Can I control the output directory for intermediate files (e.g. produced with keep-tex: true)?

[cynthiahqy]

Description

I know it is possible to specify the output directory for rendered outputs in a quarto project with:

project:
  output-dir: _output/

However, intermediate files from keep- appear to be left in the execution directory

format:
  pdf:
    keep-tex: true

These files are often required as part of submission requirements for variable conference and journals.
Is it possible to specify where these files go?
If not, is there an environment variable that lists these intermediate files that can be called in a post-render script to move these files?

I've read through #2171, but that appears to deal with rendered outputs only, not these intermediate files.

[mcanouil]

Short answer is no you can't.

• [Feature request] Can Quarto please create_all_ temporary files _not_ in the same directory with my source files? #1666

[cderv]

These files are often required as part of submission requirements for variable conference and journals.
Is it possible to specify where these files go?

Considering how quarto works there is a trick you can do

• Define an output directory in your _quarto.yml

   project:
     output-dir: _output/

• Add the index.tex as a resource for your .qmd - this will make Quarto copy it in the output directory as any other manually specified resources

   ---
   title: "Journal submission"
   format: pdf
   keep-tex: true
   resources: 
     - index.tex
   ---
   
   ## Quarto
   
   Quarto enables you to weave together content and executable code into a finished document. To learn more about Quarto see <https://quarto.org>.
   

After render I get

> fs::dir_tree("_output/")
_output/
├── index.pdf
└── index.tex

This is not ideal though because you need to add that to all your file, and also use the same name as the input.

You could also target both PDF and LaTeX file as output. Doing it this way:

---
title: "Journal submission"
format: 
  pdf: 
    keep-tex: true
  latex: default
---

## Quarto

Quarto enables you to weave together content and executable code into a finished document. To learn more about Quarto see <https://quarto.org>.<https://quarto.org>.

However keep-tex: true still matters because of an issue we have :

• Supporting file are cleanup to soon when using multiformat #8373

Or you need to change the latex file name for example

format: 
  pdf: default
  latex: 
    output-file: submission.tex

Those are workaround and not ideal as they do render twice the document to a .tex file and not reusing the same intermediate (as they are considered two renders).

After all I think the real problem is tracked in this old issue

• TeX file is not moved to output-dir #1294

It was sum up this way by JJ at the time

The real fix is to make tex a proper output format for books and actually copy all of the assets (even if there is no HTML in play).

We haven't yet work on that.

Hope the tricks help you get unblock for now.

[cynthiahqy]

Thanks @cderv ! The work around was perfect, and actually works well for my particular use case since it allows me to specify only the intermediate files required by the submission platform -- which is slightly different to needing to transfer over all intermediate files.