[Tex/LaTex] Bypass % !TEX TS-program =

compilingeditorsmagic-commenttexshop

Some LaTeX editors (TeXShop and TeXworks, for instance) allow a special comment line to define a default engine to use with a current document, like this :

% !TEX TS-program = pdflatex

It's really useful when working on the main document but question comes when I need to call other commands (Biber, MakeIndex, etc.).

Concrete situation : I typeset a pdfLaTeX document, but I sometimes need to call Biber, MakeIndex, etc. If a % !TEX TS-program = pdflatex comment is present, compiling will run pdfLaTeX engine, even if I asked for Biber or MakeIndex. I have to remove temporarily this special comment to use another engine.

Is it a way to temporarily bypass that special command without removing it each time I want to use Biber or MakeIndex on that document ? In other words, how could I keep the comfort of the % !TEX TS-program =... system while being able to sometimes run other commands ?

I guess LaTeXmk (or a makefile) is a solution, but I would like to know if other solutions are possible.

Thanks for your ideas.

Best Answer

Which editor and version are you using? In TeXworks, the 'magic comment' only sets the default to run. You can happily change the program to be run after loading a file.

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[Tex/LaTex] TeXShop not finding Gnuplot

You should either tell TeXShop to use /opt/local/bin/gnuplot instead of gnuplot, or add /opt/local/bin to the PATH that graphical applications see under Mac OS X. For the latter, you should have to edit (or create) the file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, see http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/rowen/AquaEnvVar.html.

The following should work in your case, but make sure you also add the directory where the tex binaries live

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PATH</key>
<string>/opt/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Don't forget to logout and login again for the changes to take effect.

[Tex/LaTex] In TeXShop, is there a directive to select biber or BibTeX on a per-document basis

I solved this is a mildly hacky way. First of all, I wrote a script called TeXShopBib.sh which looks like

#!/bin/sh

filestem=${1%.*}
bibtype=`head -n20 "${filestem}.tex" | sed -n 's/\%[ ]*![ ]*BIB[ ]*TS-program[ ]*=[ ]*\([a-z]*\)/\1/p'`

if [ -z $bibtype ]; then
    echo "No option detected in TeX file. Defaulting to BibTeX."
    bibtype="bibtex"
else
    echo "Option $bibtype detected in TeX file."
fi

eval $bibtype $filestem

and placed it somewhere TeXShop will find it (just /usr/texbin for quick testing in my case). Make sure the script's executable bit is set. If you have saved the script in /usr/texbin then you need to issue the command:

sudo chmod +x /usr/texbin/TeXShopBib.sh

Then I simply altered the preference to pick up this script as the BibTeX engine.

enter image description here

If the TeX file has a line that looks like

% !BIB TS-program = biber

% !BIB TS-program = bibtex

in the first 20 lines then it figures the rest out and works properly with the TeXShop console, in a similar way to how TeXShop handles TeX engines. This script crudely defaults to BibTeX when nothing is detected in the tex file, but is no more sophisticated than necessary for my purposes. If there is any interest in this then I can make it more robust.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] TeXShop not finding Gnuplot

[Tex/LaTex] In TeXShop, is there a directive to select biber or BibTeX on a per-document basis

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