Remove dependency on Tikz package by compiling figures

Question

I am preparing the final version of a paper to be processed (and edited) by a publisher. This means converting the source to the publisher style, and removing dependency on certain packages.

One of those packages is tikz, and the source contains quite a few tikz figures. It's not so hard to compile all the figures into pdfs using the tikz/externalize library, but this does not remove the dependency on the package since tikz takes care of the inclusion.

Basically, I would like to convert a document:

\documentclass{acmart}

\usepackage{tikz}
  %\usetikzlibrary{external}
  %\tikzexternalize[prefix=figures/]

\begin{document}

\title{A paper with tikz figures}
\author{Jakub Opršal}
\email{jakub@example.com}

\maketitle

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

\begin{figure}
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw (0,0) circle (1);
  \end{tikzpicture}

  \caption{A circle}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Into:

\documentclass{acmart}

\begin{document}

\title{A paper with tikz figures}
\author{Jakub Opršal}
\email{jakub@example.com}

\maketitle

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

\begin{figure}
  \includegraphics{figures/stack-exchange-figure0.pdf}

  \caption{A circle}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

While compiling all tikz figures in the process (which not such a big issue, since it is enough to compile the original document once).

Do you know of some efficient way to replace the tikz figures in the code by the corresponding graphics include?

Answer 1

You could use the ifthen package.

Here is an example:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{ifthen}
\newif\ifsubmit
%\submitfalse % work with this
\submittrue % submit this
\newcommand{\submissionfigure}[2]{\ifsubmit #1 \else #2 \fi}

\submissionfigure{}{
    \usepackage{tikz}
    \usetikzlibrary{external}
    \tikzexternalize[prefix=figures/]
}

\begin{document}
    \begin{figure}
        \submissionfigure{
            \includegraphics[scale=1]{figures/submission-figure-figure0.pdf}
        }{      
        \begin{tikzpicture}
            \draw (0,0) circle (1);
        \end{tikzpicture}
        }
        \caption{A circle}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

In principle this should allow you to keep the tikz code in your document, but it should not be processed by the journals systems. Although whether this approach works or not will depend on the journal and how the files are processed, which to me appears a bit intransparent tbh.