A Question in Compiling book Class

Question

I am writing my thesis using book class. And I use include function so that I can have separate files for each chapter. One problem with this is that I must click run button in the main file. If I click run button in chapter files, error occurs. I learned that this is not a problem in TeX Studio so long as all the files is open. But I am using TeXWork and TeXMaker. So I always to find the right button to click, which is annoying. Is there an easy fix for this problem, please? Thanks.

Answer 1

Both Texmaker and TeXworks are able to do this.

• Texmaker: With the main file open, select Options --> Define Current Document as master document (How to best use and compile multiple .tex files as part of same final document?)

• TeXworks: At the top of the chapter file, write

  %!TeX root = /path/to/main/file
  

  For example, if main.tex is in the same folder as chapter1.tex, write %!TeX root = main.tex. If main.tex is in the folder above, you can write %!TeX root = ../main.tex.

  See http://www.texdev.net/2011/03/24/texworks-magic-comments/

Answer 2

I'm using TeXMaker to write my thesis, and after trying with include and input, that had the problem you mentioned, I ended up using the subfiles package, in this way:

Main document

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{subfiles}

\begin{document}

\subfile{./Chapter} % Chapter file's name (and position)

\end{document}

Chapter document

\documentclass[./MainDocument.tex]{subfiles} % Main document file's name (and position)

\begin{document}
...
\end{document}

In this way I can compile a single chapter. I saw that not all the properties (such as line spacing or headers/footers) of the main document are passed to the subfile; however, I compile the subfile only to check the content of the chapter, while I check the style and so on when I run the main document.