Jerry,

Yes, org-babel opens a whole range of possibilities.

The setup I described produces three documents: 1) LaTeX document, 2) beamer slide show, and 3) html user manual.  1) and 2) are written completely in their own sets of source blocks, in native LaTeX and beamer, and are processed by org-babel-tangle to make files that LaTeX can typeset.  I don't edit these after they have been tangled.  3) is exported using one of the org-mode facilities and contains, where appropriate, the source code of various LaTeX and beamer source blocks, using the :exports header argument.  For long bits of LaTeX code that readers of my user manual would fully understand, I set :exports none.  When the LaTeX code does something more interesting, I set :exports code, so it appears in the user manual.

The intent of the manual is to show my employees how to solve document preparation problems that are common in our work.

Of course, document preparation also includes figures as well as text.  org-babel lets me write modular code that queries a MySQL server, processes the results of the query in R, and writes a graphic to disk.  The LaTex and beamer code in the source blocks can refer to these graphic files.  Of course, I write notes about the various parts of the figure preparation code as I go.  In this way, the org-mode file approximates a reproducible research document.   The modularity of the code lets me isolate things like SQL queries.  In the case where I have several figures that describe one set of objects and the definition of the objects changes as a result of the ongoing analysis, I can change the query in one place and expect that the change will show up in all of the figures that use that query.

This is the only way I currently move information into the LaTeX and beamer source blocks from outside them.  I'm new to this, however, and I'm fairly certain my workflow will change as I explore and better understand the many possibilities offered by org-babel.  I'll be interested to learn the workflow you devise.

HTH,
Tom

Thomas S. Dye, Ph.D.

T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists, Inc.

Phone: (808) 529-0866 Fax: (808) 529-0884

http://www.tsdye.com

On Oct 23, 2009, at 2:48 AM, JBash wrote:

Tom,

Thanks very much for pointing this out.  I had not taken the time to investigate org-babel up to now.  I didn't know enough about it to know I needed to find out about it...

I've been looking at the information about it on worg, and it seems like it opens a whole range of possibilities.

So, if I may inquire further about the process you are using in your workflow, for clarification.  If I understand...

You are using the source blocks to contain the entire document(s), in separate parts (preamble, intro, chapters, summary, etc.), and using orgmode outlining functions to capture notes, thoughts, actions, etc.  Some of these subtrees then may be exported and placed inside the source blocks of one (or both/more) of the documents, with additional editing (of the source) as needed.  Is that the general idea?

Thanks,
Jerry 



On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:
Hi Jerry,

I do this using org-babel.  I love being able to write my article *and* my beamer presentation in the same file.  Using the literate programming facility of org-babel, I'm able to write them each in pieces, then assemble them at the end for tangling and export.  This means I have to write real LaTeX and beamer code, rather than having the LaTeX export facility of org-mode do its work, but org-mode makes this easy with Ctrl-C ', which opens up the source block in a buffer where auctex and reftex are active.

It looks something like this:

#+srcname: latex-preamble
#+begin_src latex :exports none
\documentclass{article}
\author{A. N. Author}
\title{Article Title}
\newcommand{\attr}[1]{\textbf{#1}}

\begin{document}

\maketitle
#+end_src

#+srcname: beamer-preamble
#+begin_src latex :exports none
\documentclass{beamer}
... (lots of stuff here)
\begin{document}

\maketitle

#+end_src

#+srcname: latex-document
#+begin_src latex :tangle adz_print.tex :exports none
  % <<latex-preamble>>
  % <<latex-introduction>
...
  \end{document}
#+end_src

#+srcname: beamer-document
#+begin_src latex :tangle adz_beamer.tex :exports none
  % <<beamer-preamble>>
  % <<beamer-introduction>>
...
  \end{document}
#+end_src

Calling org-babel-tangle gives me adz_print.tex for my article and adz_beamer.tex for my beamer presentation.

There are probably other ways to achieve this (org-mode, you know) that might be simpler.

The text I write outside the source blocks tracks what I hope to achieve, decisions I've made, etc. and uses the export facilities of org-mode to create a user manual for my employees.  Right now I'm targeting html for the user manual, but LaTeX export would also work.

HTH,
Tom



Thomas S. Dye, Ph.D.
T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists, Inc.
Phone: (808) 529-0866 Fax: (808) 529-0884


On Oct 22, 2009, at 11:20 AM, JBash wrote:

Hi,

A question about exporting:

Is it possible to export two different subtrees in the same file to a different class?  There are cases where it would be nice to be able to generate a document (say an article) from a single subtree in a file, and have other subtrees that contain short presentations that could be exported quickly to beamer, for example.  Currently, the exporter seems to find the first #+LaTeX_CLASS in the file and use that for the entire file export, as well as exporting any subtree in the file, even if you define a separate LaTeX_CLASS under a specific subtree.  I have looked into using export OPTIONS in subtrees for this, but have not hit on the right combination.  Is this possible?

Thanks,
Jerry
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