16

A workaround is to use pdfcrop separately (in the terminal) to crop the PDF file we want to import.

However - is there a way to remove white margins when importing a PDF file from within the tex file?

The two common packages to import PDF files are pdfpages or graphicx. Can I 'preprocess' a file for them with pdfcrop within tex file?

tales
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  • What do you mean by importing? Do you mean embedding a page or series of pages from a PDF in a Tex document? – Charles Stewart Dec 29 '13 at 14:05
  • I have a lot of plots saved separately as PDF files and now I would like to embed/import (I'm not sure what's the right phrase) them one by one into a Tex document. – tales Dec 29 '13 at 14:10
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    With shell-escape enabled you might be able to call pdfcrop from your TeX document. I don't know whether the cropping would be synchronous (good) or asynchronous (bad). – Ethan Bolker Dec 29 '13 at 14:54
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    Can't you just run pdfcrop on all the files first, e.g. with a for loop? Which operating system do you use? – Torbjørn T. Dec 29 '13 at 15:35
  • I use Ubuntu. Well, in principle I could run a loop first but I wanted to be able to crop the files on-the-go. Following Ethan's advice and enabling shell I can now use: \immediate\write18{pdfcrop charge_distribution.pdf tmp.pdf} \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{tmp.pdf} Now I would like to try to create some kind of macro (or some similar structure, I am not that familiar with LaTeX yet) that would enable me to do that in a quicker way – tales Dec 29 '13 at 15:44
  • (for f in *.pdf do ; pdfcrop $f ; done is quite quick, isn't it?) Sure, it's a perfectly reasonable request. You may want some way of turning off the cropping, or checking for a cropped file, otherwise the cropping will be done every time you compile your document. That is partly the reason I would do it outside the LaTeX file, it's something you need to do just once. – Torbjørn T. Dec 29 '13 at 19:34

2 Answers2

23

A new command that works like \includegraphics, but crops the pdf image:

\newcommand{\includeCroppedPdf}[2][]{%
    \immediate\write18{pdfcrop #2}%
    \includegraphics[#1]{#2-crop}}

Remember: \write18 needs to be enabled. For most TeX distros set the --shell-escape flag when running latex/pdflatex etc.

Example

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\newcommand{\includeCroppedPdf}[2][]{%
    \immediate\write18{pdfcrop #2}%
    \includegraphics[#1]{#2-crop}}

\begin{document}
    \includeCroppedPdf[width=\textwidth]{test}
\end{document}

Avoid cropping on every compile

To avoid cropping on every document compilation, you could check if the cropped file already exists. (some checksum would be better)

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\newcommand{\includeCroppedPdf}[2][]{%
    \IfFileExists{./#2-crop.pdf}{}{%
        \immediate\write18{pdfcrop #2 #2-crop.pdf}}%
    \includegraphics[#1]{#2-crop.pdf}}

\begin{document}
    \includeCroppedPdf[width=\textwidth]{test}
\end{document}

MD5 Checksum Example

The Idea is to save the MD5 of the image and compare it on the next run. This requires the \pdf@filemdfivesum macro (only works with PDFLaTeX or LuaLaTeX). For XeLaTeX You could use \write18 with md5sum utility or do a file diff. 

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{etoolbox}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\includeCroppedPdf}[2][]{\begingroup%
    \edef\temp@mdfivesum{\pdf@filemdfivesum{#2.pdf}}%
    \ifcsstrequal{#2mdfivesum}{temp@mdfivesum}{}{%
        %file changed
        \immediate\write18{pdfcrop #2 #2-crop.pdf}}%
        \immediate\write\@auxout{\string\expandafter\string\gdef\string\csname\space #2mdfivesum\string\endcsname{\temp@mdfivesum}}%
    \includegraphics[#1]{#2-crop.pdf}\endgroup}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
    \includeCroppedPdf[width=\textwidth]{abc}
\end{document}
someonr
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    Perfect, just what I've been working on, thank you – tales Dec 30 '13 at 01:46
  • @tales You're welcome! Just added a MD5 example that also might be useful. – someonr Dec 30 '13 at 02:13
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    Doesn't the pdfcrop package already do something like this? Actually, that just seems to give you the command which you use here, and the rpdfcrop command, I guess. – cfr Dec 30 '13 at 02:31
  • I believe what @caenrigen says in his answer ("Does not work when the \graphicspath is changed") applies to the checksum part of this answer, too. For me, #2mdfivesum macros are empty. – bers Dec 15 '20 at 12:43
-1

If anyone runs into issue due to spaces in the filename path, the following solves the issue:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}


\usepackage{etoolbox}


\makeatletter
\newcommand{\includeCroppedPdf}[2][]{\begingroup%
    \edef\temp@mdfivesum{\pdf@filemdfivesum{"#2.pdf"}}%
    \ifcsstrequal{#2mdfivesum}{temp@mdfivesum}{}{%
        %file changed
        \immediate\write18{pdfcrop "#2.pdf" "#2-crop.pdf"}}%
        \immediate\write@auxout{\string\expandafter\string\gdef\string\csname\space #2mdfivesum\string\endcsname{\temp@mdfivesum}}%
    \includegraphics[#1]{"#2-crop"}\endgroup}
\makeatother


\begin{document}
    \includeCroppedPdf[width=\textwidth]{./path to file with spaces/abc efg}
\end{document}

NB: Does not work when the \graphicspath is changed

caenrigen
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