[Tex/LaTex] Writing tutorials with exam document class, with and without solutions

exam

I would like to write some tutorials for my students, and for this I am using the exam document class, and the solution environment.

now the problem is I have a statement

\printanswers

that I need to comment for the tutorial, and uncomment for the solution.

I was hoping if there's a way through which I can compile it a single time, and the source file (say tutorial.tex) creates two pdfs –

  1. tutorial.pdf (without solutions)
  2. tutorialSolution.pdf (with solutions)

Following is my source code – 

\documentclass{exam} 
%\printanswers
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{pslatex}
 \usepackage[pdftex]{color}  
 \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}     

\begin{document}
\begin{questions}

\vskip 0.5 cm \question Question header \vskip 0.5cm
Question text

\begin{solution}
Solution text
\end{solution}

\end{questions}
\end{document}

thanks for any help you can provide.
gaurav

Best Answer

Here is what I had in mind for one method you might use to manage this type of workflow.

You create 3 files. The first is your main file, tutorial.tex, say:

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{pslatex}
 \usepackage[pdftex]{color}  
 \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}     

\begin{document}
\begin{questions}

\vskip 0.5 cm \question Question header \vskip 0.5cm
Question text

\begin{solution}
Solution text
\end{solution}

\end{questions}
\end{document}

The other two are wrappers. For example, these might be tutorialQuestions.tex:

\documentclass{exam} 
\input{tutorial}

and tutorialSolutions.tex:

\documentclass{exam} 
\printanswers
\input{tutorial}

You can then compile tutorialSolutions.tex and tutorialQuestions.tex separately without overwriting the other version. Or you could use a script to manage this for you. (How to do that depends on your OS.) It is also possible to use various helpers with TeX to do a lot of this and/or have your IDE automate things. However, the above is the basic idea which you then embed in the way that best suits your preferred tools.

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