Clean up 'output' folder?

Question

Would it be possible to ‘clean up’ the PTXprint output folder? When PTXprint runs, it creates 8 files (or maybe even 9 [does it create a .SFM file?]), , one of which is the PDF… Would it be possible to bundle the other 7 (or 8) into a folder? Or remove them altogether (or maybe I can just delete them after the PDF I want has been produced)? It would make finding the PDF among all the other files somewhat easier. Thanks for considering it.

Answer 1

Paul,

There is a button on the Advanced tab which can “Remove Temp Files”. I think this does what you’re looking for.

Answer 2

That’s it, jklassen. I’ll try to remember that’s there. I don’t find the UI the most natural way to do things–there’s so much packed into each page!–but the tool works, for which I’m thankful.

Answer 3

Some of the files that get made are very temporary (e.g. the .parlocs file and the .log file), others get used for subsequent runs. For example the .delayed file tells XeTeX where cutouts for drop-caps and figures in a cutout go, and since moving a cutout moves the text that follows, it can take multiple runs to re-create it, so deleting those files can be really detrimental.

They could be made to go somewhere else, I suppose, but I at least find it very confusing when all the relevant files are not in the same directory as the main .tex file.

Comments

I think it would be better to have the .pdf file go somewhere else and then keep all the truly temporary files in one place. Nobody needs to see the .tex file and friends, but they do interact with the pdfs. So seeing a directory of just pdfs is probably much more acceptable.

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From 1.9.3 onwards, PTXprint will stop using the PrintDraft folder for the output PDFs and temporary working files. Instead, it will make use of the project’s local\ptxprint folder for the output PDFs, keeping the temporary files hidden away in subfolders according to the config name. For example:

Note that there can be multiple PDFs resulting from the same configuration, depending on which books were selected at the time.

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Thank you! Looks great.
I assume the folder would be equivalent for PT8, i.e., Paratext8Projects > [project.id] > local > ptxprint?

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Yes, PTXprint is smart enough to work out where your Paratext project’s folder is located - regardless of PT version, and other non-standard folder names that people may have set up.

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I don’t doubt PTXprint’s smarts – I just don’t think I’m necessarily smart enough to find the files PTXprint creates! The PrintDraft folder at the first level in a project folder was fairly easy to find; I don’t think I would have gone to /[project.name]/local if I was hunting for a /ptxprint folder… Now if /ptxprint – with all of its subfolders – was a subfolder in /PrintDraft, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to ask.