<html><head><meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"></head><body><pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">% Copyright 2019 by Till Tantau
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\section{Externalizing Graphics}
\label{section-external}

\subsection{Overview}

There are two fundamentally different ways of inserting graphics into a
\TeX-document. First, you can create a graphic using some external program like
|xfig| or |InDesign| and then include this graphic in your text. This is done
using commands like |\includegraphics| or |\pgfimage|. In this case, the
graphic file contains all the low-level graphic commands that describe the
picture. When such a file is included, all \TeX\ has to worry about is the size
of the picture; the internals of the picture are unknown to \TeX\ and it does
not care about them.

The second method of creating graphics is to use a special package that
transforms \TeX-commands like |\draw| or |\psline| into appropriate low-level
graphic commands. In this case, \TeX\ has to do all the hard work of
``typesetting'' the picture and if a picture has a complicated internal
structure this may take a lot of time.

While \pgfname\ was created to facilitate the second method of creating
pictures, there are two main reasons why you may need to employ the first
method of image-inclusion, nevertheless:
%
\begin{enumerate}
    \item Typesetting a picture using \TeX\ can be a very time-consuming
        process. If \TeX\ needs a minute to typeset a picture, you do not want
        to wait this minute when you re\TeX\ your document after having changed
        a single comma.
    \item Some users, especially journal editors, may not be able to process
        files that contain \pgfname\ commands -- for the simple reason that the
        systems of many publishing houses do not have \pgfname\ installed.
\end{enumerate}

In both cases, the solution is to ``extract'' or ``externalize'' pictures that
would normally be typeset every time a document is \TeX ed. Once the pictures
have been extracted into separate graphics files, these graphic files can be
reinserted into the text using the first method.

Extracting a graphic from a file is not as easy as it may sound at first since
\TeX\ cannot write parts of its output into different files and a bit of
trickery is needed. The following macros simplify the workflow:
%
\begin{enumerate}
    \item You have to tell \pgfname\ which files will be used for which
        pictures. To do so, you enclose each picture that you wish to be
        ``externalized'' in a pair of |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| and
        |\endpgfgraphicnamed| macros.
    \item The next step is to generate the extracted graphics. For this you run
        \TeX\ with the |\jobname| set to the graphic file's name. This will
        cause |\pgfname| to behave in a very special way: All of your document
        will simply be thrown away, \emph{except} for the single graphic having
        the same name as the current jobname.
    \item After you have run \TeX\ once for each graphic that your wish to
        externalize, you can rerun \TeX\ on your document normally. This will
        have the following effect: Each time a |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| is
        encountered, \pgfname\ checks whether a graphic file of the given name
        exists (if you did step 2, it will). If this graphic file exists, it
        will be input and the text till the corresponding |\endpgfgraphicnamed|
        will be ignored.
\end{enumerate}

In the rest of this section, the above workflow is explained in more detail.


\subsection{Workflow Step 1: Naming Graphics}

In order to put each graphic in an external file, you first need to tell
\pgfname\ the names of these files.

\begin{command}{\beginpgfgraphicnamed\marg{file name prefix}}
    This command indicates that everything up to the next call of
    |\endpgfgraphicnamed| is part of a graphic that should be placed in a file
    named \meta{file name prefix}|.|\meta{suffix}, where the \meta{suffix}
    depends on your backend driver. Typically, \meta{suffix} will be |dvi| or
    |pdf|.

    Here is a typical example of how this command is used:
    %
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
% In file main.tex:
...
As we see in Figure~\ref{fig1}, the world is flat.
\begin{figure}
  \beginpgfgraphicnamed{graphic-of-flat-world}
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \fill (0,0) circle (1cm);
  \end{tikzpicture}
  \endpgfgraphicnamed
  \caption{The flat world.}
  \label{fig1}
\end{figure}
\end{codeexample}

    Each graphic to be externalized should have a unique name. Note that this
    name will be used as the name of a file in the file system, so it should
    not contain any funny characters.

    This command can have three different effects:
    %
    \begin{enumerate}
        \item The easiest situation arises if there does not yet exist a
            graphic file called \meta{file name  prefix}|.|\meta{suffix}, where
            the \meta{suffix} is one of the suffixes understood by your current
            backend driver (so |pdf| or |jpg| if you use |pdftex|, |eps| if you
            use |dvips|, and so on). In this case, both this command and the
            |\endpgfgraphicnamed| command simply have no effect.
        \item A more complex situation arises when a graphic file named
            \meta{file name  prefix}|.|\meta{suffix} \emph{does} exist. In this
            case, this graphic file is included using the |\includegraphics|
            command%
            %
            \footnote{Actually, the command key \texttt{/pgf/images/include
            external} is invoked which calls an appropriate
            \texttt{\textbackslash includegraphics} command.}.
            %
            Furthermore, the text between |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| and
            |\endpgfgraphicnamed| is ignored.

