Adding a command to LaTeX file using texify

Question

A program I am using spits out LaTeX tables in LaTeX files (outreg2 command from Stata), which I run using texify to make pdfs of the tables. I crop these tables (using pdfcrop) and embed them elsewhere. However, the pdfs include page numbers, which prevent pdfcrop from cropping directly around the table. I need an automatic way to remove the page numbers before cropping. I want to insert the command \pagenumbers{gobble} into the LaTeX code to automatically remove the page numbers.

I believe

texify --pdf --texinfo="\pagenumbering{gobble}" filename.tex

should work. It does not. No exception pops up, but the page number remains. I cannot find documentation anywhere showing examples of using the --texinfo option to splice LaTeX code into the file before running the LaTeX file to create a pdf.

How should I properly use the texify command? Or is there another way to splice in \pagenumbering{gobble} before running texify?

Answer 1

This post contains a Stata tag and mentions the Stata user-written command outreg2 (available running ssc install outreg2). Therefore, I offer two Stata-based solutions.

Solution 1.

The outreg2 command, outputs LaTeX code that can be compiled with appropriate software. The original poster mentions

I want to insert the command \pagenumbers{gobble} into the LaTeX code to automatically remove the page numbers.

If that is all that is needed then I show below a complete example that uses filefilter to accomplish that.

clear all
set more off

* Example data, estimation and LaTeX code
sysuse auto

local filepath "/path/to/myfile.tex"

regress mpg foreign weight
outreg2 using "`filepath'", tex replace

* Introduce required text
filefilter "`filepath'" "`filepath'.2", ///
    from("\BSbegin{document}") ///
    to("\BSpagenumbering{gobble}\n\BSbegin{document}") replace

copy "`filepath'.2" "`filepath'", replace
erase "`filepath'.2"

The command filefilter just looks for

\begin{document} 

in the generated .tex file and substitutes it for

\pagenumbers{gobble}
\begin{document}

Run help filefilter for details.

Solution 2.

Use the tex(frag) option with the outreg2 command. This outputs a tex fragment that can be included in some template .tex file using the LaTeX \input{} command.

So use

outreg2 using "`filepath'", tex(frag) replace

and create a template .tex file along the lines of

\documentclass[]{article}
\setlength{\pdfpagewidth}{8.5in} \setlength{\pdfpageheight}{11in}
\pagenumbering{gobble}
\begin{document}

\input{file-created-with-outreg2}

\end{document}

This way, you can even create several tex fragments and include them all in the template .tex file.

Run help outreg2 for details.

Answer 2

_{Roberto answered specifically for the situation of the OP. I want to try to give a more general answer:}

(For impatient readers: solution in lower part of this answer.)

First let’s create a small testfile – testfile.tex

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
content
\end{document}

As the OP noted, does

texify --pdf --texinfo="\pagestyle{empty}" testfile.tex:

not produce any error, but the page number is still visible (I prefer \pagestyle…). Since Texify with the option --pdf calls internally PDFLaTeX, let’s see, what does happen with

pdflatex testfile.tex "\pagestyle{empty}"

The (not so) surprising answer is: Same result – no error, but also no success. But for (PDF(La))TeX another approach is well known:

pdflatex "\pagestyle{empty}\input{testfile.tex}"

Though, oops, no change. But this one works:

pdflatex "\AtBeginDocument{\pagestyle{empty}}\input{testfile.tex}" (*)

If we try now to adapt this to Texify, we will with

texify --pdf --texinfo="\AtBeginDocument{\pagestyle{empty}}\input{testfile.tex}"

get an error texify: Missing file argument. So I tried

texify --pdf --texinfo="\AtBeginDocument{\pagestyle{empty}}\input{testfile.tex}" testfile.tex

(yes, the file is invoked twice). Surprisingly no error, but still no success. But there’s another possible parameter (cf. http://docs.miktex.org/manual/texify.html) --tex-option, and with this replacing --texinfo I found …

The solution

If a simple PDFLaTeX call as in (*) really is not enough and one wants to call Texify instead, this command prompt call works:

texify --pdf --tex-option="\AtBeginDocument{\pagestyle{empty}}\input{testfile.tex}" testfile.tex

Once again: Yes, the file is intentionally invoked twice here.

Because this is rather long, one could put this in a batch file and later call this instead.

test.bat:

@echo off

texify --pdf --tex-option="\AtBeginDocument{\pagestyle{empty}}\input{%1}" %1

Now in command prompt one has to execute:

test.bat testfile.tex

^{At least it worked fine here in this way.}

---

BTW: Thanks to Werner, because he brought up \AtBeginDocument… in his comment to the duplicate question.