Figure preview wrapper

Question

How do I best preview my figures? I have one file with this:

\begin{figure}
 \begin{tikzpicture}  %if tikz
 ...
 \end{tikzpicture}
 \includegraphics{...}  %if eps
 \caption{...}
 \label{fig:..}
\end{figure}

and I can use it in my papers with \input{...}, but to preview my figure, I need some compilable wrapper like this:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
 \input{FIGURENAME}
\end{document}

Is there a way to write this wrapper in a way, so it can be used for all my figures? or is there a better way to do this? shellscript?

Answer 1

Simply use the standalone class for your tikzpicture files and then use the standalone package in your main document to ignore the preamble. This way you can compile the picture alone and as part of an or multiple documents. In standalone mode the output file is automatically cropped to the picture size.

Each picture is in its own file which looks like:

% somepic.tex
\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \draw (0,0) -- (10,10); % ...
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

And the main document:

% maindocumen.tex
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{standalone}
\begin{document}

% text ...

\begin{figure}
 \input{somepic}
 \caption{...}
 \label{fig:..}
\end{figure}

% text ...

\end{document}

I'm working on a new version which provides \includestandalone which is also able to include the PDF or EPS generated from the picture file instead of input the file.