[Tex/LaTex] Include a file passing a parameter

external filesinclude

Is it possible, while including a file, to pass some parameters to that file and get included file rendered differently depending on those parameters? My particular case is, I have two documents, which will have the same title page except for one string – the title of the document itself. So my idea, instead of creating two separate title page .tex files would be to make one parameterized one. Here's a rough sketch of the idea:

title_page_template.tex:

% assign parameter, let's call it NAME
% create the top of  the page, logos, etc.
\large NAME
% create the bottom of the page, authors, footer, etc.

document1.tex:

% initialization, usepackage, etc.
\include {title_page_template, Document1}
% the rest of the document

document2.tex:

% initialization, usepackage, etc.
\include {title_page_template, Document2}
% the rest of the document

I would like both documents to have the same title page included except for this one string that is passed as a parameter. Can you do something like that in Latex?

Best Answer

Yes, this is possible, but a more generic approach would be to create your template with the title having the form (in title_page_template.tex):

\Large \titlename

and then call (in document1.tex):

% initialization, usepackage, etc.
\def\titlename{Document1}%
\include {title_page_template}
% the rest of the document

and (in document2.tex):

% initialization, usepackage, etc.
\def\titlename{Document2}%
\include {title_page_template}
% the rest of the document

This leaves some of the structured commands like \input untouched, since you might want to use them in a different instance without passing parameters.

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