            When the text is ``ignored'', what actually happens is that all
            text up to the next occurrence of |\endpgfgraphicnamed| is thrown
            away without any macro expansion. This means, in particular, that
            (a) you cannot put |\endpgfgraphicnamed| inside a macro and (b) the
            macros used in the graphics need not be defined at all when the
            graphic file is included. \item The most complex behavior arises
            when current the |\jobname| equals the \meta{file name prefix} and,
            furthermore, the \emph{real job name} has been declared. The
            behavior for this case is explained later.
    \end{enumerate}

    Note that the |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| does not really have any effect until
    you have generated the graphic files named. Till then, this command is
    simply ignored. Also, if you delete the graphics file later on, the
    graphics are typeset normally once more.
\end{command}

\begin{command}{\endpgfgraphicnamed}
    This command just marks the end of the graphic that should be externalized.
\end{command}


\subsection{Workflow Step 2: Generating the External Graphics}

We have now indicated all the graphics for which we would like graphic files to
be generated. In order to generate the files, you now need to modify the
|\jobname| appropriately. This is done in two steps:
%
\begin{enumerate}
    \item You use the following command to tell \pgfname\ the real name of your
        |.tex| file:
        %
        \begin{command}{\pgfrealjobname\marg{name}}
            Tells \pgfname\ the real name of your job. For instance, if you
            have a file called |survey.tex| that contains two graphics that you
            wish to be called |survey-graphic1| and |survey-graphic2|, then you
            should write the following.
            %
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
% This is file survey.tex
\documentclass{article}
...
\usepackage{tikz}
\pgfrealjobname{survey}
\end{codeexample}
        \end{command}
    \item You run \TeX\ with the |\jobname| set to the name of the graphic for
        which you need an external graphic to be generated. To set the
        |\jobname|, you use the |--jobname=| option of \TeX:
        %
\begin{codeexample}[code only, tikz syntax=false]
bash&gt; latex --jobname=survey-graphic1 survey.tex
\end{codeexample}
        %
\end{enumerate}

The following things will now happen:
%
\begin{enumerate}
    \item |\pgfrealjobname| notices that the |\jobname| is not the ``real''
        jobname and, thus, must be the name of a graphic that is to be put in
        an external file.
    \item At the beginning of the document, \pgfname\ changes the definition of
        \TeX's internal |\shipout| macro. The new shipout macro simply throws
        away the output. This means that the document is typeset normally, but
        no output is produced.
    \item When the |\beginpgfgraphicnamed{|\meta{name}|}| command is
        encountered where the \meta{name} is the same as the current
        |\jobname|, then a \TeX-box is started and \meta{everything} up to the
        following |\endpgfgraphicnamed| command is stored inside this box.

        Note that, typically, \meta{everything} will contain just a single
        |{tikzpicture}| or |{pgfpicture}| environment. However, this need not
        be the case, you can use, say, a |{pspicture}| environment as
        \meta{everything} or even just some normal \TeX-text.
    \item At the |\endpgfgraphicnamed|, the box \emph{is} shipped out using the
        original |\shipout| command. Thus, unlike everything else, the contents
        of the graphic is made part of the output.
    \item When the box containing the graphic is shipped out, the paper size is
        modified such that it is exactly equal to the height and width of the
        box.
\end{enumerate}

The net effect of everything described above is that the two commands
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only, tikz syntax=false]
bash&gt; latex --jobname=survey-graphic1 survey.tex
bash&gt; dvips survey-graphic1
\end{codeexample}
%
\noindent produce a file called |survey-graphic1.ps| that consists of a single
page that contains exactly the graphic produced by the code between
|\beginpgfgraphicnamed{survey-graphic1}| and |\endpgfgraphicnamed|.
Furthermore, the size of this single page is exactly the size of the graphic.

If you use pdf\TeX, producing the graphic is even simpler:
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only, tikz syntax=false]
bash&gt; pdflatex --jobname=survey-graphic1 survey.tex
\end{codeexample}
%
\noindent produces the single-page |pdf|-file |survey-graphic1.pdf|.


