Placing Intermediate and Output Files in Another Folder

Question

I am trying to figure out a way to cleanly separate the TEX files from all of the intermediate and output files. Various approaches I've tried, including the one described by ‘Bundle’ TeX output in a directory don't seem to work. I'm using TexMaker + MikTex (portable). Ideally, I would like my file/directory structure to look something like this:

• texproject
  • texfiles
    • 1.tex
    • 2.tex
  • intfiles
    • 1.out
    • 1.log
    • 1.aux
    • 2.out
    • 2.log
    • 2.aux
  • pdffiles
    • 1.pdf
    • 2.pdf

Instead, what I have, is the jumbled-up mess where all of these files live in the same directory. I've tried setting the ouput-directory, for example, on pdflatex but this doesn't work. The pdf file still gets created in the same place but now it doesn't show up in the previewer. This should be pretty easy to solve but I've so far been unsuccessful. How can I set up my environment to use the above structure when compiling?

Update: I believe I have narrowed this down to something specific to TexMaker. If the desired aux and out directories are passed via the command line to pdflatex, everything builds as it should. Yet, I get numerous message boxes popping up saying that files can't be found and the PDF doesn't display in the internal viewer. I can't see any obvious options within TexMaker to change to address this. So, has anyone been able to make the scenario I'm describing work with TexMaker?

Answer 1

As suggested by lockstep, I write a short answer: AFAIK, this is currently not possible, because the path cannot be changed for the messages / log viewer and for the pdf viewer from within the Texmaker GUI. There is a feature request on the Texmaker issue list to make the path configurable: http://code.google.com/p/texmaker/issues/detail?id=97 Maybe you are lucky and in a later release this will be available. I personally would also use this new feature (and only backup the input folder, not the output folder).

Answer 2

Since Texmaker 3.4, you can specify the option "Use a build directory for output", which creates a "build" folder in your project folder, and saves everything but the .tex file there. See the manual Now you can also specify the output directory as an option to pdflatex as e.g. -output-directory pdf. But you will also have a copy of the pdf in the build folder no matter what. And I haven't found a straight-forward way to have the output file in the root folder, either.

(And I also have a .gz file in the folders, but that might be an option you can turn off.)

Answer 3

For TeXstudio (since a fork from texmaker, it might be similar there):

1. Add the options -aux_directory and -output-directory to the latex pdflatex and other commands, if needed.
2. Change the appropriate lines (160 and 161 in my case) in the texstudio.ini file, in W7 usually located under

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\texstudio

Modify the path for the two varables accordingly.

Tools\Log%20Paths=C:\\\Users\\\username\\\AppData\\\Local\\\Temp

Tools\PDF%20Paths=D:\\\repos\\\pdf

(double-backslashes by intention)

Enjoy!

Answer 4

In Texstudio, if you want to save outputs of latex in a directory (and thereby have the directory that contains your source files uncluttered, set the -output-directory option of pdflatex command in Tools → Configure TextStudio → Commands Change the value of PdfLatex the -output-directory option and output is the directory you need the output files to be stored. It can be any name and in any location, but make sure you give is the full path (or relative path).

pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -output-directory=output %.tex

The Linux version of Texstudio (that I am using) does not support -aux-directory option.

After doing that, if the pdf preview does not work, refer to this solution.

Answer 5

In TeXstudio (2.10.8) we can set a subdirectory, in this example named "output", as follows:

Menu > Options > Configure TeXstudio ...

• Commands [Tab] > PdfLaTeX. Add key/value switch -output-directory=output.

  So my command changed from

  pdflatex.exe -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex
  

  ... to ...

  pdflatex.exe -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -output-directory=output %.tex
  

  If you are using other build commands aside from "PdfLaTeX" then make analogous changes there. I'm only building against PdfLaTex so that's all I had to change.

• Commands [Tab] > External PDF Viewer. I'm using Foxit Reader, so in my case I changed from ...

   "C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\FOXIT SOFTWARE\FOXIT READER\FOXITREADER.EXE" "?am.pdf"
  

  ... to ...

   "C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\FOXIT SOFTWARE\FOXIT READER\FOXITREADER.EXE"  C:\Users\John\Documents\Sda\Code\Markup\Latex\Examples\output\?rm.pdf"
  

  It would be desirable to only need a relative path, something like \output\?rm.pdf, but so far I've only been able to get it working with the hardcoded absolute path.

• Commands [Tab] > Biber (this is used for bibliographies with the biblatex package).

  Change

   biber.exe %
  

  ... to ...

   biber.exe -output-directory=output -input-directory=output %
  

• Commands [Tab] > BibTeX (this is used for bibliographies with the bibtex package).

  Change

   bibtex.exe %.aux
  

  ... to ...

   bibtex.exe  output/%.aux
  

• Build [Tab] > Additional Search Paths. Add \output (with the backslash) to "Log File" and "PDF File" fields.

With your source MyExample.tex file loaded in the current window press F5 (TeXstudio Menu > Tools > Build & View). After the build completes the PDF viewer should correctly pickup and display \output\MyExample.pdf.

This combines and updates @SisayChala's and @user44553's answers.

Answer 6

I am not an expert in any of these but this is a solution that works for me (I am using texmaker under Linux but I am sure there are similar commands for Windows):

1. Options>Configure Texmaker>Commands mark 'Use a "build" subdirectory for output files'
2. Options>Configure Texmaker>Quick Build mark 'User' and type in the commands that you need for compliling the way you want. (You can use the 'wizard' if you need help.)

3. add:

   |mkdir pdf|cp build/%.pdf pdf 
   

(Copying instead of moving provides the pdf-viewer from not finding the .pdf)

Answer 7

If you are working on Linux, you might use symbolic links as a workaround, e.g. create the directories ../texfiles and ../pdffiles, then run the following script:

#! /bin/bash

for i in *.tex
do
  ln -s $(pwd)/$i ../texfiles
done

for i in *.pdf
do
  ln -s $(pwd)/$i ../pdffiles
done

The script can be expanded to update the directories dynamically (needs to be called via write18 or maybe a hook in TexMaker?).