line/paragraph that starts with the word theorem. Specifically, I am using LyX.

Answer 1

This may not play nice with LyX (I haven't tested), but here is a solution to strip specific environments from a source file into a destination file. Define the function:

(require 'cl) ; place your cursor after this paren and pres C-x C-e

(defun **strip-stuff (file &optional environments)
  "Takes the current file and strips every environment from
`ENVIRONMENTS` into `FILE`."
  (interactive "FFile name: \nxList of Environments (\"one\" \"two\" \"etc\"): ")
  (if (every 'stringp environments)
      (progn
        (beginning-of-buffer)
        (let ((search-regex (concat "\\\\begin{"
                                    (mapconcat 'identity
                                               environments
                                               "\\|")
                                    "}")))
          (while (search-forward-regexp search-regex nil t)
            (LaTeX-mark-environment)
            (copy-region-as-kill (point) (mark))
            (save-excursion
              (find-file file)
              (end-of-buffer)
              (yank)
              (newline 2)
              (save-buffer)
              (previous-buffer))
            (exchange-point-and-mark)))
        (message "Strip complete.  Check %s for the output." file))
    (message (concat "The environment variable you provided"
                     " was not a list of strings.")))) ; here too

and just apply it (M-x **strip-stuff) within your file.

I've posted a video example of this working on YouTube. It demonstrates how to apply the function to multiple files automatically using a simple keyboard macro.

Answer 2

This is not a TeX related question. If you want to cut and paste just few paragraphs you will want to familiarize yourself with a serious text editor. I use nvi but typically you would want to check Vim and Emacs before considering other editors. For mass automation you will want to use at the very list to learn sed (streaming editor) and shell script or some kind a scripting language (Perl, Python comes to mind). Learning regular expressions is assumed.

Note that lack of native scripting language will render Windows OS useless for any serious text processing so you will have to use some kind UNIX or UNIX-like OS.

Disclaimer: I have heard for PowerShell for Windows but never really done anything serious with that OS.