[Tex/LaTex] How to display the same text in various parts of the document

cross-referencingquoting

In a long, long, long writing. I have a piece of text that repeats in several places/sections/chapters. When I'm editing, I change 2 or 3 words in that piece of text. The changes have to be applied to all its repetitions in the document. The question is, how can I automate this?

The solution I'm looking for would be something like:

Lorem ipsum \textthatrepeatselsehwhere{This text will be shown in several places}\label{textrep1} lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum \displaytextoflabel{textrep1} lorem lorem.

The output should look like:

Lorem ipsum This text will be shown in several places lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum This text will be shown in several places lorem lorem.

The solution might be obvious but I don't know how to do it. Thanks, any help will be appreciated.

Best Answer

You can define a macro for this job.

\newcommand\mytext{This text will be shown in several places\xspace}

A MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xspace}
\newcommand\mytext{This text will be shown in several places\xspace}
\begin{document}
Lorem ipsum \mytext lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum \mytext lorem lorem \mytext.

\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Different labels for subsection titles and references

Redefine \p@subsection (the prefix using for the references to subsections):

\documentclass{report}

\renewcommand\thesection{\arabic{chapter}.\arabic{section}}
\renewcommand\thesubsection{\Roman{subsection}}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\p@subsection{\thesection.}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\chapter{Chapter}

\section{Section}

\subsection{Subsection}\label{subsection}

\noindent I have the subsections labelled in Roman in the title, because 1.1.I would just be long.

\noindent Here is a reference to the subsection: (\ref{subsection})

\end{document}

enter image description here

By the way, never use the combination \\ + blank line; this will generate underfull boxes warnings.

[Tex/LaTex] re-use section labels across chapters

As David Carlisle says, rename your labels. This can easily be done using the Stream Editor, sed for example.

Let's say that you have one chapter file about Lions, and one about Zebras; in both chapter files you have used the labelling convention you described, something like the following:

lions.tex

\chapter{Lions}
\section{Intro}\label{sec:intro}
\section{Results}\label{sec:results}
Here's a reference to \ref{sec:intro} and \ref{sec:results}.

zerbras.tex

\chapter{Zebras}
\section{Intro}\label{sec:intro}
\section{Intro}\label{sec:intro}
\section{Results}\label{sec:results}
Here's a reference to \ref{sec:intro} and \ref{sec:results}.

You can use sed to search and replace each \label and \ref in each of the files so that all of your labels and references change appropriately

sed -i 's/\\\(label\|ref\){\([^}]*\)/\\\1{lions:\2/g' lions.tex
sed -i 's/\\\(label\|ref\){\([^}]*\)/\\\1{zebras:\2/g' zebras.tex

Now your files look like the following

lions.tex (new)

\chapter{Lions}
\section{Intro}\label{lions:sec:intro}
\section{Results}\label{lions:sec:results}
Here's a reference to \ref{lions:sec:intro} and \ref{lions:sec:results}.

zebras.tex (new)

\chapter{Zebras}
\section{Intro}\label{zebras:sec:intro}
\section{Intro}\label{zebras:sec:intro}
\section{Results}\label{zebras:sec:results}

Here's a reference to \ref{zebras:sec:intro} and \ref{zebras:sec:results}.

Understanding \(label\|ref){([^}]*)/\\1{lions:\2/g

The basic syntax I have used is s/old/new/g to substitute 'old' with 'new'. The g flag says to do it globally. Let's break the above expression down into parts:

\\\(label\|ref\) matches \label or \ref and stores the result into memory, to be used later as \1. Note that we need to use a \ to escape special characters
{\([^}]*\) matches the stuff inside {...}, but does so in a non-greedy way. It is very important for this regexp not to be greedy; if were greedy, then when operating upon the expression Here's a reference to \ref{sec:intro} and \ref{sec:results} it would match

sec:intro} and \ref{sec:results}

which is not what we intend!

\\\1{lions:\2 is the replacement text, using \1 and \2 as the match that has been stored into memory.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Different labels for subsection titles and references

[Tex/LaTex] re-use section labels across chapters

Understanding \(label\|ref){([^}]*)/\\1{lions:\2/g

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