[Tex/LaTex] Nested standalone files with standalone package

nestingstandalone

Is it possible to nest files with the standalone package? I have something like the following:

In A.tex:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{standalone}
\begin{document}
\input{B}
\end{document}

B.tex:

\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \input{C}
\end{table}
\end{document}

C.tex is

\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{ l l r r } 
    A & B & C & D
\end{tabular} 
\end{document}

A and C compile fine, but when compiling B.tex I get errors starting with :

! LaTeX Error: Not in outer par mode.

and complaining from there.

Is what I'm trying to do — where A.tex includes B.tex includes C.tex — possible? Possible with floats?

Best Answer

Yes, you can nest standalone files, however, as with any other document which \inputs standalone files you need to load the standalone package also in this case.

Another issue is that you can't use floats like table and figure environments in normal standalone files, because of the used preview mode used. You need either switch it off using the class option preview=false or redefine the table environment to not be a float.

% B.tex
\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{standalone}
\renewenvironment{table}{}{}% Ignore `table` environment in standalone mode.
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \input{C}
\end{table}
\end{document}

If you have a \caption you should use:

\makeatletter
\renewenvironment{table}{\def\@captype{table}}{}
\makeatother

instead, otherwise you get an error.

Update 2011/12/21

I now release standalone v1.0 which redefines floats by defaults to work inside standalone files. See the float option in the manual for more details. See also Is it possible to use the figure environment with the standalone package?

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to make table floats work with preview/standalone environment

Update

In the link you have posted, the author of the standalone package mentions that floats are now possible in standalone and that one should have a look into the manual on the float option.

Doing this for you, I got the following code, which should work for you.

Edit I also included the required option to get the scrartcl-look and the desired fontsize.

% arara: pdflatex

\documentclass[%
    ,float=false % this is the new default and can be left away.
    ,preview=true
    ,class=scrartcl
    ,fontsize=20pt
    ]{standalone}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{c|c}
a & b\\
\hline
c & d\\
\end{tabular}
\caption{testing}
\label{tab:testing}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Original Answer

You should not use floating environments in the standalone class, as it makes no sense. Labels make no sense either. I would recommend to use the caption package for your caption (as this package is often used in normal articles as well) and to wrap you table in a minipage.

enter image description here

% arara: pdfatex

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{caption}

\begin{document}
\minipage{0.2\textwidth}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{c|c}
a & b\\
\hline
c & d\\
\end{tabular}
\captionof{table}{testing}
\endminipage
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Standalone: class vs package

The standalone class is designed to create individual snippets of content whose size adapts to the content itself. This is implemented with the [crop=true] option, which is enabled by default. The [crop=true] option assumes that the content is a single paragraph. This is the source of the error you see when you compile your sample document with the standalone class.

There are two ways to solve this problem, with different effects:

Use option [varwidth=true] which will allow multiple paragraphs, but will still crop the image to the size of its content.
Use option [crop=false], which will not crop the document to the size of the content, and instead render it as a single page.

The class also allows you to specify an alternative class to compile the document in "within" the standalone compilation. The default us the article class. Changing this to the report class as you mentioned in the comments isn't actually doing any work here; it's only the crop=false option that is making the content fill a page.

Difference between the class and the package

The standalone class is useful especially if you are generating images for inclusion into other documents, especially because it can also do automatic conversion to other image formats.

On the other hand, the usefulness of the package version of standalone is less clear to me. In its most basic use, the standalone package allows you to use \input in a main document to insert standalone class documents into a larger document. I don't have a concrete use case for this, and I can't see an obvious use for it. Perhaps others who use it in this mode can comment on how they actually use it.