[Tex/LaTex] Using \import correctly

external filesimport

I've got a main-file which includes the preamble. I then use \import to put together all chapters of my final document. When saving the main-file in another directory than the chapter-files I get the message:

! LaTeX Error: File `GDP.tex' not found.

Isn't the idea of \import to import files from different directories? Is there maybe something wrong with my code?

...    
\begin{document}

\maketitle
\tableofcontents

\import{/Users/john/Documents/Uni/Studienarbeit/Latex/Kapitel/GDP}{Methodology}
\import{/Users/john/Documents/Uni/Studienarbeit/Latex/Kapitel/GDP}{GDP}

\end{document}

Best Answer

When using the import package (which provides the \import command), you must ensure that the path argument includes the trailing slash /. So you need to do:

\import{/Users/john/Documents/Uni/Studienarbeit/Latex/Kapitel/GDP/}{GDP}

Note the / at the end of the path.

Update 2020 As of v6.2 (part of TL 2020) the trailing slash is no longer required.

As others have noted in the comments, it's usually better to use the \include command for this kind of thing, although the import package does have some interesting capabilities for relative names within the included documents. See Keep chapter number of chapters inserted with \include for an example.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Recommended directory structure for separating presentation and content

I'd say this is a reasonable structure, given the complexity of the bachelor thesis (or lack thereof, if you compare it to master thesis or dissertation). That being said, here are a few tips you might find useful:

Separation of the content into logical units is almost obligatory for any non-trivial document you write. You can keep this on the chapter/section level, but if you have complex and long sub-units, it doesn't hurt to put them in separate documents as well.
If you have borderline OCD like me, or simply are writing a lot of documents, you'd like to keep a separate res (resource) directory, with subdirectories for images, code and other include-able and importable stuff.
If you write a lot of documents with shared resources (including preambles), you'd like to expose a single location for all your documents, so there's no duplication of resources (or worse still, slightly different versions of e.g. images or code samples). Depending on your OS, you can do this with a symlink to your global resource directory. This is especially helpful for bibliographies, as I only keep one huge .bib database that contains every piece of writing I'm referencing.
Have the whole project structure created by a shell/batch script, so that every new document you start will have directories in exactly the same place as before, allowing you to even reuse whole chapters from your other documents with simple copy and paste. Since you have all pluggable resources in exactly the same place every time, these rarely need any change at all.

[Tex/LaTex] How to use the import package

Here is an example showing the import of a higher-level file by a file in a subfolder, which is what I understood you want to achieve with the header file. A file chapter1.tex is located in a /subfolder. It loads two files: part1.tex, which is located in the same /subfolder, and partA.tex from the home folder. partA.tex also loads part1.tex; it therefore corresponds to the header file in the example you've added.

Using subimport{}{} is necessary for partA.tex to let it use its own path to find part1.tex. Since the latter does not make any further imports, it can always be included by means of input.

main.tex    
partA.tex              %your header.tex
subfolder/chapter1.tex
subfolder/part1.tex    %your custom.tex

%main.tex
\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{import}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
    \subimport*{subfolder/}{chapter1}
\end{document}

%subfolder/chapter1.tex
\section{Chapter 1}

\input{part1}
%\input{../partA}   %doesn't work
\subimport*{../}{partA}

%/subfolder/part1.tex
\subsection{Part 1}
\lipsum[1]

%partA.tex
\subsection{Part A} 
\lipsum[2]

\input{subfolder/part1}

enter image description here

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Recommended directory structure for separating presentation and content

[Tex/LaTex] How to use the import package

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