Import Information into Several Documents from a Master Document

Question

Context: I'm a university lecturer and therefore facing the same tasks whenever I prepare for a new semester. One of them is creating course material with LaTeX which includes a syllabus, slides for each meeting, a bibliography, and notes that I use while teaching (containing a schedule for each session, didactic objectives etc.). Right now I always create these documents as single files; I can use documents from a previous semester as templates, but I have to replace all the information for each document type at least once. This is why I came up with the idea that inspired my question:

Is there a possibility to have some sort of master document that contains relevant meta data that I can access from within other documents (e.g. create a beamer document for each session from a template with the titles, expand a short bibliographic reference within the on the syllabus document into a full entry based on a list of texts within the master document)? I am not talking about the import/export of a whole file but rather picking specific lines/paragraphs and copying them/creating new documents from them based on a routine/template. I thought about workarounds with Python but wanted to see if this could be done entirely with LaTeX first.

Edit/Addendum: To give you all an example: I plan my courses with pen & paper. When I'm ready to create documents, I always start with the syllabus. It contains titles, dates, brief descriptions, bibliographic references, information about the course as such etc. Then I create notes and slides for each session. There I copy some of the information from the syllabus at least twice (e.g. titles, dates, bibliographic data). I am looking for a way that allows me to create a master document where I store this information once so that I can generate notes, slides etc.

Answer 1

This is one of the problem that macros are the most helpful for.

One approach is to have a master file with boilerplate text saved in macro definitions, and then call these macros from within files for specific applications. So you have one file that defines commands like \NewDocumentCommand{\myname}{}{Prof. Jane Doe, PhD} and in your syllabus file you \input the master file in the preamble and then write \myname. I use this approach when I repeatedly need the same text, like stock statements on credit hour policy that the university requires in every syllabus. Just add \creditHourPolicy and it's done.

Another approach is to have a master file with dummy commands in it, and redefine those commands in a specific application. So the master file has the whole document structure but with placeholder commands, e.g.,

\NewDocumentCommand{\courseInfo}{}{%
  \begin{tabular}{@{}l}
    \courseName \\
    \courseSemester \\
    \courseCredits \\
  \end{tabular}
}

Then in the file for this course syllabus, you just define those commands, or redefine them: \NewDocumentCommand{\courseName}{}{\LaTeX{} 101} I use this approach when I repeatedly need the same formatting but with different contents (similar to how \maketitle is set up).

Better than option #2 would be to create commands with arguments for the variable text and put them in a class or package file. Then you have this:

% Table of course info. Arguments:
% #1 course name
% #2 course semester
% #3 course credit hours (optional: default 4.0)
\NewDocumentCommand{\courseInfo}{m m O{4.0}}{%
  \begin{tabular}{@{}l}
    #1\\
    #2\\
    #3\\
  \end{tabular}
}

Then in the syllabus, write

\courseInfo{\LaTeX{} 101}{Fall 2022}[3.0]

You can combine these approaches, too. Just make sure you input the file with the definitions before you use the commands.

Answer 2

Maybe https://texfaq.org/FAQ-conditional is helpful? In addition to Python scripts, one can use a Makefile which offers an alternative way to specify dependencies in generating your output, which may be helpful if you also need to generate bibliographic references.