\input and absolute paths

Question

Sometimes it is convenient to use an absolute path to include a preamble. To do so, I use the following "hack":

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}
\newcommand{\folder}{/path/to/folder}
\input{\folder/preamble}

\begin{document}
\end{document}

Now my question is, whether there is a more elegant way to do this, especially a way which is compatible with one of the flatten scripts from Replace \input{fileX} by the content of fileX automatically ?

Answer 1

You can define the internal macro \input@path to hold a list of base directories:

\makeatletter
\def\input@path{{/path/to/folder/}}
%or: \def\input@path{{/path/to/folder/}{/path/to/other/folder/}}
\makeatother

Then you can use \input{fileinthatfolder} everywhere. It also works for \includegraphics IIRC.

But I don't think this is supported by the mentioned scripts. AFAIK they simply take the string from the file and don't look at any macros.

Answer 2

So I had one answer (which is preserved below for posterity) but I think I understand the question a little better now. What you want is to write \input{foo} and have LaTeX know where to search for foo. Martin's answer offers one way to do this. Here are some others.

One way is to make a directory in your local texmf tree and put files you want to use in there. So (assuming a uni system) this will be something like ~/texmf/ Make a subdirectory e.g. ~/texmf/tex/latex/commonstuff/ and put your files in there. Then they will be available to \input. Be careful about name clashes, though!

If, for whatever reason, you cannot move where your files are stored, you could add that directory to TEXINPUTS which is a variable that stores the directories that tex searches for files called with \usepackage \input and similar commands.

Further reading:

• Where do I place my own .sty files, to make them available to all my .tex files?
• LaTeX environment variables (PDF)
• How to edit the environment variable TEXINPUTS in winedt for adding different search paths ?

I maintain that this may be overkill if the problem is simply that some files live in the folder "above" the one containing the tex file (when the ../ trick discussed below works fine)

---

I don't really understand the question. As far as I am aware, absolute paths work with \input? I just tried one and it worked.

Sometimes it is easier to use relative paths, but to know how to use them. For example a lot of the time I want to insert a graphic which is housed in a different folder. Let's say I have the following:

Work
  Document
    main.tex
  Graphics
    img.pdf

In main.tex I can write \includegraphics{../Graphics/img} and this finds my image: .. goes "up a level".

Answer 3

An other solution (easiest) is given by Ali Mehrizi in this post.

The solution is based on the import package, using the subimport command:

\subimport{PathToFolder/}{File.tex}.

A later \input{} into the "File" will search for a file into the specified folder PathToFolder/.

Answer 4

I'm not sure if you're satisfied with this: Just do a symbolic link of the file you want to include into the directory of the file you want to compile and use \input{preamble}. (This might not work anywhere else than Linux)