Preparing a special exam sheet for every student

Question

I am wondering if there is a way to read the data from an excel file and then somehow using a forloop outside a tabular, get a special exam sheet for each student.

Until now, we have been using a code similar to this one:

Fill the blanks below and answer the question.

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
\hline
Name:    & E-mail:         \\ \hline
Surname: & Student Number: \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

Question: 2+2=?

and we print the above paper 100 times for a class of 100 student. Now I want to do something like this:

\readfile{students.xls}

\forloop{from i=1 to i=100}{

Answer the question below.

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
\hline
Name: \cell{A_i}    & E-mail: \cell{B_i}         \\ \hline
Surname: \cell{C_i} & Student Number: \cell{D_i} \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

Question: 2+2=?

\newpage
}

to get a 100-page .pdf file in which every student has a special page.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can use the odsfile package, which supports manipulations with OpenDocument Spreadsheet files. You need to convert your excel file to ODS using LibreOffice (Excel can do this as well, but LibreOffice produces cleaner files).

Odsfile provides \includespread command with keyval interface:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{odsfile}
\usepackage{url}
\begin{document}
\includespread[%
  file=students.ods,
  range=a1:d,
  rowtemplate={%
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|}%
    \hline%
    Name: -{1} & E-mail: -{2}\\ \hline% 
    Surname: -{3} & Student Number: -{4}\\ \hline%
    \end{tabular}%
  \endgraf%
    Question: $2 + 2  = $ ?
    \newpage},
  ]

\end{document}

file property specifies spreadsheet file, range specifies range to be processed (columns are a, b, c, etc., rows are numbered, default value for second part of the range is row count, when the number is left).

rowtemplate enables to specify code which will be executed for each row, columns are accessed using -{column number}. Note that we must use \endgraf instead of paragraphs.

The file must be compiled using lualatex.

Sample:

Answer 2

Short answer: You are looking for Auto Multiple Choice (AMC).

Long answer: You are looking for Auto Multiple Choice (AMC) that is a LaTeX package and a free GUI program for Linux. If you are a Window user that make regularly exams, it worth to install Linux only to have this program. AMC can make one exam to each student with randomly questions, so each student have completely different questions, or alternatively the same questions, but randomly mixed, with answers in different order too. The scanned images of the written exams may be marked automatically, and their results exported to a LibreOffice spreadsheet linked to the student names using some identification code.

Answer 3

you can use csvsimple package (http://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/csvsimple/csvsimple.pdf)

Here are some possibilities of this package that I find very useful. Documentation is very detailed

with the given data file

================ StudentFile.txt============

name, email, surname, studentnumber
robert, robert@yahoo.fr, roro, 123466
julie, juju@gmail.com, juju, 987456
laure,lolo@test.fr,lolo, 147852
aline,lili@us.com,lili,963258
martine,mart@hotmail.com, titine,258741

===========================================

and latex source

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{csvsimple}
\begin{document}
\csvreader%
{StudentFile.txt}{1=\name,2=\email,3=\surname,4=\studentnumber}%
{
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
\hline
Name: \name   & E-mail: \email       \\ \hline
Surname: \surname & Student Number: \studentnumber \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\vfill
Questions:

$2+\studentnumber=????$
\vfill
\clearpage
}%

\end{document}

Answer 4

A poor man low weight no package approach, limited to four records (could go to nine records if space removal was handled more seriously). To be adapted to one's needs.

\documentclass{article}
% only for self-contained example here
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{StudentFile.txt}
robert, robert@yahoo.fr, roro, 123466
julie, juju@gmail.com, juju, 987456
laure,lolo@test.fr,lolo, 147852
aline,lili@us.com,lili,963258
martine,mart@hotmail.com, titine,258741
\end{filecontents*}

% input stream
\newread\MyFile

\makeatletter
\newcommand*\ParseCSVFile [1]{%
    \openin\MyFile #1\relax
    {\endlinechar-1\ParseCSVFile@}%
    \closein\MyFile
}%
\def\ParseCSVFile@ {%
    \ifeof \MyFile
    \else
        \read \MyFile to \ParseCSVFile@oneline
%debugging
%\typeout{ICI: \ParseCSVFile@oneline}%
        \ifx\ParseCSVFile@oneline\par
        \else
        \ifx\ParseCSVFile@oneline\empty
        \else
           \expandafter
               \ParseCSVFile@DoOneLine\ParseCSVFile@oneline$$$$%
        \fi\fi
        \expandafter\ParseCSVFile@
    \fi
}%

% to be customized as need. 
\def\ParseCSVFile@DoOneLine #1#2,#3#4,#5#6,#7#8$$$${%
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|}%
    \hline
    Name: #1#2& E-mail: #3#4\\ 
    \hline
    Surname: #5#6& Student Number: #7#8\\ 
    \hline
    \end{tabular}%
  \par
    Question: $2 + 2  = $ ?
\clearpage
}

\makeatother

\begin{document}

\ParseCSVFile {StudentFile.txt}

\end{document}