How do I define and use a directory name inside latex for media inclusion?

Question

In Mac OSX, using latex, I have a long class file that includes various macros containing commands of the sort

\includegraphics[#5]{/Users/myname/Desktop/book/images/#2.eps}

\includemovie[#4]{/Users/myname/Desktop/book/movies/#2.mpg}

I would like to make this portable to computers with different absolute paths. (For compatibility reasons, I need absolute paths.) Probably the simplest would be to define a \imagedirectoryname and a \moviedirectoryname and do something like

\includegraphics[#5]{\imagedirectoryname/#2.eps}

\includemovie[#4]{\moviedirectoryname/#2.eps}

How exactly do I do this in latex? Thank you in advance for any help! It is for a book that is free to download on the internet.

I am using OSX, latex, MacTeX/texlive 2014, and the dvi -> ps -> pdf typesetting method.

P.S. Yes, I know that movie15 is obsolete, but it works, and the successor package media9 is not compatible with it, as far as I understand.

You do this by using \graphicspath{{<pathA>}{<pathB>}{..}{..}} and then not including the path in your \includegraphics command. — Werner, Dec 31 '14 at 16:52
or you can do as you said and simply use \newcommand\imagedirectoryname{/Users/myname/Desktop/book/images} but usually best is not to use absolute paths at all, it is almost never needed. — David Carlisle, Dec 31 '14 at 16:53
Related: Do images have to be saved in a specific location before inserting them into LaTeX?, Automatically locate included images. — Werner, Dec 31 '14 at 16:55

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

You can do one of these:

Update \graphicspath to point towards the folders that may include graphics. It's syntax for paths <pathA>, <pathB>, ... is
```
\graphicspath{{<pathA>}{<pathB>}{..}...}
```
See How to use \graphicspath?

Define a macro to hold the path via something like

\newcommand{\imagefolder}{/your/image/folder/here}

and then use it in your commands as

\includegraphics[..]{\imagefolder/<image>}

Of course, (2) could also be hard-coded by changing \includegraphics to always use a specific path via something like
```
\let\oldincludegraphics\includegraphics
\renewcommand{\includegraphics}[2][]{\oldincludegraphics[#1]{\imagefolder/#2}
```
You need to know your use-case/environment to be confident that such hard-coding would work though.

Thanks. I'm working on Ubuntu 14.04LTS and TexLive2015 and solutions 2 works -- after 2h of search & try. (-; — alex, Nov 30 '15 at 16:13

How do I define and use a directory name inside latex for media inclusion?

1 Answers1