Render a Latex document without figures and tables

Question

I am writing my master thesis in Latex and was wondering whether it would be possible to render the document without any figures or tables. The goal is to get a feel for how many text pages I have as figures and tables don't count towards reaching the minimum page count requirement.

I could obviously just comment out all figures and tables, but my goal would be to get this version rendered with no or only minor modifications to the document.

Answer 1

If you have no concern over undefined \references, you can just capture the contents of every figure and table using environ:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{environ}
\RenewEnviron{figure}{}% Gobble figure environment
\RenewEnviron{table}{}% Gobble table environment
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\chapter{A chapter}
\lipsum
\begin{table}
  \caption{This is a table}\label{tab:table}
\end{table}
\begin{figure}
  \caption{This is a figure}\label{fig:figure}
\end{figure}
\lipsum
\end{document}

This should work even if you have a custom class as they typically use the same name for floats.

---

If you wish to retain \referencing capabilities, you could capture the figures and tables in the same way, but process them to see if they have a \label within them. Processing here means you capture the \label by storing the entire figure/table inside a box (that is never set).

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{environ,etoolbox}
\newsavebox{\figtabsavebox}
\newcommand{\savelabel}[1]{\xdef\savedlabel{#1}}
\RenewEnviron{figure}{%
  \patchcmd{\BODY}
    {\label}
    {\savelabel}
    {% \label found
     \renewcommand{\caption}[2][]{}% Make \caption[.]{..} a no-op (assume it doesn't contain \label)
     \refstepcounter{figure}% Step figure counter
     \savebox{\figtabsavebox}{\BODY}% "Execute" \BODY; also stores \label
     \label{\savedlabel}% \label figure
    }
    {% No \label found
     \stepcounter{figure}% Step figure counter
    }%
  \ignorespaces
}
\RenewEnviron{table}{%
  \patchcmd{\BODY}
    {\label}
    {\savelabel}
    {% \label found
     \renewcommand{\caption}[2][]{}% Make \caption[.]{..} a no-op (assume it doesn't contain \label)
     \refstepcounter{table}% Step figure counter
     \savebox{\figtabsavebox}{\BODY}% "Execute" \BODY; also stores \label
     \label{\savedlabel}% \label figure
    }
    {% No \label found
     \stepcounter{table}% Step figure counter
    }%
  \ignorespaces
}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\chapter{A chapter}
\lipsum{}
See Figure~\ref{fig:another_figure}.
\begin{figure}
  \caption{A figure}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
  \caption{Another figure}
  \label{fig:another_figure}
\end{figure}
\lipsum
\end{document}

The above assumes that you have a single \label per figure/table float (although, in general, one could have multiple) and that the \label is not contained within the \caption.