[Tex/LaTex] How to specify the absolute path of the output directory with latexmk

centoslatexmkpaths

I'm trying to execute latexmk from my web application and need to specify the path of its output directory. (I'm on Linux CentOS 6.9)

I have my .tex files in the directory /home/(the path) (this is the absolute path relative to root of the web app) and need to generate the .pdf in the same directory with the same name as the original .tex file.

The entire command I use goes as follows:

latexmk -pdf -jobname=/home/(the path)/filename /home/(the path)/filename.tex

This however, does not work; latexmk starts execution and stops with a message

I can't write on file filename.aux

Instead, if I run a similar command from terminal window with relative and not absolute paths of the files (suppose I'm in the parent directory of the target folder), such as

latexmk -pdf -jobname= target_dir/filename target_dir/filename.tex

then it works as expected. Also, skipping the jobname and using the absolute path to .tex file works fine, but the problem there is that the output goes into the root directory.

I am aware of this question, but still the problem with absolute paths remains.

How is it possible to give the absolute path of the output to latexmk?

Best Answer

The error message is from pdflatex, not latexmk. Latexmk passes the -jobname option to pdflatex, but with the default security settings of TeXLive an absolute path is prohibited. The accepted answer in the question that is referred to, Specify -output-directory when using latexmk, is actually out of date, and it is the second answer that you should look at.

There are two simple solutions, the first being preferred for the situation in the question.

Since your output directory is the same as the document directory, you can use the -cd option: latexmk -cd /home/(the path)/filename.tex. This causes latexmk to change directory to the document directory before processing the document.
You can use the -output-directory option instead, for which an absolute path is permitted:

latexmk -output-directory=/home/(the path) /home/(the path)/filename.tex

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] relative paths don’t work without absolute path

Note you should not include the .tex extension when using \include Unlike \input using .tex is not the same as using the default, it will find the same tex file but generate a different aux file one.tex.aux (if the file system allows that) rather than one.aux.

It normally works best to just use local file names rather than paths.

Just have

\include{one}
\include{two}

then use a command line of

TEXINPUTS=/path/to//: pdftex main

(or equivalent in other command lines, the above works in bash)

Setting TEXINPUTS as above sets the TeX input path to be /path/to and all its sub-directories (the trailing // and then the standard search path (because of the final :) then main on the command line finds /path/to/main.tex, \include{one} finds /path/to/main/one/one.tex and , \include{two} finds /path/to/main/two/two.tex irrespective of the current directory in which the command is run.

[Tex/LaTex] AUCTeX -output-directory + copy *.pdf to working directory

If you want to use AUCTeX so desperately:

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
                 (push 
                  '("Latex_outdir" "%`pdflatex --output-directory=/tmp %(mode)%' %t" 
                TeX-run-TeX nil (latex-mode doctex-mode) 
                :help "Run pdflatex with output in /tmp")
                  TeX-command-list)))

The question you linked to in your last comment is still unanswered, and will cause a serious problem with this setup: AUCTeX won't be able to locate your auxiliary files, and thus deduce the next step in the compilation step.

I suggest you use latexmk for the whole process instead:

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
                 (push 
                  '("Make" "latexmk -outdir=/tmp %t" TeX-run-TeX nil t
                :help "Make pdf output using latexmk.")
                  TeX-command-list)))

Latexmk is aware of the option outdir, and will automatically search for the auxiliary files in this directory.

Either way, note the following point (from man latexmk):

Commonly, the directory specified for output files is a subdirectory of the current working directory. However, if you specify some other directory, e.g., "/tmp/foo" or "../output", be aware that this could cause problems, e.g., with makeindex or bibtex. This is because modern versions of these programs, by default, will refuse to work when they find that they are asked to write to a file in a directory that appears not to be the current working directory or one of its subdirectories. This is part of security measures by the whole TeX system that try to prevent malicious or errant TeX documents from incorrectly messing with a user's files. If for $out_dir or $aux_dir you really do need to specify an absolute pathname (e.g., "/tmp/foo") or a path (e.g., "../output") that includes a higher-level directory, then you need to disable the security measures (and assume any risks). This can be done by temporarily setting the operating system's environment variable openout_any to "a" (as in "all"), to override the default "paranoid" setting.

Another potential problem with this setting is that all your documents will share the same temporary directory, so you will need to make sure they all have different names.

For your cp step, you can use this line in your .latexmkrc:

$pdflatex .= ' && cp -v %Z/%D %D';

Note that most of this is untested, please let me know if it doesn't work.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] relative paths don’t work without absolute path

[Tex/LaTex] AUCTeX -output-directory + copy *.pdf to working directory

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