\subsection{Workflow Step 3: Including the External Graphics}

Once you have produced all the pictures in the text, including them into the
main document is easy: Simply run \TeX\ again without any modification of the
|\jobname|. In this case the |\pgfrealjobname| command will notice that the
main file is, indeed, the main file. The main file will then be typeset
normally and the |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| commands also behave normally, which
means that they will try to include the generated graphic files -- which is
exactly what you want.

Suppose that you wish to send your survey to a journal that does not have
\pgfname\ installed. In this case, you now have all the necessary external
graphics, but you still need \pgfname\ to automatically include them instead of
the executing the picture code! One way to solve this problem is to simply
delete all of the \pgfname\ or \tikzname\ code from your |survey.tex| and
instead insert appropriate |\includegraphics| commands ``by hand''. However,
there is a better way: You input the file |pgfexternal.tex|.

\begin{filedescription}{pgfexternal.tex}
    This file defines the command |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| and causes it to have
    the following effect: It includes the graphic file given as a parameter to
    it and then gobbles everything up to |\endpgfgraphicnamed|.

    Since |\beginpgfgraphicnamed| does not do macro expansion as it searches
    for |\endpgfgraphicnamed|, it is not necessary to actually include the
    packages necessary for \emph{creating} the graphics. So the idea is that
    you comment out things like |\usepackage{tikz}| and instead say
    |\input pgfexternal.tex|.

    Indeed, the contents of this file is simply the following line:
    %
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
\long\def\beginpgfgraphicnamed#1#2\endpgfgraphicnamed{\includegraphics{#1}}
\end{codeexample}

    Instead of |\input pgfexternal.tex| you could also include this line in
    your main file.
\end{filedescription}

As a final remark, note that the |baseline| option does not work directly with
pictures written to an external graphic file. The simple reason is that there
is no way to store this baseline information in an external graphic file. To
allow the |baseline| option (or any \TeX\ construction with non-zero depth),
the baseline information is stored into a separate file. This file is named
\marg{image file}|.dpth| and contains something like |5pt|.

So, if you need baseline information, you will have to keep the external
graphic file together with its~|.dpth| file. Furthermore, the short command in
|\input pgfexternal.tex| is no longer enough because it ignores any baseline
information. You will need to use |\input pgfexternalwithdepth.tex| instead (it
is shown below). It is slightly longer, but it can be used in the same way as
|pgfexternal.tex|.

\begin{key}{/pgf/images/include external (initially \textbackslash pgfimage\{\#1\})}
\label{pgf:includeexternalkey}
\index{External Graphics!Bounding Box Issues}
    This key constitutes the public interface to exchange the
    |\includegraphics| command used for the image inclusion.

    Redefining this key allows to provide bounding box or viewport options:
    %
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
\pgfkeys{/pgf/images/include external/.code={\includegraphics[viewport=0 0 211.28 175.686]{#1}}}
\end{codeexample}
    %
    Do not forget the |.code| here which redefines the command.

    One application could be image externalization and bounding box
    restrictions: As far as I know, a |.pdf| graphics with restricted bounding
    box is always cropped (which is not always desired). One solution could be
    to use |latex| and |dvips| which doesn't have this restriction. Another is
    to manually provide the |viewport| option as shown above.

    A possible value for |viewport| can be found in the |.pdf| image, search
    for |/MediaBox = [ ... ]|.
\end{key}


\subsection{A Complete Example}

Let us now have a look at a simple, but complete example. We start out with a
normal file called |survey.tex| that has the following contents:
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
% This is the file survey.tex
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
In the following figure, we see a circle:
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) circle (10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}

By comparison, in this figure we see a rectangle:
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) rectangle (10pt,10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
\end{codeexample}

Now our editor tells us that the publisher will need all figures to be provided
in separate PostScript or |.pdf|-files. For this, we enclose all figures in
|...graphicnamed|-pairs and we add a call to the |\pgfrealjobname| macro:
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
% This is the file survey.tex
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{tikz}
\pgfrealjobname{survey}

\begin{document}
In the following figure, we see a circle:
\beginpgfgraphicnamed{survey-f1}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) circle (10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\endpgfgraphicnamed

By comparison, in this figure we see a rectangle:
\beginpgfgraphicnamed{survey-f2}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) rectangle (10pt,10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\endpgfgraphicnamed
\end{document}
\end{codeexample}

After these changes, typesetting the file will still yield the same output as
it did before -- after all, we have not yet created any external graphics.

