external filesimport
I want to completely separate formatting and content creation. The articles I will write are all plain prose that requires minimum or zero LaTeX formatting.
Also, the text file doesn't have the one-blank-line gap between paragraphs. They are separated only by one linefeed.
SUMMARY:
Is there a way to import it roughly like:
\begin{document}
\importtextfile{my_essay.txt}
\end{document}
Can I also tell LaTeX to interpret the single linefeeds as new paragraph?
You need to use a LaTeX flavor which supports unicode. Use either lualatex or xelatex instead of (pdf)latex or try to load \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}.
The special characters like % can be temporary disabled using \catcode`\%=12 or easier \@makeother\%. All special characters can be changed at once using \dospecial if \do is changed to use \@makeother.
You need a modern font including the correct encoding so that special characters are correctly shown. Otherwise you will get a " instead of \, etc.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\inputverbatim}[1]{%
\begingroup
\let\do\@makeother
\dospecials
\obeyspaces% To get normal spaces not a symbol
\input{#1}%
\endgroup
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
...
\inputverbatim{somefile}
...
\end{document}
This works fine for me with pdflatex and gives:
...
ó(%n*\r\ vir\róecu rdOhO {j I iT( J t-y g
...
Too long for a comment:
Importing the downloaded file into a non-UTF8 editor (like TeXnicCenter 1.0), reveals:
The first character could be the cause of the problem - called a Byte Order Mark. Even importing this into LyX 2.0.4 adds the following into the preamble (Document > Settings > LaTeX Preamble):
which you'll have to remove. Either remove this from the file first before importing, or attempt an update of your version from 2.0.2 to 2.0.4 and remove it after importing.
Best Answer
Sure. TeX inserts (by default)
^^Mat the end of each line. So something likeshould do it, although I didn't test.
Edit: I just remembered the
\obeylinesmacro which does exactly what I wrote above.