[Tex/LaTex] Modular LaTeX document preambles and class files

document-classesdocument-configurationpackagespreamble

I have been debating whether or not to ask this question as I don't intend to create an overly broad unanswerable, or solely opinion based question, but I have decided that there are probably some techniques that will adequately answer this question.

I am looking for approaches I can use to organize my code to simplify or clean up my class file or document preamble. Below is some example snippets and organization from my cls file. I have tried to keep as much of this customization and configuration in the cls file rather than in a complex document preamble as I want the cls file to be a template that requrires minimal customizations in constantly changing main files that would contain a preamble.

Because it's all in my cls file (which I fear is on its way to an unmanageable length). When I branch off to a new project I would like to be able start from the same class file, and just prune out and modify what is relevant. One of the primary motivations is to prevent duplication when some global concepts always need to be updated, while other customizations definitely need to be stand alone. Since \input{} seems to very nicely let me use ../.. to navigate to where I would prefer to store individual config files (except across drives)

One of the few aspects of my document preamble is the configuration of newcommands, renewcommands, and files loaded and configured for glossaries which are all loaded in distinct files

\input{../src/private/my-newcommands}
\input{../src/private/config-glossary}  % Glossaries must be loaded before amsmath

so using this concept can the cls file be modularized and compartmentalized?

I had created some (what I had been describing as) config files that contained specific package loads and modifications for common tasks such as math, fonts, header/footer, titles, bibliography, formatting modifications, etc. But transporting some variable definitions, commands, environments, and packages (such as hyperref, cleveref, amsmath, etc) don’t seem to work when sorted into discrete tex files that are called using input or include is inside the cls file.

I can't provide a MWE for this as it seems irreproducible depending on what I put in these external tex files. For example, the color definitions and includes worked fine when grabbed with \input{} Should these by sty files instead for this to be possible?

Because a tex installation on linux has different rules about where a cls or sty file can be placed to be read, I will detail that this question is being asked with MikTex on windows in mind, but I am certainly open to comments about parallel organization structures on linux. For interests sake, one of the reasons that my cls file gets so complicated is my documents must be compatible with both xelatex and tex4ht.

Organizational example – I can't guarantee that any of this will run as I have not pruned this file with this intention, just tried to include some examples of content that I keep in my cls file:

    %_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    %
    % C L A S S   F I L E   S E T T I N G S    
    %_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    \NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
    \ProvidesClass{EngBird_Template}[2013/10/01 

    %http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/24542/create-list-of-all-external-files-used-by-master-latex-document
    %\RequirePackage{snapshot}


    \LoadClass[12pt, twoside, letterpaper]{report}  %oneside

    %\RequirePackage{standalone}
    \RequirePackage{letltxmacro}
    %\RequirePackage{Sweave}
%
%_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

% TODO List
% Try an organize in small modular components
% Fix bolds in section hierarchy titles   
%==========================================================================================================================================
% PACKAGES REQUIRED FOR CONFIGURING REPORT  - PAGE MARGINS AND LINE SPACING
%==========================================================================================================================================
%
    \RequirePackage[letterpaper,includehead,
        left=3.25cm,right=2.54cm,top=2.54cm,
        headheight=1.5cm,headheight=0.0cm,
        bottom=2.54cm,footskip=1.0cm
        %hmargin=3cm,vmargin=3.75cm %only used to get rid of a overfull \hbox warning.
        ]{geometry}

    \RequirePackage{parskip}
    \RequirePackage{setspace}

    % CONFIGURE PAGE SPACING AND HYPHEN RESTRICTION CRITERION   
    \pagestyle{plain} % options: empty , plain , fancy
    \onehalfspacing
    \righthyphenmin=6
    \lefthyphenmin=6

    %http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/11707/how-to-force-output-to-a-left-or-right-page
    %\cleardoublepage
    \RequirePackage{emptypage}  %http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/21629/avoiding-page-numbers-in-empty-pages
        \newcommand*{\cleartoleftpage}{%
          \clearpage
            \if@twoside
            \ifodd\c@page
              \hbox{}\newpage
              \if@twocolumn
                \hbox{}\newpage
              \fi
            \fi
          \fi
        }
%
%_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


%=========================================================================================================================================
% PACKAGES REQUIRED CREATING CUSTOM COLORS
%=========================================================================================================================================

    \ifdefined\HCode
    %   \RequirePackage[html]{tex4ht}
        \RequirePackage[dvips]{xcolor}
    \else
        \RequirePackage{xcolor}%color %\PassOptionsToPackage{dvipsnames}{xcolor}
    \fi


