Splitting a XeLaTeX script into separate character files

Question

Not sure what an MWE would be for this question. Basically I have a script written in XeLaTeX, one that includes dialogue, stage directions, and a lot of additional information. What I would like is some way to produce just a dialogue output for each of the main characters (there are 4). I am open to any method, either within XeLaTeX or in post-processing after a PDF is produced.

I have tried doing this with the ifthenelse package, but the logic gets convoluted very quickly. I have searched for a way to just send selected text to separate files, but I haven't located anything that will do that.

Answer 1

Thanks to the insightful comment of Mr. David Carlisle, I have come up with a potential solution. I will post an MWE, which may or may not be robust enough to do what I want, but perhaps some better LaTeXers than myself could add some suggestions. I would also likely need a boolean that would eliminate any non-dialogue in the first place.

As for the environments that the dialogue is in, there are basically two. One for standard dialogue that just sets the spacing to 1.3 and the text to \large, and a second that sets the spacing to 1.4, \large, but in the alltt "format". This second is for prose typesetting where line splitting is essential.

    \documentclass{article}
    \usepackage{ifthen}

    \newboolean{Vladimir}
    \newboolean{Estragon}
    \setboolean{Vladimir}{False}
    \setboolean{Estragon}{True}

    \ifthenelse{\boolean{Vladimir}}{
        \newcommand{\vladimir}[1]{#1}}{
        \newcommand{\vladimir}[1]{}}

    \ifthenelse{\boolean{Estragon}}{
        \newcommand{\estragon}[1]{#1}}{
        \newcommand{\estragon}[1]{}}

    \begin{document}
        \estragon{Nothing to be done.}
        \vladimir{I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.}
    \end{document}