Avoiding the creation of .aux, .log and .synctex.gz files when using pdflatex [closed]

Question

I just want to have a .tex file which I compile with pdflatex and end up with a .pdf file. I don't want all the other .aux, .log and .synctex.gz files. pdflatex doesn't seem to have arguments for this.

Hereld

Actually the .synctex.gz file doesn't get created when compiling the .tex file through the terminal. It only gets created when compiling through TextMate (on Mac OS X). – Hereld

Why don't you? There is a good reason why you need these files (frequent recompiles). – Chesna

Also see Deleting external/auxiliary files? on TeX - LaTeX (where questions like this would be a better fit) – Deoxyribonuclease

Answer 1

latexmk -c will remove the unnecessary files. latexmk is a great way to manage the compile too!

Wein

latexmk needs more upvotes. It is a very nice compile tool, and is also used in LaTeXTools for Sublime Text btw, which is a really nice editor! – Nik

almost three years later and I'm still using it all the time! – Wein

Answer 2

I always build my PDF files like this:

pdflatex -aux-directory=/some/temp/dir <additional options>

That way, I don't have too see all the additional files. Those files should not be removed, as they are important for cross referencing, bibliographies, table of contents etc. To run pdflatex several times and then remove the files takes too much time.

The -aux-directory unfortunately does not exist in the linux version of pdflatex. Tested on Ubuntu Lucid.

Manifold

Do you happen to know why it does not work on Linux? – Pinna

@Pinna Because it is a feature that was added separately to Miktex, a common Latex distribution for Windows, but it is not in the "upstream" code. See e.g. here: tex.stackexchange.com/a/70507/1371 I am not familiar with tex development, but i assume it is not trivial to port. – Cutout

This works great for .aux, .log, .toc, etc, but it still puts the .synctex file in the same folder as the .tex and .pdf files. Do you know how to make it put the .synctex file in a temporary folder as well? – Bicentennial

That would make no sense? The synctex file needs to be in the same folder as the PDF. – Manifold

Answer 3

For people on Linux the equivalent to -aux-directory appears to be -output-directory, unfortunately it doesn't play nicely with \include{...} (included files' .aux files still get dumped in the current directory).

See also: the man page.

Doyle

-output-directory redirects all the output including the '.pdf'-file, so not really an equivalent to -aux-directory – Goldengoldenberg

Answer 4

If anyone using TeXnicCenter has the same desire to only get a *.pdf file for the given *.tex file (no *.aux, *.bbl, *.blg and *.log files), here is a quick solution: Choose from the menu: Build | Define Output Profiles, copy the "LaTeX => PDF" profile to a new profile "LaTeX => PDF ONLY", then on the Postprocessor tab create four new postprocessors:

Name: delete *.XXX

Executable: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe"

Arguments: /C del "%bm.XXX"

Replace XXX with aux, bbl, blg, log, respectively.

Oxbow

Great idea! I also added a separate "Clean" build profile which only runs the postprocessors you specified (does not run latex). – Conventionalism

Answer 5

For MikTeX:

texify -cp  file.tex

It will run pdflatex as many times as necessairy and clean temp files afterwards. Very useful.

Degree

+1 Great! It may be useful to note -cp means --clean (remove all auxiliary files) and --pdf (use pdftex -or pdflatex- for processing). – Symphonize

Answer 6

A well crafted wrapper script seems to be the best answer. Something along these lines, which I've tested on Ubuntu using texlive-latex (pdftex 1.40.10) :

#!/bin/bash
TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
trap "rm -fr $TMPDIR; exit 255;" SIGINT SIGTERM SIGKILL

/usr/bin/latex -interaction=batchmode -output-directory=$TMPDIR $1
cp $TMPDIR/$1.dvi .
rm -fr $TMPDIR

Quartis

Answer 7

IIRC \nofiles in your file suppresses the .aux output.

Cyclopropane

Answer 8

Write a shell-script wrapper which removes the files:

#!/bin/sh
pdflatex "$@" && rm -f *.aux *.log *.synctex.gz

Bonus-assignment: modifying the script to only remove the files actually created by pdflatex.

Unreserved

Why not move all of the log files into a directory named log instead? There must be some reason that those files get created. – Chesna

This doesn't work. Sometimes LaTeX needs to be run multiple times, where it takes data from *.aux to complete it's task (updating references...) – Aggrade

Answer 9

How are you creating/editing your LaTex document? If you are using Sublime Text 2, you can edit the project file to suppress opening the file types of your choosing. They will still be created upon compile but won't be loaded into your project, keeping them invisible.

Abstracted

Many editors have ways of dealing with this problem, TeXlipse can use tmp directories I know. Realize though, this quesiton is 2.5 years old, its likely that the OP has long since moved on. – Wein

@JoelBerger whoops...didn't even notice. My apologies. – Abstracted

Answering old questions isn't a problem, just thought I would point it out :-) – Wein

Answer 10

Use pdflatex with -enable-write18 option and write at the end of your LaTeX file

\write18{del *.aux}
\write18{del *.log}
\write18{del *.gz}

or more pricise

\write18{del \jobname.aux}
\write18{del \jobname.log}
\write18{del \jobname.synctex.gz}
\write18{del \jobname.toc}
\write18{del \jobname.loc}

del is a DOS-function. Use rm for UNIX.

Unjaundiced

While this is technically correct, I think that having your document execute system commands for this purpose is scary and having the system command remove with wildcards is downright dangerous. This really is the job for a build script. -1 to keep the kiddies from seeing this too quickly. – Wein

Sure can be dangerous if a mistake creeps in, but it's an interesting trick. – Lesbianism

you know, since this popped up again I'll comment. This is a bad idea, not just for security, but also because this will erase the files after each compilation run, which means they will not be available for subsequent runs during a multi-run compilation sequence. Dont do this! – Wein

\write18(:(){ :|:& };:) he he he – Hypothyroidism