    \definecolor{Crimson}{rgb}{0.6471, 0.1098, 0.1882}
    \definecolor{chaptergrey}{rgb}{0.6,0,0}
    \definecolor{halfgray}{gray}{0.55} % chapter numbers will be semi transparent .5 .55 .6 .0
    \definecolor{webgreen}{rgb}{0,.5,0}
    \definecolor{webbrown}{rgb}{.6,0,0}
    \definecolor{Maroon}{cmyk}{0, 0.87, 0.68, 0.32}
    \definecolor{RoyalBlue}{cmyk}{1, 0.50, 0, 0}
    \definecolor{Black}{cmyk}{0, 0, 0, 0}
%_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
%=========================================================================================================================================
%   SNIPPETS FROM http://zoonek.free.fr/LaTeX/ TO IMPROVE FORMATTING AND APPEARENCE  
%   See also ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/documentation/MemoirChapStyles/MemoirChapStyles.pdf
%   http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/73421/how-to-create-specific-chapter-style-in-book-documentclass
%=========================================================================================================================================

%http://zoonek.free.fr/LaTeX/LaTeX_samples_chapter/0.html
\def\thickhrulefill{\leavevmode \leaders \hrule height 1ex  \hfill \kern \z@}

\def\@makechapterhead#1{%
    %\vspace*{50\p@}%
    %\vspace*{6\p@}%
    {\parindent \z@ \centering \reset@font
        \singlespacing
        \thickhrulefill\quad
        \scshape \@chapapp{} \thechapter
        \quad \thickhrulefill
        \par\nobreak
        \vspace*{6\p@}%
        \interlinepenalty\@M
        \hrule
        \vspace*{6\p@}%
        %\fontsize{19}{6}
        \Large 
        \bfseries #1\par\nobreak
        \par
        \vspace*{6\p@}%
        \hrule
        \vskip 20\p@
        %\vskip 100\p@
    }}

    \def\@makeschapterhead#1{%
        %\vspace*{50\p@}%
        % \vspace*{6\p@}%
        {\parindent \z@ \centering \reset@font
            \singlespacing
            \thickhrulefill
            \par\nobreak
            \vspace*{6\p@}%
            \interlinepenalty\@M
            \hrule
            \vspace*{6\p@}%
            %\fontsize{19}{6}
            \Large 
            \bfseries #1\par\nobreak
            \par
            \vspace*{6\p@}%
            \hrule
            \vskip 20\p@
            %\vskip 100\p@
        }}

% some definitions
\def\year#1{\gdef\@year{#1}}                    % specified in coverpage.tex
\def\month#1{\gdef\@month{#1}}              % specified in coverpage.tex

\newcommand{\maketitlepage}
{ 
    \singlespacing
    \thispagestyle{empty}
    \vspace*{\fill} \vspace{2cm} \begin{center}
        \Huge \textcolor{Crimson}{\textit{\MyTitle}} \normalsize \\ \sc \vspace{2cm}
        \vspace*{1.0cm}
        \normalsize
        by \\
        \vspace*{1.0cm}
        \large {\textit{\@author}} \normalsize \\ \sc \vspace{1cm}

        \normalsize \vspace*{2.0cm}

        etc \\

    \end{center} \vspace*{\fill}
}
%=========================================================================================================================================

%=========================================================================================================================================
% Special einvironment modifications
%=========================================================================================================================================

%http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/17887/prevent-abstract-environment-to-reset-pagenumbering
% either use notitlepage in the \LoadClass or this
\renewenvironment{abstract}{%
  \if@twocolumn
    \section*{\abstractname}%
  \else
    %\small
    \begin{center}%
      {\bfseries \abstractname\vspace{-.5em}\vspace{\z@}}%
    \end{center}%
    \quotation
  \fi}
  {\if@twocolumn\else\endquotation\fi}

%_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


%=========================================================================================================================================
%  E Q U A T I O N  C A P T I O N  S E T U P 
%=========================================================================================================================================

\DeclareCaptionType{mycapequ}[][List of equations]
\captionsetup[mycapequ]{labelformat=empty}

This class file is loaded in by the main latex document setup as follows:

%=============================================================================
%   P R E A M B L E
%=============================================================================
%______________________________________________________________________________________
%
% Setup the document class and enable a package to read preamble and files externally    %______________________________________________________________________________________
\documentclass{EngBird_Template}  

%----------------------------------------------------------------------
% Create a listing in the log of all files needed to process this document
\listfiles
\synctex=1 % turn synctex on automatically to sync between pdf viewer
%\setupbackend[export=yes]  % should be using with ConTeXt 
%\setupbackend     [export=example.xml, css=example.css]
%----------------------------------------------------------------------

\input{../src/private/my-newcommands} 
\input{../src/private/config-glossary}  % Glossaries must be loaded before amsmath

\renewcommand{\bibname}{References}   %\nocite{*}       % list all refs in database, cited or not

\begin{document}
    \ifdefined\HCode    \renewcommand{\textregistered}{\special{t4ht@+\string&{35}xAE{59}}x}    \else   \fi
    \input{../src/logical_contents}
\end{document}

Update

I think it might be worth mentioning that the modular spirit of this question could be applied to extend to workarounds for the texmf directory structure in an age of network computing. People like me use numerous computers and collaborate with others and as such absolute path names don't always work out great, and relative paths can be equally problematic. As a LaTeX user and enthusiast, but certainly not a developer, I find that my own code for customizations (in class and sty files) are not easily made portable, but also accessible to multiple projects, on multiple platforms, for multiple users.

