[Tex/LaTex] Combining beamer, tikz, externalize and standalone

beameroverlaysstandalonetikz-externaltikz-pgf

I've read a bunch of questions and answers on these topics as well as the documentation of the external library for tikz. I suspect I fundamentally misunderstand what I'm doing.

I have a mindmap which I'm including in a beamer presentation. It takes forever to compile so I would like to externalise it using the external library. I am also using overlay specifications to gradually make parts of the map visible. The mindmap is prepared in a separate file which I \input with the facilities of standalone.

Without externalisation, my code produces the slides OK. With externalisation, it fails.

This is a Minimal Non-Working Example using beamer, external and standalone. The beamer presentation is in prawf3.tex:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize
\makeatletter
    \tikzset{% https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/79572/39222
      beamer externalising/.style={%
        execute at end picture={%
          \tikzifexternalizing{%
            \ifbeamer@anotherslide
            \pgfexternalstorecommand{\string\global\string\beamer@anotherslidetrue}%
            \fi
          }{}%
        }%
      },
      external/optimize=false
    }
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}
    \input{prawf3-pic}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

prawf3-pic.tex is as follows:

\documentclass[11pt,tikz]{standalone}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}
    \begin{tikzpicture}[beamer externalising]
        \node (a) {A};
        \only<2->
        \node (b) at (0,1) {B};
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

[Obviously, prawf3-pic.tex will not compile on its own as it stands because beamer externalising is not defined in that case. This isn't the problem.]

The code for the beamer externalising style is from Andrew Stacey's answer to a somewhat similar question which lacked the standalone element.

When I try to compile prawf3.tex using pdflatex -shell-escape, the compilation fails with

! Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'pdflatex -shell-escape -halt-on-e
rror -interaction=batchmode -jobname "prawf3-figure0" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob
{prawf3}\input{prawf3}"' did NOT result in a usable output file 'prawf3-figure0
' (expected one of .pdf:.jpg:.jpeg:.png:). Please verify that you have enabled 
system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-escape'. Sometimes it is a
lso named 'write 18' or something like that. Or maybe the command simply failed
? Error messages can be found in 'prawf3-figure0.log'. If you continue now, I'l
l try to typeset the picture.

but obviously shell escape is enabled as the error itself makes clear.

prawf3-figure0.log includes this just before it gives up with a Fatal error message:

LaTeX Info: Redefining \includegraphics on input line 21.
No file prawf3-figure0.nav.
(./prawf3-pic.tex
\openout5 = `prawf3-figure0.dpth'.

Missing character: There is no ( in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no b in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no ) in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no a in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no t in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no ( in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no 0 in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no , in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no 1 in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no ) in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no B in font nullfont!
Missing character: There is no ; in font nullfont!
[1

\providecommand \oddpage@label [2]{}
{/usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-var/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}]
! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
\endframe ->\egroup 
                    \begingroup \def \@currenvir {frame}
l.27 \end{frame}

I tried using {} with \only<2->:

{\node (b) at (0,1) {B};}

but that did not help. (This isn't surprising but it seemed worth trying as it was about the only thing I could think to try.)

Note that I think the complaints about the nullfont are unrelated as I get these with the full example even though everything compiles fine.

EDIT

I'm even more confused now as it turns out that it is not even sufficient to disable externalisation as follows:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize
\tikzexternaldisable
\makeatletter
    \tikzset{% https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/79572/39222
      beamer externalising/.style={%
        execute at end picture={%
          \tikzifexternalizing{%
            \ifbeamer@anotherslide
            \pgfexternalstorecommand{\string\global\string\beamer@anotherslidetrue}%
            \fi
          }{}%
        }%
      },
      external/optimize=false
    }
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}
    \input{prawf3-pic}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

I thought that disabling externalisation would be sufficient to get compilation since it essentially turns the externalisation off. And beamer externalising seems to be defined conditionally so that it should be innocuous enough in that case…

Best Answer

This version works for me (and is shorter in code).

No need for standalone. That answer should be possible updated, although my score is yet too low to do that.

If you want full automatization, you would need a counter inside.

prawf3.tex

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external, automata}
\tikzexternalize
\tikzexternaldisable
\makeatletter
\makeatother
\begin{document}
    \begin{frame}{A frame}
        \input{prawf3-pic}
    \end{frame}
\end{document}

prawf3-pic.tex

\only<1-2>{%the count of figures needs to be clear(quick hack)
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \node (a) {A};
        \only<2->{\node (b) at (0,1) {B};}
    \end{tikzpicture}%
}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Problem combining tikzexternalize, tikzscale and external graphics

Ok, I've found a workaround for this. As this has been bothering me for a long time and also includes some other issues to consider, I'll answer this step by step.