To create the external graphics, we run |pdflatex| twice, once for each
graphic:
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only, tikz syntax=false]
bash&gt; pdflatex --jobname=survey-f1 survey.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6)
entering extended mode
(./survey.tex
LaTeX2e &lt;2005/12/01&gt;
...
) [1] (./survey-f1.aux) )
Output written on survey-f1.pdf (1 page, 1016 bytes).
Transcript written on survey-f1.log.
\end{codeexample}

\begin{codeexample}[code only, tikz syntax=false]
bash&gt; pdflatex --jobname=survey-f2 survey.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6)
entering extended mode
(./survey.tex
LaTeX2e &lt;2005/12/01&gt;
...
(./survey-f2.aux) )
Output written on survey-f2.pdf (1 page, 1002 bytes).
Transcript written on survey-f2.log.
\end{codeexample}

We can now send the two generated graphics (|survey-f1.pdf| and
|survey-f2.pdf|) to the editor. However, the publisher cannot use our
|survey.tex| file, yet. The reason is that it contains the command
|\usepackage{tikz}| and they do not have \pgfname\ installed.

Thus, we modify the main file |survey.tex| as follows:
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
% This is the file survey.tex
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphics}
\input pgfexternal.tex
% \usepackage{tikz}
% \pgfrealjobname{survey}

\begin{document}
In the following figure, we see a circle:
\beginpgfgraphicnamed{survey-f1}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) circle (10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\endpgfgraphicnamed

By comparison, in this figure we see a rectangle:
\beginpgfgraphicnamed{survey-f2}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) rectangle (10pt,10pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\endpgfgraphicnamed
\end{document}
\end{codeexample}
%
If we now run pdf\LaTeX, then, indeed, \pgfname\ is no longer needed:
% In the following, we switch off typesetting of listings because the
% parentheses confuse the pretty printer
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only,typeset listing/.code=#1]
bash&gt; pdflatex survey.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6)
entering extended mode
(./survey.tex
LaTeX2e &lt;2005/12/01&gt;
Babel &lt;v3.8h&gt; and hyphenation patterns for english, ..., loaded.
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/graphics/graphics.sty
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/graphics/trig.sty)
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/config/graphics.cfg)
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/latex/pdftex-def/pdftex.def))
(/Users/tantau/Library/texmf/tex/generic/pgf/generic/pgf/utilities/pgfexternal.
tex) (./survey.aux)
(/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/tex/context/base/supp-pdf.tex
[Loading MPS to PDF converter (version 2006.09.02).]
) &lt;survey-f1.pdf, id=1, 23.33318pt x 19.99973pt&gt; &lt;use survey-f1.pdf&gt;
&lt;survey-f2.pdf, id=2, 13.33382pt x 10.00037pt&gt; &lt;use survey-f2.pdf&gt; [1{/Users/ta
ntau/Library/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map} &lt;./survey-f1.pdf&gt; &lt;./sur
vey-f2.pdf&gt;] (./survey.aux) )&lt;/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.texlive/fonts/type1/bluesk
y/cm/cmr10.pfb&gt;
Output written on survey.pdf (1 page, 10006 bytes).
Transcript written on survey.log.
\end{codeexample}

To our editor, we send the following files:
%
\begin{itemize}
    \item The last |survey.tex| shown above.
    \item The graphic file |survey-f1.pdf|.
    \item The graphic file |survey-f2.pdf|.
    \item The file |pgfexternal.tex|, whose contents is simply
        %
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
\long\def\beginpgfgraphicnamed#1#2\endpgfgraphicnamed{\includegraphics{#1}}
\end{codeexample}
        %
        (Alternatively, we can also directly add this line to our |survey.tex|
        file).
\end{itemize}
%
In case we have used the |baseline| option, we also need to include any |.dpth|
files and we need to use the file |pgfexternalwithdepth.tex| instead of
|pgfexternal.tex|. This file also checks for the existence of |.dpth| files
containing baseline information, its contents is
%
\begin{codeexample}[code only]
\long\def\beginpgfgraphicnamed#1#2\endpgfgraphicnamed{%
    \begingroup
    \setbox1=\hbox{\includegraphics{#1}}%
    \openin1=#1.dpth
    \ifeof1 \box1
    \else
        \read1 to\pgfincludeexternalgraphicsdp\closein1
        \dimen0=\pgfincludeexternalgraphicsdp\relax
        \hbox{\lower\dimen0 \box1 }%
    \fi
    \endgroup
}
\end{codeexample}
%
Again, we could simply copy these lines to our |survey.tex| file.


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