7

When compiling large documents (with chapters) it is often useful to put different parts in separate files. I do this with the standalone-documentclass for all my tikzpictures. That way I can compile each separate part that I'm currently working on. I'd like to do the same with chapters in books. However, the standalone-documentclass doesn't have chapters. Thus, Ive defined my own chapter-command. And, as an example, changed the counter of the section-command to be printed with the chapter number. We could do the same with figures, tables, etc. My question is: Should there be more in my definition of the chapter-command to satisfy packages which depend on the chapter-command? Does the chapter have more "offsprings" like the chapter-counter?

MWE:

\documentclass[crop=false,a4paper]{standalone}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\makeatletter
\newcounter {chapter}
\renewcommand \thechapter {\@arabic\c@chapter}
\renewcommand{\thesection}{\arabic{chapter}.\arabic{section}}
\newcommand\chaptername{Chapter}
\newcommand\chapter[1]{
\refstepcounter{chapter}
\vspace*{2em}\noindent\Huge\chaptername\hspace*{0.25em} \thechapter\\
\vspace*{.25em}\\
\noindent{#1}\\
\normalsize
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\chapter{A test chapter}
\section{First section}
\subsection{First sub}
\subsection{Second sub}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

Update:

Qrrbrbirlbel's suggested a simple and good approach using class=book as a class option:

\documentclass[class=book,crop=false,a4paper]{standalone}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\chapter{A test chapter}
\section{First section}
\subsection{First sub}
\subsection{Second sub}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}
| improve this question | |
  • 1
    Using standalone for chapters in your book is at least inconvenient. I would recommend you to divide the document into several files, and \include them, with the possible help of the \includeonly command. – yo' Dec 20 '12 at 21:24
  • 2
    class=book as a class option? Though, I recommend @tohecz’s tip for real books. – Qrrbrbirlbel Dec 20 '12 at 21:28
  • Outstanding Qrrbrbirlbel, that absolutely did the trick! – DrJay Dec 20 '12 at 21:30
  • @tohecz: To say that a solution is inconvenient is by all accounts a convenient way to face a problem. As mentioned this problem occurs in large documents, where it can be unsatisfactory to use the include option instead of input. One problem is the nesting of include-statements which is in no way straight forward (if even possible?). Another problem might be that a certain set of chapters in a book requires quite a high number of packages while others require only a few - and it does take time to load all these packages even if they aren't used. – DrJay Dec 20 '12 at 21:35
  • 1
    see this post: How to create individual chapter PDFs – cmhughes Dec 20 '12 at 23:11
10

The answer to your question is to include the <class> class of your main file/project as an value to the class key of the standalone class:

\documentclass[
    crop=false,
    a4paper,
    class=<class>,
]{standalone}

Though, I do believe that the answer to your problem is another one that can be found in

On the statement of nesting \includeonly: Well, no, that’s not possible (and that’s how it is supposed to work), but you can use as many \inputs inside a file that is included as you wish.

| improve this answer | |

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.