Re: [tip] org-publish to work with (very) large books

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>]

Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:

> Ihor Radchenko writes:
>
>> I am not sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean that you only
>> preview the book parts you are currently working on via latexmk -pvc?
>> What kind of more control are you referring to?
>
> The -pvc flag means that if latexmk detects any modification to any
> document involved in the current job (a subdocument, the .sty file, a
> .bib file, or whatever), it reruns the appropriate builds to bring the
> pdf up to date, and it only stops when everything is up to date. I can
> focus that action on parts of the book by commenting or uncommenting
> elements in the master file.

> Anyway, as they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, I have
> made this short example video. This is a dictionary I produced a year
> ago. Each dictionary entry has its own separate bibliographic list, so I
> had to manage more than 100 separate bib files. I have all these files
> inside an Org document, and I create them using org-babel-tangle. The
> video shows editing a field in a bib file. I've removed the build time
> from the video, as the entire book is almost a thousand pages long.
>
> https://cloud.disroot.org/s/PiSaHqWZr25GfJY

Thanks for the clarification! So, you are previewing the whole book with
some \input statements commented out. It is an ok approach, unless you
need cross-references between chapters.

A more advanced approach would be using
\include + \includeonly instead of \input:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160627050806/http://www.howtotex.com/tips-tricks/faster-latex-part-i-compile-only-parts/

Also, FYI:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160712215709/http://www.howtotex.com:80/tips-tricks/faster-latex-part-iv-use-a-precompiled-preamble/

> The moment one breaks down a large piece of work into specialized parts,
> one gains more control over that piece of work. And org-publish helps
> manage all of that. It is about managing a large book as a website (via
> org-publish). In short, the combination of org-publish, projectile and
> latexmk is quite productive for me in this type of work.

This is a bit confusing. You still keep the book in a single giant Org
file. It indeed does not mean anything given that we can always narrow
to subtree, but I fail to see where you break the book into specialized
parts then (LaTeX performance trickery aside).

Best,
Ihor