Re: [O] Large LaTeX project in single file or using publishing

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2014-11-28, at 18:40, Richard Lawrence wrote:

> Hi Jake,
>
> Others have already given you good advice, but since I am also writing
> my thesis in Org, I thought I would chime in.  Like you, I felt a bit of
> trepidation when I was deciding whether to write in Org or LaTeX; I
> ultimately went with Org because (1) I find it much more pleasant to use
> 98% of the time; (2) I felt pretty confident I could plug the gaps in
> the other 2% with help from Org's awesome community; and (3) I wanted
> the option to export to other formats like HTML (though I haven't used
> this much so far).

Re (1): as I said, I'm biased; re (2): thanks for making me realize this
was exactly one of my reasons to stay with LaTeX.

>> My first concern is losing the ability to use internal links if I use
>> separate files. Another thought is compilation time if I use one file and
>> must always run pdflatex over the entire document. I'm sure there are
>> pitfalls either way that I'm not yet aware of.
>
> If you decide you need to go the multiple-files route, you can probably
> find a way to convert internal links into external ones.  I half-recall
> someone posting code on this list to do this at some point...

Yep, it was me.  https://github.com/mbork/org-one-to-many, please
consider it somewhere between proof-of-concept and public beta (bug
reports/feature requests welcome).

> Here are a couple of other things to think about.  When I decided to go
> with Org, I took a few steps to ensure that if I ever need to switch to
> pure LaTeX, I will be able to do so with minimal pain, just by exporting
> my Org document to .tex and going from there.  (The big sticking point
> here for me was making sure I could produce human-readable, stable
> labels and refs for things like sections.  See the variable
> org-latex-custom-id-as-label, which was introduced by a patch I wrote.)

Nice!

> If you're worried about ever having to make the switch, I would
> recommend thinking ahead about each of the Org features you rely on and
> seeing how they get exported to LaTeX.  If the default output is not
> something you'd want to edit by hand, consider either limiting your use
> of that feature, or customizing it so that it produces better output for
> you.  Org provides a lot of ways to do the latter, from tweaking
> variables to export filters to custom export backends.

Great advice!  Again, a project idea I mentioned some time ago (a LaTeX
exporter which would export to something more idiomatic and customizable
on the LaTeX side) might help here.  Not yet, however, I don't have time
for that now.

> Hope that's helpful!
>
> Best,
> Richard

Regards,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University