Best Answer

I'm not sure I fully understood the setup of your class file, the ways you load various packages, and the ways new macros are defined (or existing ones are redefined). For sure, don't load packages -- typically in files with extension .sty -- via an \input statement. Instead, use \usepackage directives. If for no other reason, you should do so because \usepackage offers some protection against loading the same package twice (or more frequently...) with incompatible options. Similarly, you may want to rename the files you currently load via \input statements to have extension .sty, so that they can (should?) be loaded via \usepackage statements.

Separately, have you implemented document class-level options which let you decide at run time which packages should, or should not, be loaded?

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Good LaTeX preambles for math thesis

In general, I suggest to start with a preamble that is as small as possible and to add packages and/or custom commands as the need for them arises.

With regard to your code sample:

Don't fiddle with \topmargin, \textheight and similar commands. If you want to change the margins of your document, use the geometry or typearea packages.
If you really must denote new paragraphs by additional spacing instead of indentation, replace \setlength\parskip{10pt} with the parskip package. See this answer for details.
The t1enc package is obsolete -- use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} instead. See l2tabu for other obsolete packages/commands.

[Tex/LaTex] Cute (child-friendly) document in LaTeX

I made a humble attempt of a cute document with memoir and some Inkscape graphics. :) Please bear with me, after all, cuteness is in the eye of the beholder. :)

Spoiler alert:

! Don't laugh at my duck, please.

Jake and I were talking in the TeX and friends chatroom a few months ago about funny chapter styles for memoir. For the fun of it, we made a theme based on Super Mario Bros. I drew Mario and a goomba:

Later, we added a feature that added as many goombas as the chapter number - Chapter 3 would have three goombas, and so on.

Jake made an awesome Yoshi code that extended his tongue to fill the line:

Sadly, the code is not available, for obvious reasons: Nintendo wouldn't be happy. After all, those characters are copyrighted. What we did was just a humble case study of "different" styles for documents based on memoir.

That said, I think we could use some ideas from this "exercise". I drew two elements in Inkscape, a flower and a duck:

Inkscape

I then exported both images to a tikzpicture via a nice plugin called inkscape2tikz. This step is not mandatory, after all, we can simply print those images to a vector format - say, .pdf - and include them as images (it's way easier).

In order to make our lives easier, I created a new package called duck:

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesPackage{duck}[2012/18/07 Duck style for memoir]

\RequirePackage{graphicx}
\RequirePackage{xcolor}
\RequirePackage{tikz}
\RequirePackage{xspace}

\definecolor{cffffff}{RGB}{255,255,255}
\definecolor{cffcc00}{RGB}{255,204,0}
\definecolor{c008000}{RGB}{0,128,0}
\definecolor{caa8800}{RGB}{170,136,0}
\definecolor{cd4aa00}{RGB}{212,170,0}
\definecolor{ce6e6e6}{RGB}{230,230,230}

\newcommand{\drawduck}{%
  ... TikZ code here ...
}

\newcommand{\drawflower}{%
... TikZ code here ...
}

\newcounter{myflowers}

\newcommand{\flowers}[1]{%
\setcounter{myflowers}{-1}\loop\stepcounter{myflowers}\ifnum\value{myflowers} < #1 \drawflower\repeat%
}

\makechapterstyle{weloveducks}{%
\chapterstyle{default}
\renewcommand*{\chapnamefont}{\color{olive}\bfseries\HUGE}
\renewcommand*{\chaptitlefont}{\hfill\bfseries\HUGE}
\renewcommand*{\printchapternum}{\chapnamefont\thechapter\xspace\flowers{\thechapter}}
\renewcommand*{\printchaptertitle}[1]{%
\drawduck\bfseries\HUGE\hfill ##1%
}}

The TikZ code is huge. The full sample duck.sty file is available here.

Now, let's go to our .tex file. I opted to use a system font, so I went with xelatex. I don't like to change \parskip, \parindent and line spacing, but I thought that for this particular document, some adjustments would make the text easier to be read by a kid.

\documentclass[14pt]{memoir}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Segoe Print}

\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\usepackage{duck}

\begin{document}

\chapterstyle{weloveducks}

\setlength{\parskip}{1.5\baselineskip}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\OnehalfSpacing

\chapter{The journey begins}

Hi, I am a duck. Quack!

\kant[1]

\chapter{The journey continues}

\kant[2]

\chapter{The journey ends}

\kant[3]

\end{document}

The output:

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

This is surely the most clumsy duck drawing ever in the history of duck drawing. :)

Note that the number of flowers grow together with the chapter counter. Kant text is provided by kantlipsum. And memoir is awesome, as always. :)

Hope you guys like it. :)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Good LaTeX preambles for math thesis

[Tex/LaTex] Cute (child-friendly) document in LaTeX

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