LaTeX Error: Not in outer par mode with \pgfplotstableread in a standalone picture

Question

document.tex:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\begin{document}
\input{plot.tex}
\end{document}

plot.tex:

\documentclass{standalone}

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\pgfplotstableread{
  X Y
  1 2
  3 4
}\table

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}
    \addplot table {\table};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Compile with:

pdflatex document.tex

And I obtain:


(./plot.tex

! LaTeX Error: Not in outer par mode.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.14     \addplot table {\table};

? 
! Emergency stop.
 ...                                              

l.14     \addplot table {\table};

!  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
Transcript written on document.log.

The standalone file compiles just fine, I only get that error if I try to include it in another document. Why does this happen and what are my options here?

It works with plot.tex containing just the following: \pgfplotstableread{ X Y 1 2 3 4 }\table \begin{tikzpicture} \begin{axis} \addplot table {\table}; \end{axis} \end{tikzpicture} — leandriis, Jan 10 '20 at 14:16
Best practice to include (standalone precompiled) graphics and How to externalize TikZ pictures might also be interesting. — leandriis, Jan 10 '20 at 14:17
Try to to give it some other name. ´\table` is already defined in latex and move the \pgfplotstableread behind \begin{document}. — Ulrike Fischer, Jan 10 '20 at 14:17
@UlrikeFischer changing to \mytable I get: Undefined control sequence. \pgfplotstableread@filename ->\mytable — cYrus, Jan 10 '20 at 14:21
@leandriis yes but I'd like to also render the plot.tex file alone. Let me take a look at those links... — cYrus, Jan 10 '20 at 14:23
@UlrikeFischer sorry I didn't see the edit, that works thanks! Feel free to post the answer (FYI there is no need to rename \table in this example). — cYrus, Jan 10 '20 at 14:37
I'm voting to close this question because it is solved in the comments. — Stefan Pinnow, Jan 18 '20 at 07:07

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 18 '20 at 11:23

As Ulrike Fischer commented, the solution is to move \pgfplotstableread inside \begin{document}:

\documentclass{standalone}

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\begin{document}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\pgfplotstableread{
  X Y
  1 2
  3 4
}\table
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}
    \addplot table {\table};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

LaTeX Error: Not in outer par mode with \pgfplotstableread in a standalone picture

1 Answers1