Tikz and standalone, include single picture/page doesn't work

Question

I've created a standalone file containing two tikzpicture environments. If I compile the file by itself, I am seeing two pages generated. So far so good.

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{...}

\begin{document}
\tikzset{...}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  ...
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  ...
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Now I want to include only the first or the second one of them in my main document:

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includestandalone[page=2]{figures/diagrams}
  \caption{The enhanced diagram}
\end{figure}

Other than expected and documented, the result is both diagrams being printed side-by-side with the second one surpassing the right margin of the page. Any idea what could be the issue?

Edit, Solution: Turns out the problem originated out of multiple errors. Maybe this will be a help for others:

1. @torbjørn-t brought to my attention, that the default mode=tex setting doesn't support the pages option. Be sure to activate one of the other inclusion modes in the main document. I decided to go with:

   \usepackage[mode=build]{standalone}
   

2. Next issue was, that the cascaded build now yielded the following error: Package standalone Warning: Graphic '...' could not be build. Shell escape activated? Be sure to enable shell escape.

3. In my case the above wasn't actually related to shell escape but to a build error inside the standalone diagrams document in combination with the fact, that it is located in the subdirectory figures. Turns out the build is executed in a different path and a \include{general_properties} couldn't be resolved correctly. To solve this and similar issues, be sure to check the individual log files next to your standalone file.

Answer 1

Haven't used this myself, but the behaviour depends on the mode setting, see the description of \includestandalone in the standalone manual (section 5.3). For example, with

\includestandalone[mode=image,page=2]{filename}

it will include (page 2 of) filename.pdf. With

\includestandalone[mode=build,page=2]{filename}

it will compile filename.tex and include filename.pdf. There is also mode=buildnew which will compile the other file only if it is newer than the PDF, or mode=buildmissing which compiles it only if the PDF isn't there. The default is likely mode=tex, which is similar to \input, so it adds the code directly (sans preamble and document environment).

You can also set the mode as an option to the package, e.g.

\usepackage[mode=buildnew]{standalone}

or use \standaloneconfig, e.g.

\standaloneconfig{mode=buildmissing}

if you want the same setting for all \includestandalones.