Task: Create a tikzpicture consisting of an external graphics (.png,.jpg,.pdf) that will not result in an error when used with tikzscale and \tikzexternalize.

Questions: Why a tikzpicture and not just \includegraphics?
-Because I want to add some elements to the picture, which is easy to do in tikz.
Why using tikzscale?
-Because I like to have my figures to have the same width as the text while keeping the fontsize of axes, nodes etc. independent of the figure's width. tikzscale is the tool for this.
Why \tikzexternalize?
-Not using \tikzexternalize means that every tikzpicture is recompiled every time, the document is compiled. Depending on the tikzpicture's complexity, this will take a lot of time.

The first approach:
The first approach can be seen in the original question. I placed a node in a tikzpicture and filled it with \includegraphics. This results in an error. The document is produced correctly, but the tikzpictureis not externalized i.e. saved in a separate .pdf.

The second approach:
In some earlier work I learned that pgfplots' \addplot graphics actually works with tikzscale and \tikzexternalize. The idea is now to put the exterael graphic in the axis environment and to hide the axes, ticks and labels. Let's assume we want a tikzpicture containing the following graphics (example-image-16x10.jpg included in the mwe package):

The code then reads as follows (the tikzpicture is written in a separate file test.tikz to load it with tikzscale's \includegraphics). note the ticks=none and axis lines=none options to hide the axes, ticks and labels:

\documentclass[10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize[shell escape=-enable-write18]
\usepackage{tikzscale}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{mwe}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.10}
\begin{document}
\begin{filecontents}{test.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    xmin=0,xmax=1,ymin=0,ymax=1,
    ticks=none,
    axis lines=none,
    ]
    \addplot graphics [xmin=0,xmax=1,ymin=0,ymax=1] {example-image-16x10};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{filecontents}
First we will include the picture as a normal graphics:
\begin{figure}[hb]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{example-image-16x10}
    \caption{This is the figure without using \textit{tikzpicture}.}
\end{figure}
\newline Next, we include the figure as a \textit{tikzpicture} using \textit{tikzscale}.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{test.tikz}
    \caption{This is my figure in \textit{tikzpicture}'s \textit{axis} environment. Unfortunaltely it is stretched into a square shape.}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

When one compiles this code (twice), one will note, that the graphics in the tikzpicture is streched vertically, as pgfplots' axis environment tends to crate square shaped plots. To keep the original image's aspect ratio, one has to define a new \addplot command that will measure the original image's aspect ratio and scale the axes accordingly as demonstrated in an earlier question \addplot graphics: maintaining image's aspect ratio despite different scaling of axes.
The final code is then:

\documentclass[10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize[shell escape=-enable-write18]
\usepackage{tikzscale}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{mwe}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.10}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\addplotgraphicsnatural[2][]{%
    \begingroup
    \pgfqkeys{/pgfplots/plot graphics}{#1}%
    \setbox0=\hbox{\includegraphics{#2}}%
    \pgfmathparse{\wd0/(\pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/plot graphics/xmax} - \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/plot graphics/xmin})}%
    \let\xunit=\pgfmathresult
    \pgfmathparse{\ht0/(\pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/plot graphics/ymax} - \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/plot graphics/ymin})}%
    \let\yunit=\pgfmathresult
    \xdef\marshal{%
        \noexpand\pgfplotsset{unit vector ratio={\xunit\space \yunit}}%
    }%
    \endgroup
    \marshal
    \addplot graphics[#1] {#2};
}   
\makeatother


\begin{document}
\begin{filecontents}{test.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    xmin=0,xmax=1,ymin=0,ymax=1,
    ticks=none,
    axis lines=none,
    ]
    \addplotgraphicsnatural [xmin=0,xmax=1,ymin=0,ymax=1] {example-image-16x10};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{filecontents}
First we will include the picture as a normal graphics:
\begin{figure}[hb]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{example-image-16x10}
    \caption{This is the figure without using \textit{tikzpicture}.}
\end{figure}
\newline Next, we include the figure as a \textit{tikzpicture} using \textit{tikzscale}.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{test.tikz}
    \caption{This is my figure in \textit{tikzpicture}'s \textit{axis} environment. Unfortunaltely it is stretched into a square shape.}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

This will produce the desired document as well as the externalized figure. I don't know whether there is a more elegant way to do this, but it works.

[Tex/LaTex] get an extra white page before the TikZ picture

use

\begin{landscape}
\resizebox{!}{0.95\textheight}{\input{erd.tikz.tex}}
\end{landscape}

The image is too big. The reason why it is placed on the following page.

EDIT

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Problem combining tikzexternalize, tikzscale and external graphics

[Tex/LaTex] get an extra white page before the TikZ picture

Related Question